All men, both violent and non violent are responsible for stopping male violence against women because globally, men as a group hold more power than women.
All men are responsible for stopping male violence against women
by Utopia Bold
Men may feel unease when male violence against women is addressed including non-violent men. However, all men, both violent and non-violent, must be held responsible for stopping male violence against women.
Violent men must stop assaulting women. Non-violent men must not sit by and allow male violence against women to continue. Their inaction-or indifference- is passive male violence against women. Breaking the silence by naming an atrocity is the first step in ending it. Male violence against women must be named specifically.
To maintain patriarchy, "Women's agony at the hands of men must never be revealed. If women steadfastly and courageously began to tell the truth and would not stop, would not be co-opted, would not become afraid, the truth of our enslavement would be undeniable and the jig would be up" —from "Telling the Truth" by Sonia Johnson.
Women, who outnumber men, are the single largest group of oppressed humans on the planet. Men have oppressed women nonstop for the longest length of time of any oppressed group, more than 5,000 years (The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler). A woman once told me that dealing with male violence "was just part of being a woman!
I don't understand why many people-especially women-resist holding all men responsible for male violence against women. Here are some popular evasions:
1. "Not all men are violent" No one said they were. Since men collectively hold more power than women, non-violent men are also responsible for stopping male violence against women.
2. "Women are violent too" Two wrongs don't make a right. However, as usual, women are blamed for their own degradation. As Mary Daly wrote in her book Pure Lust, (p.365) " Within the Virulent State of phallocracy, women have been attacked and divided against our Selves. From the earliest times of the patriarchy, countless mothers have been broken and the resulting broken daughters have carried on the chain of fragmentation. . . They have been reduced to responding to the fettered/fathered urge to reproduce their altered–that is, patriarchally identified selves –in an endless circle of Self destruction. Such forcible altered women have appeared to be normal within the man made milieu."
Also, female violence pales in comparison to male violence. Men commit 88 percent of violent crime (US Bureau of Justice statistics). Women don't build rape camps to torture and molest men to death. Women don't control the U.S. government which spends half a trillion dollars a year on mass murder (war). Globally, women can't walk alone without the possibility of men assaulting them. The reverse is not true.
Even though some broken women may collaborate with patriarchal men to gain power (Condi Rice, Margaret Thatcher etc.) it doesn't change the fact that patriarchal men are in charge and allow selected token "henchwomen" into the boys club–if they identify with and behave like patriarchal men.
3. “Violence is a human problem affecting both sexes”
Mary Daly calls this tactic “universalism.” Muddying the waters, it dilutes the specific focus on male violence against women by making it a gender neutral, universal human issue. It’s another version of “women are violent too.”
4. The absent referent The "absent referent" refers to something without naming it. (See Neither Man Nor Beast by Carol Adams p.16-17). Mary Daly in her book Quintessence wrote, "Naming the agent is required for an adequate analysis of atrocities. Timid terms such as "sexual violence," "domestic violence" "gender-based violence," and "violence" don’t name men as the perpetrators. Even Amnesty International, which calls it "a global scourge," uses the term "violence against women" instead of "male violence against women." (
http://web.amnesty.org/actforwomen/index-eng).
5. Men also rape men and boys This doesn’t change the fact that in every nation on earth, in all levels of society, men rape women. Rape is a male hate crime against women. Men who rape women have contempt for women and want to degrade them. Even when men rape males, contempt for women is the underlying issue. Men rape males to degrade them by treating them like raped women.
6. The duality argument Supposedly, opposing something directly "gives it more power." If racism and sexism were not opposed directly in the U.S., blacks would still be slaves and women would still be men's property, unable to vote, own a business or keep their own wages. If the Nazis were not opposed directly, they would now run the world.
7. Passive grammar Instead of the active voice using the passive voice (women were raped by men) instead of the active voice (men raped the women) shifts the focus from the perpetrators and their actions (men doing the raping) to their victims (the women being raped).
8. "Boys will be boys" Patriarchal cultures promote "nature over nurture" (biological determinism). Supposedly, men are "naturally violent." This legitimizes and perpetuates war and men's abuse of women. Abnormal violent "manhood" is regarded as the norm.
Men are naturally peaceful. Archaeological evidence shows men enjoyed and maintained 1,500 years of peace in ancient Crete! It's proven today by many non-violent men. It takes traumatic conditioning to make men violent. "Military training camps, police academies and even some self-defense pros are constantly searching for more effective methods of suppressing the human revulsion to taking human life." - The Science of Creating Killers http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/13/INGKFKDJHC1.DTL
9. "Societies were always patriarchal and men have always dominated women"
Marija Gimbutas, the world renowned archaeologist who wrote Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe unearthed relics that prove men didn't always dominate women and that women and men once shared power in peaceful non-patriarchal Goddess worshipping societies. Riane Eisler's book The Chalice and the Blade cites many more instances proving this.
Types of Male Violence against women
Modern patriarchal cultures are maintained by contempt for and abuse of women. Male violence against women in the media, men's requirement for emaciated super models and life threatening cosmetic surgery, mandated pregnancy in most nations, and billions spent on violent degrading pornography confirm this. Feeling contempt for women makes it easier for violent men to abuse them.
Reproductive male violence against women (Mandated pregnancy)
Male supremacist governments force women to have children they don't want or can't care for by denying women birth control or abortion.
Spiritual male violence against women Male supremacist religions claim men have the right to control women. Men coerce women to have children by telling women birth control or abortion is "sinful" and that "children are sent from god" etc.
Men wrote all the scriptures of all the organized religions, so "god's" agenda is men's agenda. Since the "words of god" are actually the "words of men, men don't "play god" they ARE "god," as illustrated by the following examples of male authored cosmic ca ca:
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church.”— Ephesians 5:23-24.
“I thank thee O lord, that thou has not created me a heathen, a slave, or a woman.” – Orthodox Jewish prayer.
"God formed her body to belong to a man, to have and to rear children. Let them bear children till they die of it."— Martin Luther.
"In pain shall you bear children, yet your urge will be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."— Genesis 3:16.
"Your women are fields to cultivate, so go to your fields as you will!" –Koran 2:223.
Physical male violence against women
Being battered by men is the number one "health" problem of women in the US (U.S. surgeon general). Men batter 12% of pregnant woman, causing 17% of birth defects (March of Dimes). Seventy-five percent of women murdered during domestic violence are killed by men after they leave them. (U.S Dept. of Justice-Bureau of Justice Statistics).
Since 1993, men raped and murdered more than 320 women in Juárez, Mexico. Approximately 100 were sexual-torture killings; 450 more women are missing. Men travel to Juarez to hunt, rape and murder women. ( http://codepink4peace.org/article.php?list=type&type=26).
Economic male violence against women women in most parts of the world are paid less than men for the same work-if they're paid at att.
Educational male violence against women Men in Afghanistan kill women who teach girls to read (Feminist Majority Foundation www.feminist.org). Most of the world's illiterate people are women.
Medical and psychological male violence against women The male dominated medical profession has prescribed shock treatment, psychoactive drugs, lobotomies, life threatening diets, dangerous cosmetic surgery and other “therapies” to tame wild women and make them acceptable to men.
Silence is Complicity
Collectively, men hold more power than women, so all men are responsible for stopping male violence against women. Increasing numbers of men are opposing this atrocity in various ways.
For example, some men in Los Angeles organize demonstrations and march against male violence against women wearing high heels. Their banner reads, “Walk A MIle In Their Shoes.” Other men write articles against male violence. In Bob Herbert's 10/16/06 New York Times article "Why aren't we shocked?" he wrote, "We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that violence against females is more or less to be expected."
Each man must look into his heart and ask himself what he can do to stop male violence against women. Speaking out is the first step.
Men against male violence against women
Here are a few men’s web sites. A google search will find many more.
http://menagainstsexualviolence.org/ - men against sexual violence.
http://www.borderlands.org.au/masa/ men against sexual assault
http://www.uwlax.edu/MUASA/ - men united against sexual assault http://www.interactivetheatre.org/mav/ - men against violence webring
by Utopia Bold
Men may feel unease when male violence against women is addressed including non-violent men. However, all men, both violent and non-violent, must be held responsible for stopping male violence against women.
Violent men must stop assaulting women. Non-violent men must not sit by and allow male violence against women to continue. Their inaction-or indifference- is passive male violence against women. Breaking the silence by naming an atrocity is the first step in ending it. Male violence against women must be named specifically.
To maintain patriarchy, "Women's agony at the hands of men must never be revealed. If women steadfastly and courageously began to tell the truth and would not stop, would not be co-opted, would not become afraid, the truth of our enslavement would be undeniable and the jig would be up" —from "Telling the Truth" by Sonia Johnson.
Women, who outnumber men, are the single largest group of oppressed humans on the planet. Men have oppressed women nonstop for the longest length of time of any oppressed group, more than 5,000 years (The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler). A woman once told me that dealing with male violence "was just part of being a woman!
I don't understand why many people-especially women-resist holding all men responsible for male violence against women. Here are some popular evasions:
1. "Not all men are violent" No one said they were. Since men collectively hold more power than women, non-violent men are also responsible for stopping male violence against women.
2. "Women are violent too" Two wrongs don't make a right. However, as usual, women are blamed for their own degradation. As Mary Daly wrote in her book Pure Lust, (p.365) " Within the Virulent State of phallocracy, women have been attacked and divided against our Selves. From the earliest times of the patriarchy, countless mothers have been broken and the resulting broken daughters have carried on the chain of fragmentation. . . They have been reduced to responding to the fettered/fathered urge to reproduce their altered–that is, patriarchally identified selves –in an endless circle of Self destruction. Such forcible altered women have appeared to be normal within the man made milieu."
Also, female violence pales in comparison to male violence. Men commit 88 percent of violent crime (US Bureau of Justice statistics). Women don't build rape camps to torture and molest men to death. Women don't control the U.S. government which spends half a trillion dollars a year on mass murder (war). Globally, women can't walk alone without the possibility of men assaulting them. The reverse is not true.
Even though some broken women may collaborate with patriarchal men to gain power (Condi Rice, Margaret Thatcher etc.) it doesn't change the fact that patriarchal men are in charge and allow selected token "henchwomen" into the boys club–if they identify with and behave like patriarchal men.
3. “Violence is a human problem affecting both sexes”
Mary Daly calls this tactic “universalism.” Muddying the waters, it dilutes the specific focus on male violence against women by making it a gender neutral, universal human issue. It’s another version of “women are violent too.”
4. The absent referent The "absent referent" refers to something without naming it. (See Neither Man Nor Beast by Carol Adams p.16-17). Mary Daly in her book Quintessence wrote, "Naming the agent is required for an adequate analysis of atrocities. Timid terms such as "sexual violence," "domestic violence" "gender-based violence," and "violence" don’t name men as the perpetrators. Even Amnesty International, which calls it "a global scourge," uses the term "violence against women" instead of "male violence against women." (
http://web.amnesty.org/actforwomen/index-eng). 5. Men also rape men and boys This doesn’t change the fact that in every nation on earth, in all levels of society, men rape women. Rape is a male hate crime against women. Men who rape women have contempt for women and want to degrade them. Even when men rape males, contempt for women is the underlying issue. Men rape males to degrade them by treating them like raped women.
6. The duality argument Supposedly, opposing something directly "gives it more power." If racism and sexism were not opposed directly in the U.S., blacks would still be slaves and women would still be men's property, unable to vote, own a business or keep their own wages. If the Nazis were not opposed directly, they would now run the world.
7. Passive grammar Instead of the active voice using the passive voice (women were raped by men) instead of the active voice (men raped the women) shifts the focus from the perpetrators and their actions (men doing the raping) to their victims (the women being raped).
8. "Boys will be boys" Patriarchal cultures promote "nature over nurture" (biological determinism). Supposedly, men are "naturally violent." This legitimizes and perpetuates war and men's abuse of women. Abnormal violent "manhood" is regarded as the norm.
Men are naturally peaceful. Archaeological evidence shows men enjoyed and maintained 1,500 years of peace in ancient Crete! It's proven today by many non-violent men. It takes traumatic conditioning to make men violent. "Military training camps, police academies and even some self-defense pros are constantly searching for more effective methods of suppressing the human revulsion to taking human life." - The Science of Creating Killers
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/13/INGKFKDJHC1.DTL 9. "Societies were always patriarchal and men have always dominated women"
Marija Gimbutas, the world renowned archaeologist who wrote Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe unearthed relics that prove men didn't always dominate women and that women and men once shared power in peaceful non-patriarchal Goddess worshipping societies. Riane Eisler's book The Chalice and the Blade cites many more instances proving this.
Types of Male Violence against women
Modern patriarchal cultures are maintained by contempt for and abuse of women. Male violence against women in the media, men's requirement for emaciated super models and life threatening cosmetic surgery, mandated pregnancy in most nations, and billions spent on violent degrading pornography confirm this. Feeling contempt for women makes it easier for violent men to abuse them.
Reproductive male violence against women (Mandated pregnancy)
Male supremacist governments force women to have children they don't want or can't care for by denying women birth control or abortion.
Spiritual male violence against women Male supremacist religions claim men have the right to control women. Men coerce women to have children by telling women birth control or abortion is "sinful" and that "children are sent from god" etc.
Men wrote all the scriptures of all the organized religions, so "god's" agenda is men's agenda. Since the "words of god" are actually the "words of men, men don't "play god" they ARE "god," as illustrated by the following examples of male authored cosmic ca ca:
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church.”— Ephesians 5:23-24.
“I thank thee O lord, that thou has not created me a heathen, a slave, or a woman.” – Orthodox Jewish prayer.
"God formed her body to belong to a man, to have and to rear children. Let them bear children till they die of it."— Martin Luther.
"In pain shall you bear children, yet your urge will be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."— Genesis 3:16.
"Your women are fields to cultivate, so go to your fields as you will!" –Koran 2:223.
Physical male violence against women
Being battered by men is the number one "health" problem of women in the US (U.S. surgeon general). Men batter 12% of pregnant woman, causing 17% of birth defects (March of Dimes). Seventy-five percent of women murdered during domestic violence are killed by men after they leave them. (U.S Dept. of Justice-Bureau of Justice Statistics).
Since 1993, men raped and murdered more than 320 women in Juárez, Mexico. Approximately 100 were sexual-torture killings; 450 more women are missing. Men travel to Juarez to hunt, rape and murder women. (
http://codepink4peace.org/article.php?list=type&type=26). Economic male violence against women women in most parts of the world are paid less than men for the same work-if they're paid at att.
Educational male violence against women Men in Afghanistan kill women who teach girls to read (Feminist Majority Foundation www.feminist.org). Most of the world's illiterate people are women.
Medical and psychological male violence against women The male dominated medical profession has prescribed shock treatment, psychoactive drugs, lobotomies, life threatening diets, dangerous cosmetic surgery and other “therapies” to tame wild women and make them acceptable to men.
Silence is Complicity
Collectively, men hold more power than women, so all men are responsible for stopping male violence against women. Increasing numbers of men are opposing this atrocity in various ways.
For example, some men in Los Angeles organize demonstrations and march against male violence against women wearing high heels. Their banner reads, “Walk A MIle In Their Shoes.” Other men write articles against male violence. In Bob Herbert's 10/16/06 New York Times article "Why aren't we shocked?" he wrote, "We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that violence against females is more or less to be expected."
Each man must look into his heart and ask himself what he can do to stop male violence against women. Speaking out is the first step.
Men against male violence against women
Here are a few men’s web sites. A google search will find many more.
http://menagainstsexualviolence.org/ - men against sexual violence. http://www.borderlands.org.au/masa/ men against sexual assault http://www.uwlax.edu/MUASA/ - men united against sexual assault http://www.interactivetheatre.org/mav/ - men against violence webring 
Comments
Hide the following 121 comments
Unevidenced "truths"
07.12.2006 09:37
evidence seeker
All people are responsible for stopping male violence
07.12.2006 11:28
bob
This article is very single-sided
07.12.2006 13:55
Maybe you should ask, WHY men are getting violent against women...men usually do not beat up women out of nothing. There are other form of violence, like cheating, slander or belittle and women are very good with that.
We also should not forget violence from women to children, no feminist site will ever discuss this tabu-subject. Boys are more frequently mistreated than girls, and women are mistreating children more often than men.
It is feminist behaviour to say, let us stop only violence from men to women and all men are responsible. Many women are violent too and so let me say, all women are responsible too.
yohan
How about women stopping female violence against men?
07.12.2006 14:29
Wes
Women are more frequently physically violent than men.
07.12.2006 14:34
To quote:
Partner violence was reported by 21.45% of couples, with male-to-female violence in 13.66% and female-to-male violence in 18.20% of couples. Severe partner violence was reported by 8.64% of couples, with severe male-to-female partner violence in 3.63% of couples and severe female-to-male partner violence in 7.52% of couples.
nigelsuper400
Are women physically and emotionally handicapped in the some way?
07.12.2006 14:59
Paradoxically, by specifically calling on men to do something to stop violence against women, this article reinforces the notion that men are the superior sex.
All adults are responsible for stopping child abuse because children are physically and emotionally handicapped when compared to adults.
All humans are responsible for stopping animal abuse because animals are physically and emotionally handicapped when compared to humans.
Are women physically and emotionally handicapped in the some way when compared to men?
Prasutagus
asking for it
07.12.2006 16:02
Some women are violent, all people can be violent. However, despite that rather ridiculous study ( as many women rape men than are raped ? It is a physical impossibility ! ) men have a near monopoly on inter sex violence.
"Maybe you should ask, WHY men are getting violent against women...men usually do not beat up women out of nothing."
Oh, she was asking for it was she ? You should seek help before you end up in prison. Zero tolerance.
"Most men do not report violence perpetrated on them by their spouses/partners."
Most PEOPLE do not report violence perpetrated on them by their spouses/partners. Most IPV is committed by men. Most child abuse is committed by men. Deal with it.
"Most married men can say something about screaming, nagging, lying, manipulation and physical abuse perpetrated by their wifes."
Nonsense, you have been hanging around with the wrong crowd. And you are trying to justify serious physicakl abuse with the old "she was asking for it" excuse.
"Shouldn't we hold women to the same standarts we hold for men?"
Yes. But running to a holy man for a few bruises does seem to indicate if not a worthless relationship, then a manipulative person. My mountain bike bruised me but I don't smash it up. If you really are in an abusive relationship, regardless of your sex, then end it, don't use it to justify further violence.
"Here is one from the American Psychological Association. "
Well, do you have others as that one seems to be nonsense. Apart from anything else, it states almost as many women in the US force sex from men as the reverse. That is a phsyical impossibility. A man can force sex on a woman who isn't aroused but no force on earth can make an unwilling man to be sexually aroused. Really, what is the process you are postulating ? Even if you tie him down and force feed him viagra he will not become erect unless he is actually excited. Male on male rape is a reality but females raping men is delusional regardless of what men report to a survey such as you quote, and the fact that is admitted in the report discredits it.. It is necessary for a man to be erect for sex to be forced, it is not necessary for a woman to be turned on for a man to rape her. Do you know how to ensure a woman becomes violent ? Give her an injection of testosterone.
I notice the stupid study you quote was from a methodist university, and that another respondent quotes their pastor. Dangerous patriarchial religious delusionists really shouldn't attempt social sciences. You want some real science studies ?
"Are women physically and emotionally handicapped in the some way when compared to men? "
Unfortunately, as a feminist, I'd have to say yes. Women are generally less physically strong than men, and have different ways of achieving their aims in social situations. And millenia of patriarchy and inequality, certainly since Prasutagus walked these lands, must be emotionally damaging.
bob
Homepage:
http://asking for it
Violent women, reply to Bob
07.12.2006 18:05
Feminists are strongly arguing against the value of the family, and I doubt Bob knows, what a family is. Feminists are simply said, man-hating.
About myself, I am married since over 30 years, with 2 daughters and 1 fostergirl. In my family there is no beating. Your advice therefore is rather worthless ('You should seek help before you end up in prison.')
As expected, Bob cannot give any explication, WHY men are getting violent against women.
As I said, men usually do not beat up women out of nothing.
By Bob:
It is also a mistake to equate low-level violence, such as slapping, with serious violence such as rape...
Maybe you can explain me, what is rape in the eyes of a feminist...there is a difference between a violent attack by an unknown criminal and a b*llshit-rape between a drunken man and a drunken woman, who says first yes to him, then no, then maybe, and next day she is filing a report about a 'rape'. Another important fact are false rape allegations, women are reporting crimes, which do not even exist.
"Shouldn't we hold women to the same standarts we hold for men?"
This is a good question, maybe you can explain the lenient sentences of women, compared to men, while committing the same crime?
We cannot talk about rape and 'forget' about false rape allegations, which are not rare and a very serious crime - women producing such hoax and nonsense should be sentenced to prison for many years. Do you agree with that?
Screaming, nagging, lying, manipulation - this all does not count for a feminist, but you see a rapist everywhere, in the streets, in the bedroom...other crimes, by women, are obviously non-existent.
As I said already in my previous posting, many women are violent too and let me say, all women are responsible for violence from women by helping to cover it up.
Your link is not working, BTW...(
yohan
Interesting...rather dictatorial though.
07.12.2006 18:17
You explain the behaviour of women in power by describing them as "broken women". This seems to suggest you view political power as an area that should be left to men, and that any woman who is elected or promoted is a traitor to her sex. I doubt many women will see it that way-although unlike you I don't claim to speak for an entire sex.
"Modern patriarchal cultures are maintained by contempt for and abuse of women. Male violence against women in the media, men's requirement for emaciated super models and life threatening cosmetic surgery, mandated pregnancy in most nations, and billions spent on violent degrading pornography confirm this. Feeling contempt for women makes it easier for violent men to abuse them."
It's a recent development, but there are many male models and many men who use cosmetic surgery. Have you noticed who edits and writes for the magazines which cause women to feel bad about themselves? That's right, women.
How about suggesting ways to reduce the number of rapes (life sentences for rape, better lit areas etc) and lobbying the government to introduce these rather than dictating towards others. You say men hold a collective power over women. Does this include those who are disabled or retarded, those who are under 16? I've never hit anyone in my life-man or woman-and fully support legislation to improve gender equality. However when people make blanket judgements like these, I wonder what the point is. I think this article is divisive claptrap preventing the left from focusing on the real ways to solve violence against women.
Utopia- Yes Please.
yohan
07.12.2006 20:16
I am male, which is why I chose the name Bob as I've never encountered a female Bob, although I have no objection to being referred to as 'she/he'. I am also an anarchist, which to me means by definition being a feminist. As you don't describe yourself as an anarchist then I understand why you may be under-educated on this subject, no offence intended.
I'm afraid I don't argue against the 'values of the family' as I have no idea whose family you are talking about. In my particular family, we are mostly female and mostly matriarchal, however we have strong and often violent self-regulatory male tendencies. For instance, if any of my male cousins beat up their wife and we found out about it, each of my cousins would then in turn beat them up. It has happened. It's not exactly feminist, it is certainly not non-violent, but it's a 'family value' that works for our family.
You ask 'WHY men are getting violent against women'. I did already explain that in passing, and in its simplest form it is because men are just violent (by nature in my opinion). Some men are more violent than others though, and that can't just be down to varying levels of testosterone, it is also due to social conditioning and acceptance of violence. I hope you realise that some trigger that could drive one of your male friends to violence would leave another of your male friends placid.
"Maybe you can explain me, what is rape in the eyes of a feminist."
No problem. Rape is penetrative sex ( either vaginal or anal) without permission from a fully aware adult ( ie not drunk, not drugged). It's that simple and tragic. No means no. If the other person says yes and then says no when you are having sex then you should stop, it becomes rape. If the other person says yes and then retrospectively withdraws permission, then it is their fault, they can't retrospectively withdraw permission.
I must add, although I was exposed to feminism at an early age, this inviable rule did once cause me problems, with a lover who moaned 'No, No' at climax instead of 'Yes yes'. I would just stop at precisely the moment she most wanted me to continue. And I was right to.
False rape allegations may not be 'rare' although that is hardly a meaningful term. They are certainly rarer than the genuine rapes which go unreported, and compared to majority of those reported that go unpunished. If someone is drunk, and you haven't prior permission, then don't have sex with them, they can't be considered an aware adult any more than you would consider your step-daughters consent as valid. Since male rape is a reality, ask yourself how you would like it if someone bigger than you stuck their penis up your arsehole.
As few as 6% of women who seek counselling for rape actually report the crime.
As an aside, that wasn't a real link I was trying to post, I merely typed the subject title in the wrong box.
Bob
bob
Someone needs to go outside and take a look around
07.12.2006 21:58
Also, why should one person be held responsible for another's actions, just because they have something in common like being the same gender? You imply violent women are being blamed for their own degradation? This article is beyond insane.
Isaac
e-mail:
entivore@hotmail.com
Is there any American boy who was not taught to "Never hit a girl"?
07.12.2006 23:09
On the other hand, most girls are NOT taught to restrain their violent impulses.
I've never seen a man beat a woman in front of other people without intervention. On the other hand, I have never seen anyone (myself included, sad to say) attempt to stop a woman beating on a man.
Don, the 14%er
e-mail:
fourteenpercenter@yahoo.com
Re: asking for it
07.12.2006 23:51
When I was younger I meet a beautiful girl and we fell in love. I come from the traditional family unit. Her parents were divorced after years of fighting.
A year or so into the relationship I noticed her attitude change slightly and she started to become argumentative once in a while, especially after drink or when tired.
Two years into the relationship she would regularly goad me into a row and often become aggressive after drinking.
Then, after three years, she would almost constantly pick circular rows and become unacceptably violent after drink.
I never hit her, although her boss did question me once over the bruises on her arms, i.e. bruises she acquired when I was forced to hold her arms in order to stop her hitting me one night. (BTW, I was about 12 stone in weight and she was about 9 stone.)
I tried everything to make the relationship work, but in the end, even though I still loved her, I knew I had to walk away. And I did.
She soon met another bloke and within a year they married. Within three years their marriage was over. She has since been a succession of violent relationships.
All I can think of is that she has a subconscious urge to mimic the violent relationship of her parents. And, together with popular media and soap operas which, in my opinion, have normalised violent and dysfunctional relationships, therefore feels sure her attitude is not only normal, but more importantly the right one. No doubt, in her eyes, it is always the man’s fault her relationships fail.
Am I a sexist for suggesting she and other women like her are indeed asking for it?
Prasutagus
Let the excuses continue
08.12.2006 00:05
Well then, men shouldn't be allowed to hold power if theyre "naturally sociopathic."
Most of the male posters dont take responsiblilty for stopping the global atrocity of MALE violence against women. "She provoked me" excuse is as old as the hills. If a man cant restrain himself from becoming violent, he should be evaluated for mental problems.
To the excuse makers: Please re read excuses #1 through #9 since most have been used in these postings.
Its time for women to speak out against male violence against women and not be intimidated by a bunch of macho bullies.
Most of these male postings reveal why male violence against women has persisted in ALL cultures for 5,000 years. Macho male religious ca ca about "god" saying men are the "head" of the family is the cause of this.
Since 5,000 years of rape and battery were not enough to control the world's women, men have had to invent a cosmic cop in the sky "god" to back them up. All male gods are a steaming pile of cosmic ca ca.
Utopia Bold
Women are responsible for their own violence.
08.12.2006 00:11
nigelsuper400
Utopia ? super
08.12.2006 01:52
It is a pleasure to meet you since I assumed you were just another of the various US reposts we receive here. An american woman living in London then ? None of my business. I also naturally hope you don't classify me as one of the "excuse makers" but that you take my relatively mild criticism of your post as valid and arguable.
Do you for instance acknowledge that your various 'excuses' are repetitive - eg 3 is the same as 2 ? Can you distinguish criticism of your writing from criticism of your argument ? If so, could you admit that your article, while mainly true, could be better written ? I don't mean to denigrate you, it was an important attempt, but please don't be vain over such an important issue.
You must be as surprised and disappointed as I am in the comments so far. They do all seem to fall into the 'she was asking for it' category, which is disappointing on an anarchist website..
If you forgive the criticism your own response seems to be over-reacting to the goading nonsense that has been posted towards you. That is counterproductive in my view., it is also tricking you into contradicting your original article. ie 5,000 years of 'rape and battery' and yet Crete was free of such oppression ? I don't doubt those 5,000 years, I do doubt your isolated Cretean oasis of gender-peace.
For me, as a violent male who has never once raised my hand in anger to a woman, I feel superior to the other male posters here and less likely to offend against women for simple and reproducible reasons.
One, I recognise - thanks to my previous gender education, the gender balance in my family, and the good example that my parents set for me, never mind my own brain and heart, that I am capable of violence towards women. The very fact I acknowledge that I am dangerous, for counter-intuitive reasons, seems to make me safer than average at least. Safer than these cunts at least (forgive my language, when I learned the word I thought it meant a penis).
Two, morally and intellectually, I realise what short term pleasure I may gain from abusing anyone does not equate to the damage done to that person. Sex is momentary, rape scars for a lifetime.
And most importantly, I appreciate the value strong women bring to my my life. I have met the odd abusive woman, but they were always surrounded by abusive men and they were easy to avoid. I know there are far more abusive males in any scenario.
Good luck to you Utopia, but bear in mind cleaner and less over the top articles would draw fewer Trolls. Although to be true, you have drawn some pus from the pores of Indymedia and that was probably worth your effort.
How super is Nigel ?.
bob
What a load of hate male
08.12.2006 03:54
Andrew Steiger
e-mail:
agsteiger@juno.com
Let the excuses continue Part 2 (Utopia Bold)
08.12.2006 05:11
Most of the male posters dont take responsibilty for stopping the global atrocity of MALE violence against women. ..... If a man cant restrain himself from becoming violent, he should be evaluated for mental problems.
--------------------------
Utopia Bold, most females also do not take responsibility for stopping FEMALE violence against men (including boys). Let me say, if a woman cannot restrain herself from becoming violent, she should consider her mental problems, too.
by Utopia Bold:
Its time for women to speak out against male violence against women and not be intimidated by a bunch of macho bullies.
-------------------------
Oh, yes, it is time for MEN to speak out against FEMALE violence against men and children and not be intimidated by a bunch of radical feminist psychotic bitches.
Utopia Bold, as you see, everything has 2 sides, and if you want to talk about rape, you have to talk about false rape allegations as well. If you talk about violence from males, you have to talk about cheating, slander, fraud, mobbing, insulting and belittling, spitting, scratching and similar (non?)-violent actions from female as well.
by BOB to Utopia Bold
...bear in mind cleaner and less over the top articles would draw fewer Trolls.
...You must be as surprised and disappointed as I am in the comments so far.
------------------------
Of course, Bob, everybody, who does not share your opinion about feminism and violence is a TROLL.
It seems you are surprised and disappointed that men are starting to organize themselves and are talking back to baseless accusations from women.
Why should men remain silent? Any reason?
by BOB:
For instance, if any of my male cousins beat up their wife and we found out about it, each of my cousins would then in turn beat them up. It has happened.
-------------------------
You have a great family!
Does this mean, in case of any of your FEMALE cousins is beating up her husband, your cousins would then in turn beat her up, too?
Bob, let me say, your arguments about male violence are very strange. To accuse and compare an American soldier in combat in Iraq with a man having a dispute with his wife is like to compare the sand on a beach with the dust on the moon.
Bob, you said, rape is more frequent than false rape allegations...
(your own words: False rape allegations may not be 'rare' although that is hardly a meaningful term.)
I think, that one crime is 'rare' compared to another crime is no justification or excuse to make it less serious.
yohan
Promotes violence against men - will not stop violence against women
08.12.2006 07:34
The idea of women "speaking out" about domestic violence, after 30 - 40 years of doing just that over and over, and constantly reminding men of how violent and abusive they are is ridiculous.
The author quoted arrest statistics.. the domestic violence industry has been dominated by radical feminists for it's lifetime, so any men so much as calling the police would either be laughed at, or be arrested himself. In fact, men and women are violent towards one another at equal rates according to over 200 academic studies since the early 80s:
Usually feminists are more subtle and omit mentioning that their theory on the cause of domestic violence is "patriarchal oppression" when they are trying to convince men to help stop violence against women, but I see the author jumped right in and:
1) Told people who wish they were living with the sort of privileges women have in divorces, affirmative action and leeching off men, that they are oppressors.
2) Proposed a cause for domestic violence which ignores violent tendencies in women who are violent towards men and/or children, so is easily seen as false. I suppose the violence in these video documenting systematic violence by women is a result of "patriarchal oppression":
3) Ignored female victims of domestic violence caused by: Poverty, alcoholism, relationships conflict and many other possible causes of domestic violence.
4) Polarised and politicised a social issue in a way that has had no effect on the social issue in the 30 years of feminist involvement in the DV industry.
5) Causes further separation and animosity between the sexes.
The author speaks of contempt for women in the media as being a cause of abuse, what does she think that expressing contempt for men as "abusers" will do and how does she explain that in Australia :
“Dr Macnamara found that, by volume, 69 per cent of mass media reporting and commentary on men was unfavourable, compared with just 12 per cent favourable and 19 per cent neutral or balanced."
Source:
If women will not take responsibility for their own violence, it is hypocritical to attempt to hold men to that standard, particularly when a campaign based on mutual responsibility for stopping domestic violence would be far more widely accepted and effective.
Happy Bullet
e-mail:
ly7erus@yahoo.com
Homepage:
http://www.mediaradar.org
Laws are based on a false assumption
08.12.2006 07:44
This site also indicates, that 57.8 percent of child abuse were females and 42.2 percent were males.
It is totally wrong and single-sided to depict women only as silent and helpless victims of violence.
Excellent information!
yohan
Feminism= politically correct bigotry
08.12.2006 10:57
There is a tiny amount of "true feminists", those that espouse equal chances for both and recognise that women themselves aren't entirely blameless. But frankly anyone who is intelligent enough to understand that would have more sense to adpot such a perverted badge of "honour".
I know people who play the "feminism" card if I make a joke that is risque- as though I should modify my behaviour and thoughts because I am in the company of fragile little girly girls- little girlies who need big tough men to fight their corners unmandated. Despite the fact I know girls that'd make THEM blush... and me too on occassion. But, I guess the thought of womenhood being as heterogenous as masculinity is too much of a challenge to the right-on stereotype of those of us that have a womb. Often, I feel it's some kind of holier than thou oneupmanship???
If you believe women are to be allowed an equal footing to men, why do you treat them like they are defenseless retards, like the are some sort of sanctified divine innocence or some paragon of virtue???
As far as I can see, women have been doing a pretty good job over the last century of asserting themselves and affording themselves the freedom to express themselves and their sexual identities as they see fit, and I can see little to indicate that that trend will change.
"Each man must look into his heart and ask himself what he can do to stop male violence against women. Speaking out is the first step. "
How about I carry on pitying "feminists" and carry on asking myself what I can do stop human on human violence.
Two wrongs do not make a right and never will. People are more than their genitalia.
Fair enough, fight for equality, but get over your prick/cunt fixations.
And this coming from someone who grew up in an abusive home where my father would beat the crap out of anything that moved and would happily rape my mother.
Anyone who can't see how far western society has progressed in even the last two decades really needs to question how relevant their views are to the real world.
Balls and a cock and not a person
Resignation to an existance of segregation
08.12.2006 13:24
In order for me, as a man, to take responsibility (Responsibility? I should blame myself?) for male against female violence I first have to accept I am a man. I then have to accept that I have more in common with men committing violent acts than any woman - and also, that I have more of a duty to protect women from male violence than I have to protect women from 'female violence'.
I accept none of these prepositions for debate. What is a man? Well - once we get past physical biological terms then that gets hazy... Socially, what is man? Well - unless you believe (unlike myself) that gender roles are natural then what a man actually **is** is a matter of some debate. I would argue that such an entity does not truly exist beyond our perceptions of 'masculinity'.
I have more in common with men committing violent acts than any woman could have in common with men committing violent acts? I do not believe it is so. I have very little in common with spouse abusers of both genders. I have never risen a finger against a living being in my life but to defend myself. I'd say that more women than men would actually be guilty of such an act indeed... and, do I then reject responsibility for preventing female acts of violence against females? Or against males I suppose... Why? What good would that do?
In terms of 'Utopia', surely what we really aim to do is to create a society in which men and women are no longer seen as seperate entities - however, what *your* argument seems to stress is that it is entirely important to emphasise 'men's problems' and 'women's problems' as seperate things. Which they are invariably not. Because an act is perpetrated by a man does not mean that it is therefore constricted to the realms of masculine responsibility. There is no secret men's brotherhood - we have no innate pyschological connections to eachother though our gender, and if women do, then that's news to me. I became involved in a discussion a few weeks ago after a women's lib meeting in Preston with Judith Orr, in which I was faced with the claim that 'though the sexual exploitation of men does occur, it is committed by men'. Despite the fact that this is obviously not true, my argument from this point was that it is irrelevent which 'gender' commits the act - 'capitalists' exploit sexuality universally. As far as the subject of sexual exploitation is concerned, there is no difference between being bum-raped by a man or being dildo'd by a woman. Why should there be? The effects and intents of the act are the same. It really does not make a difference.
The argument should be that empowered 'people', not men, should take responsibility for eachother. Indeed, that everybody should take responsibility for everybody else. That the problems of my neighbours should be the problems of myself and vice-versa.
MyGran
burning times
08.12.2006 16:55
They are actually the United Nations Development Programme and the World Health Organisation, hardly party political or feminist. Still, in your strange world view you probably see scary feminists in every organisation that isn't 'heterosexual male based', presumably meaning any organisation thaat has the termerity to employ women. I do have to doubt how hetrosexual you really are given your hatred for women, do you sit around naked in hot tubs 'bonding' with your hetro male pals ? No complaint from me if you do but you are more than a bit in denial.
"If you believe women are to be allowed an equal footing to men, why do you treat them like they are defenseless retards, like the are some sort of sanctified divine innocence or some paragon of virtue?"
I don't treat women like defenceless retards although I do encourage them to learn how to fight because men like us beat, rape and murder them, while still earning more than them for doing the same work. And then men like you deny it, excuse it, sanction it and probably perpetuate it too.
"And this coming from someone who grew up in an abusive home where my father would beat the crap out of anything that moved and would happily rape my mother."
And what ? That justifies your subsequent sanctioning of male abuse ? "My father beat our family and it didn't do me any harm" - is that your argument because it is obviously false, you are deeply damaged. Strong men don't fear strong women. Your 'learned behaviour' perhaps explains but it doesn't give you any insights. You really are a scary person, you accuse others of prick and cunt fixations while you are the only poster here who has felt the need to litter your post with such comments. Gender is more than genitalia, and it is moronic to equate feminism with prudishness. You may feel that is 'politically correct' but why delight in being incorrect ?
Progress has been made in some respects and in some parts of the world but the progress was fought and died for by women themselves against your sort of lies.
bob
Homepage:
http://www.christymoore.com/lyrics_tabs_detail.php?id=118
Splutter!
08.12.2006 18:39
Are the demons in your head talking loudly today?
I wonder where I once sanction violence towards females! Your binary logic has no relevance to what I posted at all. Just like your views on gender politics- which seem to come straight out the mouth of some Jane Austen oaf.
I don't delight in being correct or incorrect. I simply choose not to patronise and disempower women by acting as their self-appointed guardian and champion.
You see I grew up with women and have a lot of female friends. I don't view women in general as victims despite my childhood. I did once upon a time, but then I grew up. In fact, I try not to seriously generalise about women at all.
Women are just as weak and strong as men and they can speak for themselves.
I'm scary because I do not wish to judge, prejude or treat people in any special way because of their gender? Except obvious biological things like health issues. Wow, I bet women see me as a real scary threat. Me with my evil ideas of letting them get on with bettering & defining themselves without my "Daddy knows best!" ideas.
Try listening to women for once. You may be surprised at what you hear. But I suppose any women you meet and don't like are just the unfortunate victims of male brutality and can be reproggrammed into your little pathetic helpless female stereotype. What's your idea of a "strong woman", one that agrees with you?
I bet you think all black people are nice too? The bad ones are just simply the product of white brutality? I know a few black people who'd be pretty insulted but such inverted-racist dross.
I'm no more scared of women than I am of men or of dogs. I suspect you however have a great deal of problems in regarding females as equals. Isn't that what all stereotypes about: fear?
Fought for against my sort of lies??? Hmmm, as I see history women have been at the forefront of bettering their own position. Much of it didn't need violence of suicide to happen, but it did play a part. Men also have been involved in this process of revising socitiatal imbalance. But i guess that doesn't mean much to the world of black & white culpability in your head.
Women aren't inherently weak and they don't need some lippy bully appoint themself as their defender.
Catch up with the 20th century before you attempt the 21st please.
Primary sexual organs
Men are earning more? Please explain...
08.12.2006 19:08
... don't treat women like defenceless retards although I do encourage them to learn how to fight because men like us beat, rape and murder them, while still earning more than them for doing the same work.
------------------------------
Bob, there are men, but also women, who are criminals, who rape, beat, murder ...
It would be fair to say, you encourage victims of a crime, how to fight...
To encourage only women to fight only male criminals, because of their gender and because of their 'high income' is an interesting argument, I never heard before.
Your claim - 'still earning more than them for doing the (exactly) SAME WORK' - requires some explication. I doubt this very much. How you calculate that...
My dentist is a woman, her invoice for sure is not lower than an invoice written by a male dentists. Why should it be lower?
My barber is a young man, his mother also...the mother is still working sometimes in the shop and she will charge me exactly the same what I would pay if the son is doing the job.
If you apply for any simple job like delivery, laundry, McDonalds, supermarket cashier or whatever, there is a job and a pay per hour...regardless who is doing that job.
Taxi drivers are paid in percentage and have a very little basic salary, long distance truck drivers get paid for the route...regardless who is the driver...
Factories often pay for day- and nightshift...regardless if man or woman...
I can continue the list, but there is no job, which is paid related to gender.
If earnings for men and women in each job are compared, ie., doctor/doctor, barber/barber, sales/sales... I fail to see any salary difference. Are my observations wrong?
Where are these jobs, where women are earning less than men?
Maybe you can explain....
yohan
ishtar
08.12.2006 20:07
And as for bullies: they always need their notional gang to stand behind them. You display all the classic signs with your "cousins".
Hmm, if I were to be just like my father I'd be attacking any bloke that spoke to girlfriends, I'd have beaten and raped them on a regular basis; I'd have sent them to A&E and I would have kidnapped or tried to kill their kids and pushed her into suicide. I've never done any of the above nor have I ever advocated it.
As for bad childhoods: If I were an idiot I'd blame it on his gender and overlook the point that he was a psychopath who drank to escape his fear which in turn fuelled his neuroses (very common). And to view the situation as wholly a male problem, I'd also overlook the fact my mother received no useful support from her female friends or even her own mother. But, I guess oversimplification and scapegoats are easier to rage against. I guess the fact that spouse abuse and marital rape are now crimes is of no societal significance at all.
If you want some REAL problems to get on your high horse about why not look at the rape statistics. Something in the region of 96% of cases never go to court, and how many of them find a conviction? A moreover, how many go unreported. Violence has done little to deter sex offenders (Peterhead Prison is testimony to that) and yes the majority of offenders are male, but that doesn't mak ethe majority of males offenders. I'd hope that as women rise up through the ranks this will change, just as women's incomes have been on the rise. We've not reached equality yet, but I'm optomistic we will. In Western culture, the notion of women equating livestock has largely been eroded in the legal system- though the parallel criminal culture is still thriving in trafficking women and exploiting the vulnerable; it does happen to men to a lesser extent- perhaps this propertionally will even out as equality continues to grow?
Having read up on abuse and abusers I found out rather rapidly that the fact that most abusers have been abused doesn't mean that mosted of the abused will in turn abuse- quite the opposite.
It makes me laugh at how occassionally take the mere fact I report my childhood as it was is reacted to in such a defensive way. And to play the stereotype game, thus far it has been exclusively men that have taken that stance. It's merely a series of indellible experiences that I draw on. Na dprecisely the topic of conversation. And personally, I think domestic abuse is never an unappropriate topic of conversation, having grown up in a culture where it was a SILENT problem.
The victim in your head however is a notion of a weak gender that needs men to decide for them how they should act and what they should want or think. It's YOUR problem and nothing to do with women's historical subjugation (often also perpetrated on themselves) and your views are about as concerned with women's human rights as they are to do with reality: zilch. In fact, the seem pretty outdated to me in my experience with females.
Bollocks
just like your father, but much worse
08.12.2006 21:11
And who does that remind you of ? Yourself perhaps ? How much have you drunk at this moment ? What drugs have you been mixing it with ?
"(Ibuprofen for breakfast and whisky for lunch heehee!)"
"I'm a long-term clinical depressive hahahaha! (Hurray for medication!)"
No wonder you attack little girls, who could blame you ? You poor drunk depressive, you should be pitied not scolded. Yet you are still happy to pontificate on the rights of women and expect me to respond to your fake self-justifying arguments? That is very self-forgiving of you. It's nice to know you don't blame yourself for your violence.
And understandable you don't deny or want to discuss your attack on a defenceless female child. Go on, tell us how she deserved what you did to her, tell us how she provoked you with her words. Tell us how she deserved a beating and how it would have been patronising of any man to protect her from your rage. Tell us how she deserved what was coming to her. I'm certainly interested.
What a big man you are, far stronger than any little girl. I bet you could beat up a whole primary school if you were really provoked, and not just the girls. What a little Dick you are. Sad, piteous but dangerous as hell.
Please don't hide this because of that last comment, that really is his name - am I allowed or duty-bound to reveal his full identity ? If you are interested you could google for it by now.
Diana
the continuing gender pay gap
08.12.2006 22:02
Well, in every country in the world I think although the UK is worse than most European countries. Interestingly Northern Ireland is the most equitable part of the UK, due to the high level of 'McJobs' there , low paid service jobs, which women are always allowed into. There may be explainable, equitable, social reasons for this but it is undeniable, and it would be as discreditable for you to deny this as it was for the report to suggest there are as many female rapes of males as vice versa , the facts and figures prove it is so.
I would be happy to argue about this with you, as though I feel you may be sexist you haven't condoned male violence against young females. I am being selective here, but if you feel able to dissasociate yourself from any other poster who has violently attacked children of either sex then I can take you seriously. Can you yourself deny ever having attacked a child and do you regard this as unacceptable ? If you knew a man who had attacked a child would you be concerned by it and what response do you think is appropriate to such a situation ? Should I expose the attacker or perhaps beat him up, or just warn my friends, or should I ignore it and let him post how women don't deserve protection - I am unsure.
Kali
He is asking for it
08.12.2006 23:30
Coritids isn't even a word but you admit you were provoked into violence (against a young teenage girl by all accounts except yours) by her words - and I am the one who has the problem and who is 'patronising' women by wanting to protect them from abusive bastards like you ? Can you not see your own reflection ? You claim homophobia as an excuse - but I know you started a fight with an activist, who has never once been violent, because he kissed a man once, don't come over all politically correct retrospectively. Until this moment you have always been the aggressor but now you have really earned some retribution. I'd advise you to leave Scotland now and take the Belgian with you. You are too dangerous to leave in positions of power.
If I need help then it is how to deal with a violent, abusive, homophobic, misogynist, maipulative and delusive pseudo-anarchist who has damaged everyone they have have known, who has continually disrupted Indymedia with petty and vindictive feuds, who has admitted to attacking minors and whose backstory just doesn't add up.You are 38 and massive you idiot, how can you try to justify hurting a teenager ? If you use your 'real' name then why not your real email address after being caught out being hypocritical on a gender issue ? Can I add your address and phone number to help protect other women from you ? That's a question to the admins not you. Why not claim to be friends with both Crass and the SAS as you normally do to intimidate foolish people ? And why not admit to phoning death threats through to my pensioner parents as you have been for the past month, every time you get drunk ? What a fucked up bastard you really are.
You admit to physically beating a young female and still try to justify that after you have been exposed posting against men protecting women ? Oh, idiot. And I have the problem? What a victim you seem to think you are. Believe me you soon will be the victim.
This bastard is the guy formerly known as Spook Plant/ MI5 etc. He has history here.
These are previous pretty normal posts of his :
and here as wuss threatening to evict Faslane:
He infiltrated the group I was part of, grassed an action to the newspapers and I believe attempted to set up a rape of a former girlfriend of mine. In my five years in the peace movement he is the dodgiest man I have ever met as proven by his posts on this thread. And I have met many dodgy male activists in the past..
And yet he is looking after his young female relative this weekend - what if she says something to provoke him ? I'm not sure what to do with him and could use some credible neutral advice as to the morality of just having him removed from society.
I need help ? I've never once raised my hands to a woman in anger, and if I had then I certainly would't post on a gender issue thread saying women are over protected and patronised - was the girl you attacked patronised and if so by whom ? You need help, but before that you need to flee because unless someone else calms me down then you have earned yourself a severe punishment beating.
[NAME REMOVED], girl-beater - how proud your dad must be.
HECATI
hate patriarchy- love people
09.12.2006 04:21
And thought - check - check -check
Every statement rang true - ticked all the boxes in my experience
My own embodiment in this time / place is as a gay man
And my belief about gender is that it is something that we perform - something that we act out - not necessarily because we are have lots with testosterone or this or that hormone ( though stuff like that does influence our styles)
but because from when we're young we learn different scripts / performances relating to gender, sexuality, race and class
though unlike sports - gender ain't played out on a level field-
but even though we can't control everything in our environments - we all must all have to take responsibility for our own lives - and how we act towards each other -and weighing it up - if u honestly read the first post u know it is generally true
Sexism - either in its violent or in its structural forms is not just an individual problem - and we all need to acknowledge it in order to try and over come it
if ever we're going to get beyond the mess we're in
And realise the new world that is in our hearts
xxxxx
Queers Without Borders
burning times with doublespeak.
09.12.2006 07:16
The finer points of life and reality I fear exist within your abject hubris. Are you prepared to really separate for your masters what has taken aeons to build, a symbiotic relationship that at times is a fragile 'best that we can achieve at this juncture in the evolution of humanity."
Have you any concept in your warm fuzzy blanket of a world, how many males by the millions have suffered in wars, strife and social upheavals for you to be able to freely place your garbage on this thread. Are you that devoid of sense, that you do not realize that the divide between barbarism and social society is belief. Take away the support mechanism for the social world for you to exist in, and you will have nothing, and no protection. Governments and state view their constituents as product, the advent of feminism has expanded a corporate bureaucracy, now you technically have two so called masters, males and or bureaucracy. It would appear the path to the future for feminism is to turn the body of females to state authority, and by golly the state has shown so well how to pimp the female.
If females of the egalitarian kind lose the support of males, what do think will happen, if females of the gender equality kind get their way, then men have all things to fear, since these females seek the anhilation of what they themselves claim to be, males. I as a male have not got the reproductive equipment necessary for equality with a female nor do I have the physiology, so therefore until such things are present in men, there is no androgeny, period!, there is no equality in our basic function. Males in female bodies, are still males but lead and prey on females, a very dangerous precedent, exceptionally destructive and misleading in their intent. Peepees they want and peepees they shall never have, but they certainly behave like people with peepees and very violent especially towards children particularly male ones.
Andrew Steiger
e-mail:
agsteiger@juno.com
Pay Gap (by Kali)
09.12.2006 12:01
What I read there on the first page:
.....the gap between part-time women workers and full-time male workers is 41%.....
I was looking for an explication, how much is the gap between part-time working MEN and full-time working WOMEN. I found, as expected, no information.
Part-time workers will find less salary at the end of the month than workers, who are spending 50 or 60 hours per week at the working place.
This has nothing to do with men/women.
The site also mentions EDUCATION, QUALIFICATION as a reason for the salary gap between men and women - however schools are open to both genders and companies pay less to workers, who have lower education than workers, who have higher education from start on...what has this to do with men/women?
YEARS of FULL TIME Employment: Yes, companies often increase the salary per year, (in my working place it is 2 percent per year) - As I am working 18 years in the same company, my salary is about 40 percent higher than those of a newcomer. Again, what has this to do, if the person is a man or a woman?
When I compare basic salaries doctor/doctor, teacher/teacher, sales/sales and these men/women doing really the same work, I fail to see any difference related to GENDER.
Yes, there are differences, like overtime, years of employment, dangerous work, night work...but I see no difference of payment due to GENDER.
Interesting is the question, if the salary gap is getting smaller, when company management is done by women in leading position.
'.....the gap between part-time women workers and full-time male workers is 41%.....'
However I found nowhere any indication, that female employers are willing to pay more to their female part-time employees than to their full-time male employers. I wonder why.
yohan
Queers without wars ?
09.12.2006 13:27
However I found this article that links too much testosterone in the womb to poor social skills, as I'm sure this thread bears witness to.
Actuially, New Scientist could just be another feminist website, I see the last website I posted is deemed feminist too. That was a UK goverment website. I understand why these people fear feminism now, they think feminists run the government as well as the UN and the World Health Organisation. As for me not seeming grateful for all the men who fought in all the wars so that I could post here, well that was very kind of them but I've posted now, you can all stop the killing on my behalf please.
Inanna
Gender pay gap doesn't exist...
09.12.2006 18:26
These are all social and gender issues which must be addressed seriously, but by no means are they evidence of a gap between rates of pay for identical jobs between men and women.
MyGran
Sexist Sterotypes
09.12.2006 18:55
All men are bastards (except Bob..?) and all women are victims.
Women are never violent towards men, other women or indeed children.
Women never subconsciously seek violent relationships.
Men never subconsciously seek violent relationships.
Women are physically and emotionally handicapped compared to men.
All (or even most) lesbians hate men and secretly desire a penis.
All (or even most) homosexuals are non-violent pacifists.
All gays are nice people and any criticism of them is homophobia.
Heterosexuals that do not embrace homosexuality are secretly gay.
Homosexuals never rape heterosexual men or boys.
Women have never committed rape or sexual assault.
Men are the superior sex and therefore need to protect women.
Part-time men are NOT the lowest earners.
Women earn less than men for doing the same job.
BTW, if women earn less than men why do car manufacturers and other large companies spend millions marketing their products specifically to women? Could it be that they have more expendable income when compared to men? Come to think off it, count all the media advertising targeting women and then count them for men. Perhaps marketing companies have not done their homework…?
Prasutagus
alot of biased views
09.12.2006 20:30
...................oh and just to clarify! violent people are not always fueled by drink and drugs.
masked bandit
walking the walk
09.12.2006 20:31
Although I obviously disagree with you and would like to continue the argument, it has become heated partly because of the participation 'on your side' of a man who has threatened my family, previously attacked a girl and who I believe poses a real threat to other people I care for. While that may not discredit your argument it is tempting to use it too. Therefore I am going to withdraw from the thread and I hope you understand and respect that without making capital out of it. Personally, although I don't know you, I would also respect you more if you would clearly and categorically condemn any man who was felt driven to violence against a teenage girl simply due to verbal abuse. I don't find that manly and I'm hoping that isn't your idea of acceptable behaviour. The influence of [NAME REMOVED] has made me withdraw from the peace movement after five years, and actually made me regret that time. I have to say though the bravest anarchists and activists I have met are female, and feminists to boot. Ewa Jasiewicz for example who went to Iraq alone and unarmed, undoubtedly brave and capable, it still makes me laugh how the word 'patriarchy' sounds like curdled milk on her lips. You should really show people like that some respect unless you have taken similar risks.
As to your suggestion of dealing with IEDs etc, you probably meant that rhetorically as a challenge to my bravery but conincidentally it is actually my main ambition now that I am free from the peace movement. In the past few days I wrote to several mine clearance companies asking for training that I'd pay for so that I can become a freelance volunteer mine clearer. I'm not doing that out of machismo or out of a death wish but it always did seem a very worthy profession, an easy way to save a few lives. I mean I'd rather be a doctor but realistically that is beyond me. So far none of the companies have responded and I have no idea if it is a realistic aim, perhaps they only hire trained ex-services personnel. Anyway, please don't doubt I am prepared to 'walk the walk' although that is a particularly unfortunate phrase in that career. If you happen to know more how I could pursue the aim you suggested then I would be grateful.
And yes, I am expendable, and I know my main enemy will never be the man in the street, but it certainly won't either be the cheeky girl in the street. I do consider myself an anarchist and do think I know what that means. I am hoping to save a few lives this way regardless of gender. I imagine more men clear mines than women but I'd also be pretty sure more men plant them and just as many women step on them.
If you want to keep contributing to the thread yourself then feel free, but know you'd be disproving the original article the calmer you are..
bob-goddess
Violence Against Women
10.12.2006 11:00
However, only 12% of heterosexual violence is committed by men against women, while 46% of LESBIAN relationships are marked by violence and forced sexual activity. Why isn't the author calling for action by WOMEN and women's groups to stop violence BY women AGAINST women? Is it because modern feminism has been co-opted by lesbians, and they are protecting their own? The other half of heterosexual violence is the 12% that involves MEN abused by WOMEN. Why isn't the author calling for a halt to the violence against men?
Paul Clements
www.daddnh.org
Paul Clements
e-mail:
pclem@juno.com
Homepage:
http://www.daddnh.org
Fantastic article.
10.12.2006 14:21
Heretic
e-mail:
info@mens-links.net
Homepage:
http://www.mens-links.net
Becomming what you hate?
10.12.2006 18:09
Women, according to statistics, commit more child abuse than men. Would we EVER see an article blaming all child abuse on women and holding them accountable. Hell, we can't even hold women accountable for the crimes they DO commit right now! Andrea Yates and Deborah LaFave come to mind.
It is people like the author of this article who make people such as my wife and I completely turn off to womens issues when the finger of blame is pointed at every man as evil and hateful.
Every where I look, I see violence against men. TV, society, schools, prisons, politics, every aspect of life is condoning an attitude towards men that would receive villification and outrage if the same attitude and treatment was to be made law against women.
I have never struck a woman in my life. However, I have been assaulted by women who thought they were immune to accountability based on their gender. You know what, they WERE immune when it came time to be held accountable.
You want to see me blamed for something I didn't do, Utopia Bold? I will happily see you in court - assuming, as a man, I can get a fair trial?
James Staines
,
10.12.2006 18:50
From experience of dealing with both the perpetrators of domestic violence and the victims, it is not focused on one sex. Women if anything are just as aggressive to men (whether this is as a result of ladette culture with binge drinking and the like is debatable).
There is no excuse for it, if you dont like your partner, then dont continue in the relationship. If your partner assaults you press charges against them and move out immediately.
thanatos
Disgusted by your comment
11.12.2006 05:35
I have worked diligently to bring the crime of male rape to the forefront of society to see it as an issue that needs handled with compassion and understanding.
The reason men have all of the power to prevent violence against women is because people like you give it to them. They, too, can be victims and should be helped to understand it's not us against them. It's us against rapists. ANY rapists. Yes, most of them are male, but some are women and to ignorantlly call rape more of a crime against women instead of a crime against humanity you are fueling the fight that causes distance between men and women.
You should be ashamed of yourself. As a woman ravaged by violence I reject your ideas and you do NOT speak for me. Your uneducated rant has made you the type of woman who makes my job harder. Your blatant disregard for male victims hopefully has not encouraged further crimes.
When violent men see trash like this, they begin to foolishly think they can fulfill their vicious desires by going after men as the newest breed of victim, shamed into silence by the ridiculously ignorant righteous like yourself.
Chandra Niklewski
e-mail:
riaerif@hotmail.com
No solutions here. I
11.12.2006 06:14
========
"Men may feel unease when male violence against women is addressed including non-violent men. However, all men, both violent and non-violent, must be held responsible for stopping male violence against women.
Violent men must stop assaulting women. Non-violent men must not sit by and allow male violence against women to continue. Their inaction-or indifference- is passive male violence against women. Breaking the silence by naming an atrocity is the first step in ending it. Male violence against women must be named specifically."
Your claim of my complicity is DENIED.
Would you appreciate my holding YOU responsible for paternity fraud or infanticide on the basis that some women do these things?
In my country eighty percent of the victims of violence are male. You discount these victims utterly on the basis of their gender. Indeed you go further by holding these victims responsible for their own experience of violence. Have you ever heard the expression "blaming the victim"? Of course you have but you are blind to your own perpetration of it.
"Men have oppressed women nonstop for the longest length of time of any oppressed group, more than 5,000 years"
Provide the proof of this oppression. There have always been women AND men among both oppressor and oppressed classes. To claim women as a class have been oppressed is to deny and belittle the TRUE oppression that has occurred throughout human history. Women as a class have NEVER been oppressed.
"Since men collectively hold more power than women..."
However any judgement made of women collectively is decried and results in accusations of mysoginy. I do not give you permission to judge me by the acts of others nor do you have the right to do so.
"Women don't build rape camps to torture and molest men to death."
However the huge majority of humans tortured even unto death have been men.
Some evidence of "rape camps" would be a good start also. I understand the Japanese ran "comfort stations" during WWII but I'm unfamiliar with any other occurences.
"Men also rape men and boys This doesn't change the fact that in every nation on earth, in all levels of society, men rape women. Rape is a male hate crime against women. Men who rape women have contempt for women and want to degrade them. Even when men rape males, contempt for women is the underlying issue. Men rape males to degrade them by treating them like raped women."
Is it a hate crime when a woman rapes? DO NOT deny that this happens. I can assure you that such denial would be a lie. Indeed it appears women commit a third of child sexual abuse.
gwallan
No solutions here II
11.12.2006 06:16
===
"Some women are violent, all people can be violent. However, despite that rather ridiculous study ( as many women rape men than are raped ? It is a physical impossibility ! ) men have a near monopoly on inter sex violence."
It is a "physical impossibility" for a woman to rape a man? Absolute rubbish.
Men have a near monopoly on inter sex violence? All current research says otherwise.
"Most IPV is committed by men. Most child abuse is committed by men. Deal with it."
Australian Bureau of Statistics, US CDC and Canadian CRC say otherwise. You should note that these are neither feminist nor mens rights organisations. You are wrong on both counts particularly as regards children. Deal with that yourself.
"Well, do you have others as that one seems to be nonsense. Apart from anything else, it states almost as many women in the US force sex from men as the reverse. That is a phsyical impossibility. A man can force sex on a woman who isn't aroused but no force on earth can make an unwilling man to be sexually aroused. Really, what is the process you are postulating ? Even if you tie him down and force feed him viagra he will not become erect unless he is actually excited. Male on male rape is a reality but females raping men is delusional regardless of what men report to a survey such as you quote, and the fact that is admitted in the report discredits it.. It is necessary for a man to be erect for sex to be forced, it is not necessary for a woman to be turned on for a man to rape her. "
You have no understanding of rape at all do you? Would you tell a woman who produces lubrication and/or orgasms during a rape(yes, it does happen) that she wasn't raped. These things, like erections, are physiological reactions to physical stimuli. Indeed erection can easily be the result of stress alone. Rape occurs as a result of coercion which may be physical in nature or may not. In fact the gradual expansion of the definition of rape(at the behest of feminists) makes it increasingly possible for women to be guilty of rape.
"Do you know how to ensure a woman becomes violent ? Give her an injection of testosterone."
True. Do you know how to ensure a man becomes less violent ? Give him an injection of testosterone. You need to update your research on testosterone. It is imbalanced sex hormones which creates aggression in both men and women where there is a hormonal basis.
www.who.int/gender/violence/who_multicountry_study/en/index.html
www.undp.org/rblac/gender/legislation/violence.htm
Good links you provide. Pity the first one only examines half the problem and the second doesn't work at all.
"I am also an anarchist, which to me means by definition being a feminist. As you don't describe yourself as an anarchist then I understand why you may be under-educated on this subject, no offence intended."
No offence intended? Liar. Such arrogance.
Personally I am also an anarchist and a feminist but would never claim the two to be co-dependant. That is an absurd proposition.
"No problem. Rape is penetrative sex ( either vaginal or anal) without permission from a fully aware adult ( ie not drunk, not drugged). It's that simple and tragic. No means no. If the other person says yes and then says no when you are having sex then you should stop, it becomes rape. If the other person says yes and then retrospectively withdraws permission, then it is their fault, they can't retrospectively withdraw permission."
If you define rape in this way then your denial of womens' capacity to rape men is absurd. Again I will say that you do not truly understand rape.
"If someone is drunk, and you haven't prior permission, then don't have sex with them, they can't be considered an aware adult any more than you would consider your step-daughters consent as valid."
So why is a drunk woman a rape victim but not a drunk man?
"As few as 6% of women who seek counselling for rape actually report the crime.
news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1752272006"
Deceptive, use of statistics. The six percent you refer to was from ONE crisis centre. From the very same article - "The figures from the six Rape Crisis centres which took part in the study show that last year a total of 2,783 women sought counselling but only 857 - 31% - said they had reported the attack to police."
In contrast less than one percent of male rape victims report and even if they do they are rarely taken seriously and, indeed, are often pilloried. (CRC Canada)
gwallan
No solutions offered III
11.12.2006 06:17
========
"Most of these male postings reveal why male violence against women has persisted in ALL cultures for 5,000 years."
Only five thousand years? Not fifteen billion? If you must indulge in hyperbole please make an effort.
gwallan
e-mail:
gealn@impulse.net.au
Still no solutions
11.12.2006 06:22
===
"For me, as a violent male who has never once raised my hand in anger to a woman, I feel superior to the other male posters here and less likely to offend against women for simple and reproducible reasons."
Presumably you have raised your hand in anger to men. I would suggest that makes you the problem rather than any source of solutions. It also explains your complete inability to accept that the majority of men are not violent. You simply do not understand them.
Happy Bullet
=========
"The author quoted arrest statistics.."
Actually the normal gender feminist approach is to quote convictions rates for womens' offences against men and survey statistics for mens' offences against women.
Balls and a cock and not a person
========================
"There is a tiny amount of "true feminists", those that espouse equal chances for both and recognise that women themselves aren't entirely blameless."
Those feminists still holding second wave ideals were and are on the right track. The current, third wave, crop wouldn't know if their arses were on fire and would lie about it anyway.
gwallan
e-mail:
gealn@impulse.net.au
Pure misandry
11.12.2006 06:24
===
"They are actually the United Nations Development Programme and the World Health Organisation, hardly party political or feminist."
But hardly reliable on recent form:-
"The first report was the UN secretary-general's Study on Violence Against Women. The document amounted to an ideological denunciation of the "patriarchy" and recommended that every country around the world enact VAWA-like laws:
The UN really should employ some competent proof readers and statisticians. There were errors in this report that would be unforgivable from a school kid.
"Still, in your strange world view you probably see scary feminists in every organisation that isn't 'heterosexual male based', presumably meaning any organisation thaat has the termerity to employ women. I do have to doubt how hetrosexual you really are given your hatred for women, do you sit around naked in hot tubs 'bonding' with your hetro male pals ? No complaint from me if you do but you are more than a bit in denial."
And all feminists are lesbian man haters? Get real. Ad hominem of that sort does not win arguments and, in fact, suggests you have no valid position yourself.
"I don't treat women like defenceless retards although I do encourage them to learn how to fight because men like us beat, rape and murder them, while still earning more than them for doing the same work. And then men like you deny it, excuse it, sanction it and probably perpetuate it too."
Men like us? Speak for yourself. Do not transfer your own guilt to me. You claim to be an anarchist. Why do you not understand this principle?
ishtar
====
Clearly violence by men against women is wrong but you go out of your way to justify violence by women against men to the point of murder. You are a rank hypocrite.
Kali and others re incomes
===================
I'm not even sure why this is an issue. Paying women less than men has been illegal in most western countries for over thirty years. Analysis of the UK Women and Equality Unit's info clearly indicates that womens' own choices are the primary driver of any difference. If we ever reach a point where men are fifty percent of workplace deaths I will be disturbed if that pay gap still exists. However, while women are restricting their chosen occupations to the safe and clean fields as they currently do, weight of numbers and market forces will maintain this gap.
gwallan
e-mail:
gealn@impulse.net.au
XSryder
11.12.2006 11:16
"In the United Kingdom, under the headline 'Men suffer equally from violence in the home', the 22nd Jan 1999 Times crime correspondent Stewart Tendler reported the newly released results of a Home Office survey which showed that equal numbers of men and women - 4.2 per cent - said they had been physically assaulted by a current or former partner during the previous 12 months.
These figures are of course very much lower than feminist groups have claimed them to be. The Sunday Times of London 29 January 1995 carried an article "Knocked for six: the myth of a nation of wife-batterers", in which Neil Lyndon and Paul Ashton presented evidence that the phenomenon of domestic violence has been ludicrously exaggerated. They pointed out that men, in general, are not violent, and women in general, are not victims."
xsryder
e-mail:
xsryder@hotmail.com
When Society Becomes An Addict: Anne WIlson Schaef
11.12.2006 12:49
May I suggest most of us read "When Society Becomes An Addict" by Anne Wilson Shcaef, Harper And Row, 1986. Therein I feel you will find the thought for the basis of all this "The White Male Did It All To Me".
Any person that believes that men do more violence or that women are the opressed sex because of men and focus on those sorts of notions have not arrived at the foundations of problems that do exist in the UK and in USA. For example: Unless or until those same sort of folks like the person who wrote the above, arrive at those foundations, they themselves still have oppressor behavoir themselves.
I like to think that one of the man ( femalistations) ifestations of same willl be the day when females en mass, or truer feminists, will ask the governments why it is that 86% of the kids always go to the female in a divorce or why it is that states attorney generals in the USA presume the fitness of females as they 'go after' the man for money and relegate him to visitor to his kid at best. They will ask why the Fed gives financial kickbacks to states for engaging in this fascist and nazilike method of intruding into the family.
NO: its not the males who did this! Its like Ms. WIlson Schaef said It a disease process. Its way larger than any group of men hating women or women hating men.
Since you mentioned Amnesty International, USA,
Need more examples: Do the females speak for the sake of all the other creation on the planet as vociferously? Has Hillary come out against a war built on lies? Why have the women not stepped up and started speaking about the true carrying capacity of human numbers on the planet? Why have women not come to bat for the falsely accused and convicted men sitting in prisons now because of the mania- into-law that has put them there?
Robert Gartner
e-mail:
planetaryg@yahoo.com
RE: "Stats" Addition
11.12.2006 13:03
Other Cases abound. Andrea Yates, etc.
All day long in America women get off sexual molestation and abuse charges or hit with very light sentences. Have you asked yourself why a bunch of men are doing that to women? I got accused for holding my daughter with her legs between my side and my hand across her butt for support. How many women have done this type of carrying their kid and nobody ever thinks anything about it?
And how are these flaws in your stats reflected?
And the DV and VAWA laws exacted: Have they not taught and encouraged 'women' to conceive and insprire them to make false accusations? Fed stats show that 2/3 of sexual abuse allegations are false.
I am not saying that I think everyone should have to go to prison. I really do think that if people are doing such things they are sick and have a problem that prison is not going to fix, except they might not pregnant again there.
No as I said above the basis is much, much deeper than any issue of systematixed gender violence brought upon women by men. But 'Houston, we do have a problem'. Unless or until you step out of the gender mode you will not have the eyes to see the more essential ingredients...
Robert Gartner
e-mail:
planetaryg@yahoo.com
Proof of oppression
11.12.2006 13:12
There were some whites who suffered under the apartheid regime in South Africa so by your logic the apartheid regime could not be conidered racist. And many Christians were sent to Nazi death camps but we still recognise that the Nazis discriminated and persecuted Jews due to their religion. If the great majority of the victims of a system of oppression are of one group then it stands to reason that that system is designed to be oppressive to them.
Take the witchunts as another example, sometimes refered to as Gendercide. Many women acted as witnesses against 'witches', and only 75-80% were of the victims were female, . The historical record of the time clearly shows the stigmitisation of women at the time, the predominance of males in positions of power such as judges, juries, jailors and executioners so the witch hunts should be seen as gender specific mass murder that could only have occured when directed at women. And to ignore the implications of gender on crimes then or now where the victims are mostly one sex, and the pereptrators and people in positions of power are mostly another is misinformed at best.
dan
Flaws in understanding stats
11.12.2006 13:44
You seem to misunderstand what the word statistics means, by refering to individual cases as if they were errrors. Individual cases are reflected in statistics individually, so that they can be compared rationally and meaningfully with every other individual case that you don't personally witness.
In the UK in 2005/6, 98% of cautioned or convicted sex offenders are men. Perhaps you think the predominantly male UK police and judiciary are biased against their own sex but that doesn't seem explainable though. Are they self-hating men ? If you think you have spotted a flaw in the statistical methods used to compile the figures, perhaps you could explain it to us, or maybe you should take it up with National Statistics themselves, Or perhaps just learn to deal with your own personal history and bias without extrapolating it to everyone else.
'National Statistics' is a quality marker applied to certain of the United Kingdom's official statistics.
Statistics labelled as 'National Statistics' must meet certain criteria. They should, for example, be fit for purpose, methodologically sound, politically independent and transparently produced. All National Statistics are produced in accordance with the 'Framework for National Statistics' and comply with the principles enbodied in the 'National Statistics Code of Practice'. They are reviewed every five years for quality.
dan
4th Prostitute Missing - top BBC story
11.12.2006 16:20
Utopias arguments are also reinforced by tragic current events in Ipswich. Given the three recently prostitutes, would any of the anti-utopian posters here seriously expect the killer is at all likely to be female ?
dan
Witch hunts and stats
11.12.2006 17:25
===
Regarding the witch hunts as "gendercide". About a third of the victims were male. In the Scandinavian regions up to 80% of those executed were men.
"In the UK in 2005/6, 98% of cautioned or convicted sex offenders are men. Perhaps you think the predominantly male UK police and judiciary are biased against their own sex but that doesn't seem explainable though. Are they self-hating men ? If you think you have spotted a flaw in the statistical methods used to compile the figures, perhaps you could explain it to us, or maybe you should take it up with National Statistics themselves, Or perhaps just learn to deal with your own personal history and bias without extrapolating it to everyone else."
Personally I am dealing with issues relating to sexual abuse at the hands of women. I'm quite happy to admit that. One of the primary means of my dealing with it is to learn as much as I can about the issues involved. I entered counselling several years ago over events which occured when I was eight years old. I believed I was just about the only one. Imagine my surprise at being told by counsellors that women commit about a third of child sexual abuse.
The use of conviction/incarceration rates is deliberately misleading. Note the number of times contributors here refer to the proportion of women NOT reporting rape. Male reporting rates are far lower. In my country, Australia, the sexual abuse of boys/men by women wasn't even illegal until the late nineties. Of what use are our conviction rates from a gender standpoint in those circumstances? The individual attitudes of police and the judiciary are created by training provided exclusively by feminist influenced groups. They are taught to deal with sex crimes by people who often refuse to even believe women commit such crimes. And this belief is driven by ideology of exactly the sort being promulgated here rather than concern for victims.
Given your reference to "individual examples" I will provide you with a one that highlights the ideology perfectly. Late last year at the Brewster Centre DV refuge in Arizona one of their clients sexually abused the twelve year old son of another client. There were witnesses to this abuse. The Brewster Centre protected the offender from police interview for nearly three months(she was eventually detained outside the centre during a SUPERVISED visit with her OWN children). They cleaned up the scene of the crime thus destroying any chance for collection of physical evidence. Any other organisation is compelled to report knowledge of a possible sex crime particularly that involving a child. The Brewster Centre also provides training to the police, courts and educational institutions. Can they be trusted? Who do they really serve - victims or a chauvinist ideology that refuses to recognise victims based on their genitalia?
gwallan
e-mail:
gealn@impulse.net.au
Flawed Logic
11.12.2006 17:47
The fact that more men are likely to be reported and convicted of violence against women does not necessarily equate to the notion that men are more likely to commit acts of violence against women. The two are not mutually inclusive.
As unlikely as it may be for a man to report it in the first place, if a man did call the police to say his wife has been hitting him, the police are less likely to do anything about it. However, if the opposite were to happen a man would almost certainly be treated guilty until he could prove otherwise, especially if children were involved.
There therefore seems to be an unwritten policy of applying the precautionary principle when dealing with domestic violence, but mainly when men are accused of violence against women. That in itself could be argued to be sexist.
Men could whinge ‘its not fair’, but there again men are generally more capable of fending off a violent attack from a female. So any preferential treatment women may receive is obviously to compensate that gender deficit. That’s right, by and large men and women are unequal, we are different – we therefore deserve to be treated differently. Anything else would be sexist.
Just because some women are equal to some men that doesn’t mean all women should be treated as equal to all men.
Feminism is flawed.
Male Logic
the article was on male on female violence
11.12.2006 19:22
Since you have been researching the issue perhaps you can provide some facts and links that prove what you say your counsellors told you. Although even if you are correct then that hardly disproves Utopias article, even with your admitted one-sided interest you are still claiming men commit double the offences, a damning admission for your argument. Indeed, since Utopias article concerns male responsibility for male violence against women, and doesn't mention child abuse which is a quite different subject since children include both main genders, perhaps you should write up a new article on that subject and share your research.
"Given your reference to "individual examples"
My reference was to the valueless of individual examples in the face of mass examples, or as we call them, statistics. Facts and figures rather than personal bias if you prefer - so sorry, but I stopped reading there. I would read your experiences if you had started a child abuse thread but even there you would be more worthwhile if you could quote some wider facts and figures.
"The fact that more men are likely to be reported and convicted of violence against women does not necessarily equate to the notion that men are more likely to commit acts of violence against women"
That is indeed 'male logic', well, if you are trying to discredit men. Are you seriously suggesting that police officers are so controlled by feminist overlords that the true figures aren't 98% to 2% but are misreported by a factor of 48 ? Are you sure you are just making excuses for your own behaviour ?
"Just because some women are equal to some men that doesn’t mean all women should be treated as equal to all men."
Just because we are different does not mean we are not equal, I think you fail to understand even what equality means. Universal rights like the right to life should not be based on our own abilities or attributes and especially not on gender.
And as an aside, since noone seems willing or interested in the Ipswich murders, I'd like to say although all of us aren't responsible for the actions of individual murders, we are all responsible for the laws that drive women to work in unsafe conditions. The dutch attitude to decriminalising and regulating prostitution in licensed brothels would have saved these womens lives and many others.
dan
women and men
11.12.2006 20:03
I’m all for universal rights.
Seems to me that either radical feminists at least accept that women are generally unequal to men, or they continue the fight for total equality and accept they are just as good or bad as men.
They can’t have it both ways, especially when it is obvious that both charges are in fact true, i.e. women are generally unequal* to men, but even so and are just as good or bad as men.
Yet, despite the obvious, we seem to be in a completely ridiculous position where women claim to be equal when it suits them and unequal when it suits them.
I wonder if that is because men are gullible, or because women are manipulative?
*unequal physically, biologically, psychologically and culturally.
Stats, stats and more stats
11.12.2006 21:45
Well analyse the sentence, what a load of political of codswallop, "offenders", "relative", "of or", "cautioned"........... Next you will be stating the results were real, like all of these reports generated from point of inquiry, i.e. You local constabulary.
I will tell all what I see as self evident, and that is we have a society that is about to teeter over the edge, and the saddest thing I see is christmas messages from females, 'I want to get married', 'he won't commit', 'all I want is to be happy', and from the older folk, I want a real man, and conversely 'I want a real women', such sad lonely requests. For a world dictated to by off the wall feminists, who will for the sake of spite sacrifice society for generations, and if males do not detach as they are doing slowly by the thousands, where is the future. The children of legal and state largesse, with feminist doctrines offer nothing for those females who have passed their sell by date, look long and hard at the pitiful numbers of females who live in abject poverty as a result of no longer qualifying for state support. Especially look at the rudderless urchins raised by the ever present parens patriae, just the kind of material and morals we need to mold a world of predetory material. Those real shemale feminists will be drooling at the bit, at circumventing nature, and getting politics to produce a world best suited to their needs. If the equality feminists think they are smart, then your leaders are much smarter and have pulled the wool over your eyes. As for males, when they figure out how to deal with that which they have been taught to honour, anyone seriously thought of the results. Ultimately it could all be a ruse to fool us all, and depleat the population, whatever the argument, I consider the argument moot. Since the results for both sexes, more so for the female are all negative, buy now pay later.
Andrew Steiger
e-mail:
agsteiger@juno.com
Equal under God ess
11.12.2006 22:16
I'm hardly a radical feminist. I accept pornography and prostitution as facts that perhaps are inevitable and without blame, and arguably beneficial, I certainly don't blame or want to make unsafe the sex workers for prurient reasons. I just have a zero tolerance attitude to male violence against women. As far as I'm concerned, go and download some porn and satisfy yourself or go and pay a willing girl for sex, I'm not an Dworkin, just don't murder the girl to get away with paying and don't force her to work out in vunerable conditions to satisfy some archaic and twisted religious convictions. I think the main problem with the sex-business is the business part of it, because we live in a patriachy where business is controlled mainly by male violence towards both sexes.
Now some women can be aggressive or abusive and can commit statutary rape, and gendercide can be directed by men towards men too during times of war, but the basic fact remains, most oppressors are male, more women are victims of male oppression than vice versa. There has never been a female gendercide of males despite what most of you seem to think. Until we acknowledge that we will never deal with it. Even as a macho hetrosexual male, it isn't in your interest to have so much male on male on male deaths or so many male on female deaths. You will kill and you will not get less sex and then you will be killed, which isn't something to aspire to.
I don't feel all feminists should be anarchists but I do feel all anarchists should be feminists for one basic anarchist principle 'opposing the powerful' and with respect to one historical legend - Emma Goldmann.
More than 90 per cent. of violent offences tried by English and Welsh courts are committed by men.
Almost half the total number of women killed in England and Wales are killed by a partner or ex-partner. In contrast, only between 6 and 8 per cent. of men killed in England and Wales are killed by their female partners. Most females who kill their partners do so in self-defence and after long term physical abuse.
The so-called battle of the sexes is really just a massacre of females in truth. From selective abortion, domestic abuse, rape, serious assault, murder, serial murder and mass-murder, it is men that are the worst perpetrators. It is estimated that there are between 120 million and 200 million women 'missing' from the planet, and no, they never just returned to Venus. Now, Utopia is advocating better education of men to solve this, I'd recommend female only martial arts training in schools (and perhaps even the legal arming of women although that is more contentious I admit) to balance out the obvious and great imbalance in gender strength and aggression until we all as a species can evolve equally beyond all exploitation and violence.
dan
Even little infants are not safe from Utopia Blind.
11.12.2006 23:46
How old do males need to be to face the implication of sexual abuse, well let us all start at the age of four. It seems that our feminine zealots, do not intend to spare infants the choice.
Just like the lesbian in S.Africa who beat her three year old partners son to death for not applying the term daddy to herself, to add misery to cuckolding the relationship. Just like the three feminists in Canada who allowed a newborn male to starve to death, 'for he would grow to be a rapist'. How so very sad, taboo area's or not, these facts will eventually become public issues.
Andrew Steiger
e-mail:
agsteiger@juno.com
All women are responsible for stopping female violence against children!
11.12.2006 23:55
And, according to "Child Maltreatment 2004: Summary of Key Findings," most child abusers are women.
To paraphrase Utopia Bold's comment, consider this: "All women are responsible for stopping female violence against children!"
What about it, Ms Bold? Want to go there?
Don, the 14%er
e-mail:
fourteenpercenter@yahoo.com
Homepage:
http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/canstats.cfm
“current inequality”
12.12.2006 01:15
Less women kill men than men kill women so women killing men doesn’t count.
Female Logic
Is someone confused, with nonchalance.
12.12.2006 01:40
Go here again and take the time to read ;
'>that police officers are so controlled by feminist overlords that the true figures aren't 98% to 2% but are misreported'
The law in context of domestic, civil and taxpayer largesse, has little interest other than pecuniary for judicial self interests, politics is a tool that has usurped even judicial greed, they were never responsible for their actions nor great social thinkers.
>'Now some women can be aggressive or abusive and can commit statutary rape, and gendercide'
How many is 'some'
>'it is men that are the worst perpetrators. It is estimated that there are between 120 million and 200 million women 'missing' from the planet'
Wow, which orifice did that tidbit get retrieved from, now support the claim, would that by chance include abortions, duh !
>"Just because some women are equal to some men that doesn’t mean all women should be treated as equal to all men." - "Just because we are different does not mean we are not equal, I think you fail to understand even what equality means. Universal rights like the right to life should not be based on our own abilities or attributes and especially not on gender."
That I believe is one of the longest oxymorons I have seen in a long time.
Andrew Steiger
e-mail:
agsteiger@juno.com
Utopia in wonderland comparison test
12.12.2006 02:36
Are you suggesting driving offences be treated with the same feminist outlook of all men are responsible for stopping driving offences?
I hope not because I can well imagine the righteous indignation of those minority of women who are bad drivers in denial.. There would be carnage on the streets, with horns and car alarms going off all around and loud metallic crunching sounds coming from supermarket car parks everywhere.
Fuzzy Logic
Dan's strange judgements as a feminist
12.12.2006 05:10
There is also violence in kind of defamation, belittling, cheating, insulting, scratching, spitting, kicking...and women are quite good in that...or is this kind of female behaviour non-violent for Dan?
According to studies, women are good in 'threw something' (4.9 - men, 11.6 - women), 'slapping' (2.5 - men, 5.6 - women), 'kick+bit' (1.8 - M, 4.3 - W) - is this not violence?
I got the impression, Dan is picking out some sectors of severe violent crimes, like rape, where criminal men present the clear majority - all other forms of violence are 'almost not-existing'.
In families, there is not only violence from man against woman and from woman against man, but also violence against children, and looking at
'Women also comprised a larger percentage of all perpetrators than men: 58 percent compared to 42 percent.'
To blame only men for violence is gender discrimination, distortion of facts and a feminist argument of slander.
yohan
boy racers and girl beaters
12.12.2006 08:22
Are you suggesting driving offences be treated with the same feminist outlook of all men are responsible for stopping driving offences?"
If you saw a drunk get into a car, then yes, I'd say it was a duty for you to stop them from killing, especially if they had caused injury before. I realise that question was aimed at Utopia rather than me but you were using the stats I'd published to try to mock her. Although you do prove her point, society does awatd women cheaper car insurance because fewer of them kill on the road, sober or drunk. And that is a percentile comparison. For a 100 male drivers and 100 female drivers, the males kill more and crash more and though a female offender is treated the same under the law, society in the form of insurance companies do treat the sexes differently to start with out of recognition of the statistics.
dan
200 million women 'missing' from the planet
12.12.2006 08:47
"Wow, which orifice did that tidbit get retrieved from, now support the claim, would that by chance include abortions, duh ! " - Andrew
Duh indeed [removed], sorry I mean Andrew, I keep getting your multiple personalities mixed up. Apart from poor social skills and a dangerous attitude to women, you don't even read that well. Forgive me if I stop reading your posts since you obviously aren't reading mine.
dan
belittling Yohan
12.12.2006 09:53
Apart from scratching and kicking, yes I would class the other categories as non-violent, and certainly to compare them to rape or muder or to imply they justify such male responses shows just how deluded you are Yohan. Here, I'll insult you Yohan - you are a idiot - now you go call the cops one me for my violence towards you. Although to be fair you insulted everyones intelligence to begin with so I'll claim self-defence.
dan
Dan, you should have written the article we're discussing
12.12.2006 10:29
It’s good to see somebody arguing the point who knows what they’re talking about, although I must take issue with a lot of what you have said.
“The so-called battle of the sexes is really just a massacre of females in truth. From selective abortion, domestic abuse, rape, serious assault, murder, serial murder and mass-murder, it is men that are the worst perpetrators. It is estimated that there are between 120 million and 200 million women 'missing' from the planet, and no, they never just returned to Venus. Now, Utopia is advocating better education of men to solve this, I'd recommend female only martial arts training in schools (and perhaps even the legal arming of women although that is more contentious I admit) to balance out the obvious and great imbalance in gender strength and aggression until we all as a species can evolve equally beyond all exploitation and violence.”
I won’t disagree that men perpetuate more violence than women, but it’s hardly targeted solely at women. I don’t recall hearing of any women marching across the battlefields of the Somme, or pouring out of landing craft on D Day or the Anzio landings. Those soldiers weren’t going after German or Italian women. In fact a lot of those men were conscripted; no women were conscripted to fight. Plus, I’m sure if you’d add up all the victims of domestic abuse, rape, serious assault, murder, serial murder and mass murder, you’d find that the majority of those victims are male. For example in 79% of murders in the US a male was the victim (according to the BJS). In fact men received higher victimization rates for all crimes expect rape/sexual assault, but on average were much more likely to be attacked.
So why should women be elevated above the male victims of assault? Is it because chivalry (something thought up by the supposed patriarchy) denotes that for a man to harm a woman is worse than for him to hurt another male? As Don, the 14%er has asked, is there any man here who was taught that you should hit women? I myself was on the receiving end of abuse from a violent girlfriend, but I didn’t fight back in response, because I was raised not to. So why are men assaulting or killing women? Is it because their parents said it was okay, and their teachers at school encouraged them to do that? I seriously doubt it. If that’s the case then what good are special education classes for boys?
I also take issue with your suggestion for female only martial arts training in schools and the legal arming or women. Firstly, from personal experience, martial arts can be little more than a placebo that can prove to be extremely dangerous for the wrong student. Whilst a grounding in martial arts may be useful, it is only at advanced levels that it can be applied effectively. But if indeed girls did receive 8 years of training to become experts, all that would happen is that we’d see levels of violence rise, not fall. Arming women would only increase this problem further. If approximately 50% of domestic violence is committed by women, then increasing their ability to inflict damage or kill would lead to further hospitalisations or deaths, especially at a time when we are seeing the number of violent crimes being committed by women rising.
You also mention that 200 million women (basically the entire populations of Germany, France and the UK) have disappeared, or are missing. Do you mean unaccounted for or presumed dead, or like in the case of China, not being born? How does this number compare to the number of missing men and who came up with this number?
Violence is a societal issue, not a gender issue. Breaking it down to who is violent and who is the victim by gender, makes as much sense as breaking it down by race. As you’ve said, in the UK 98% of sex offenders are male (although I’d like to know exactly what constitutes a ‘sex offence’), however 19% of the UK prison population are racial minorities (compared to 7% of the UK population). Does that mean that these minorities are less honest and need special education as (the same way men need for being violent) they are at a higher risk of committing a crime? Of course not. To look at it like that is to look at a very small part of a much bigger picture. I’m sure that Utopia Bold would never dream of suggesting such an awful, fascist program for minorities, but has no qualms about suggestion the exact same approach for men.
Utopia has identified men as being more violent than women and decided that this makes all men responsible, but that is too convenient and compliant in allowing her to do nothing about the problem. In this world men as a whole are more violent, but what is it that causes this and what must we ALL do as a society to address and solve this? We’re all part of it, not just men.
Thanks
Neil
Neil
Myths
12.12.2006 11:55
I consider the White Feather Campaign of WW1 as an example of females participating in gendercide by using shaming tactics.
"Apart from scratching and kicking, yes I would class the other categories as non-violent, and certainly to compare them to rape or muder or to imply they justify such male responses shows just how deluded you are Yohan. Here, I'll insult you Yohan - you are a idiot - now you go call the cops one me for my violence towards you. Although to be fair you insulted everyones intelligence to begin with so I'll claim self-defence. "
They are considered crimes in the UK, psychological assault to be exact and leave emotional scars.
Rizla
Feminist propaganda
12.12.2006 12:05
Don't buy into this nonsense, it's just an angry female blaming all males for her biology.
Robert
Barbwire
12.12.2006 12:16
Part of the problem is the definition of the term battered or assulted women. In a pamphlet put out by a battered women's shelter near me. "Women's Shelter" The definition of the term Assault is (Pushing, Hair Pulling, Slapping, Controlling Children or Money, Pinching, Biting, Anything that hurts, Hitting, Name-calling) With such an all inclusive definition ANYONE who has ever been in a relationship Man, Women, or child has been assaulted. Except for males!
Gary Lentz
Neil
12.12.2006 12:27
My 'battle of the sexes is a massacre' comment means more women suffer at the hands of men than vice versa, which you yourself acknowledge. I do realise that many and perhaps more men suffer from male violence too, but I also think patriarchy is bad for men too which is why I feel free to argue against it.
I think your arguments about the somme imply you think wars kill more men than women, which was undoubtedly true back then when 90% of fatalities in wars were soldiers. Now that 90% of fatalities in wars are civilians your point is dubious at best, although I have no access to research on gender victims of current conflicts. Certainly, I expect more females died in the bombing raids on Dresden or Nagasaki simply due to their men being abroad fighting.
By the way, I was posting as Bob and under the various Goddess names too. Under the name Bob I ridiculed the idea that males could be victims of rape by females but I admit now I was wrong about that, certainly adult women are convicted of rape when they have sex with underage boys.
On the question of chivalry, yes that is patriarchal and patronising, but it was I suppose some form of moderating effect on the excesses of male abuse within a medieval patriarchy. (In the same way that the law 'an eye for an eye' which now seems brutal was originally intended to moderate retribution) A female artist whose works consisted mainly of short thought-provoking statements had one work that 'Men used to protect women'. Now that we no longer protect women we should really stop attacking them. If you were in an abusive relationship, then you should have left it at once, and though the same advice applies to beaten women more women are financially dependent on their husbands and more fearful of being tracked down and killed, with justification.
I don't believe 50% of violence is carried out by women, nor that their violence is as serious for the most part but that doesn't affect your point. You say violence would increase overall if women were able to fight better or armed. Female on male violence probably would increase, but male on female violence would decrease. As most men have a natural physical advantage at least in terms of strengh, it would be more equitable to level the playing field. I'm sure male potential rapists would be discouraged if that was the case. I'm sure some rapes (of either sex) are carried out simply because their victims freeze in panic and shock and don't even scream for help - and that is where martial arts come into their own, trained fighters bodies react out of habit and with the confidence the training bring.
The figure of up to 200 million disappeared is down mostly to selective abortions, it's a UN figure I found in the excellent report, "Violence against women: zero tolerance" by Anna Diamantopoulou, the European Commissioner responsible for Employment and Social Affairs. Seemingly China, India and South Korea have the greatest gender imbalances. This is the total gender imbalance that takes into account the natural slight imbalance of 1.05 males to every female, I believe leaves the global ratio at 1.13 males to females born.
"So widespread that, globally, women aged 15 to 44 are more likely to be maimed or die as a result of male violence than through cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war together. The United Nations estimate that 200 million females are missing in the world; women who should have been born or grown up, but were killed by infanticide or selective abortion."
I won't quote the original document if you don't insist on it simply as most UN reports are in scanned pdf format so I'd have to spend hours reading them. Other sources quote 113-200 million from the same UN source.. ( The consequences of hundreds of millions of Chinese men who all have army training and can't find wives, but can see western women naked on the internet, are slightly scary although I am digressing greatly).
Although women are complicit in this, this is a natural consequence of population limitation in a patriarchy where boys are more valuable to their parents than girls.
You say it makes no sense to analyse violence by gender as compared to race but I disagree. If there is any distinguishable traits to the problem and we wish to address the problem then we need to first identify it.
Anyway, thanks for being courteous, calm and intelligent, I hope you are also openminded. This isn't the issue I most identify with, but it is an issue that is part of my identity. I don't feel I am - as I've been accused - of being over-protective or patronising and I feel many of the comments from male posters criticisng Utopias article were far more over the top and misinformed than the original piece. I do think you were bing unfair to characterise her piece as fascist. I wish more women had posted here on this, perhaps that reflects a gender imbalance on Indymedia or perhaps simply that female posters here naturally stay away from such heated threads.
dan
Rizla, Robert, Gary
12.12.2006 12:35
I bet you'd rather be insulted than raped.
Robert,
Gender violence is wider than relationship violence, though you are doubtless correct about the number of studies. I think there are more numerous and credible studies that 'prove' the opposite though.
Gary,
I'd agree with you fully, although I can see why a womans shelter would want to point out minor abuse can lead to serious violence so you are being slightly unfair. I think the focus should be on more serious crimes and I think there is clear evidence males are the main perpetrators
dan
to bob
12.12.2006 14:22
You say you feel superior to other men for not particpating in violence against women. You further claim that you ability not to do so is entirely a product of your ideology.
Well, I for one disagree with your biased ideology, and I have no problem refraining from violence towards women. In fact I have never hit one or called one a bad name in my life.
So your attempt to tie the ability to refrain from violence to one specific ideology and that one ideology only quite frankly is very dishonest.
What you is saying is, if you do not agree with me politically you are a violent person.
What kind of opressive and monolithic ideology would espouse such closeminded nonsense?
Hans Side
e-mail:
admin@hansside.dk
Iraq - Martial Arts - DV - Missing Women - Your Thoughts
12.12.2006 14:33
Thank you for your response.
The way wars are now fought has changed considerably over the centuries and as you quite rightly say 90% of the casualties of war are now civilians. However, in most societies (except maybe China these days) the civilian population is normally 50/50 (although there usually are slightly more women). The current war in Iraq is no different, and coalition forces have so far lost 3179 soldiers in the conflict, of these 68 (just over 2%) are women. Estimates of how many Iraqi soldiers were killed is approximately 25000, and although there are no figures to tell us exactly how many of these were women, it is fairly safe to assume that there were very few. So of the 10% of military forces who lost their lives at least 97% were men. Combined with the civilian numbers, this would mean that men are still the biggest victims of war.
It is also interesting that the war also made Jessica Lynch a household heroine, and Lynndie England a monster. It was chivalry that lead Special Forces to storm the hospital where Jessica Lynch was being held by the enemy, a special treatment that was not extended to male prisoners of war. We both agree that such behavior based on gender is patronizing and is in fact counter productive to equality for women, but isn’t that the same kind of suggestion that Utopia has made in dealing with violence towards women? Men must take steps to stop hurting women. Again, why are women so special to require exemplary treatment like Jessica Lynch (who by all accounts I’ve read was understandably scared, but in no need of immediate rescue)? “I am a woman, and you are a man therefore you should come to my rescue” is a reliance on a man being chivalrous, which surely is against feminist belief.
Whilst I certainly wouldn’t suggest that women should be compliant with a rapist, and that she should fight tooth and claw if her life depended on it, I think that martial arts training can breed a false sense of security where one does not exist. Also, as Utopia quoted in her original article:
"Military training camps, police academies and even some self-defense pros are constantly searching for more effective methods of suppressing the human revulsion to taking human life." - The Science of Creating Killers
How many men getting into fights in bars have martial arts training? Do they get into fights because they have martial arts training, or because they are just unlucky? Train somebody to do something and its human nature that they will at some point want to put it to the test. Had my abusive girlfriend had this kind of training, my long term effects might not just have been psychological. And you are of course correct that when the violence started I should have left, and should I be unfortunate enough to be in the same situation again you wouldn’t see me for dust. But if I had in fact set myself up as a DV victim, then how many other male and female victims are doing the same. Why should it be down to me to take responsibility for a guy who punches a woman around who won’t leave him? Like you said, I had a choice. So does virtually every DV victim, but why according to Utopia are the women my responsibility?
Thank you for the link to the article on ‘missing women’, although I found it to be full of spin. Personally I’m not a big fan of abortion (but then nobody is really keen to take the life of an unborn fetus), but I recognize that the aim is not to stop a life from forming, but to give women control over their own lives. However the article does take certain liberties. According to law, abortion is not a murder, since the child is not recognized as such until it has been born; otherwise abortion doctors would be mass murderers and the women at the clinics willing accomplices. Fetuses don’t count and therefore shouldn’t be added to a list of ‘missing women’. Also the article you link to has lots of one-sided information, with no similar statistics for men. Apparently the most dangerous place a women can live is in her own home?
“Far from being a safe place, home is often the most dangerous place of all. In Ireland in 1998, over half of all women murdered were killed by their partners or husbands.”
So does that mean that a woman living on the streets is safer than living in her own home? It’s scaremongering nonsense. I’m sorry to be so dismissive of it, but I think the article had its own agenda which lead to skewing the facts.
But back to your response; I might have been overzealous with my ‘fascist’ comment, but Utopia has yet to prove to me that she can convey her opinions without using hyperbole, finger pointing or name-calling, and looking around she’s not alone, but that’s no excuse. She has said that men ‘need to address’ the problem of violence against women, which aside from blaming me for something some non-English speaking tribesman in the Congo whom I’ll never meet has done, does nothing to solve the problem. It only allows her to wash her hands of it.
However Dan, I’d like to know how you think we as a society should address violence, and what measures you would impose if you were in a position to do so.
Many thanks
Neil
Dan
12.12.2006 14:52
As pointed out earlier woman are more likly to abuse their children than men, yet the notion still persists that children are better off in the care of the mother.
Domestic violence is greater in lesbian couples than with gay men couples, go figure?
Glad you mentioned credibility in regards to studies about domestic violence. The notion used to be that 95% of domestic violence was male on female, but these studies it turns out, are what is refered to as "junk science" since they only ask woman the questions about DV and not men, and are not peer reviewed. The ones I am refering to have been peer reviewed, and are credible. They show that woman are as violent as men.
Dan it's time to get down off of the white horse you are riding and take off the knights suit, the emporor has no clothes!
Robert
white horses
12.12.2006 16:17
Which ideology ? I never said only anarchists or feminists are capable of maintaining a non-violent attitude to women, just that if someone does attack women and excuses the practice then I wouldn't consider them anarchists or feminists. And if you are going to call me dishonest then it would be better to quote what you thought I'd said to provoke that judgement rather than to misrepresent me. That could be construed as dishonesty on your part rather than just poor English.
"They show that woman are as violent as men. " - Robert
Feel free to refute the two additions to this article if you can quote studies that prove that but just saying it doesn't make it true, or even believable. It's nice to know you consider me your emperor though Robert, though understandable if you have struck a woman in anger.
Neil,
Talking of Iraq you say "Combined with the civilian numbers, this would mean that men are still the biggest victims of war." I don't doubt your military figures at all but I'm afraid I have no gender break down on civilian deaths which far outweigh military deaths. I would note though that in pre-war UK and US opinion polls women were much more heavily against the war being launched and so could be considered less culpable for the resulting carnage. Certainly the bravest and most capable peace activists I met were women.
It was exploitation of chivalry that led to the storming of the hospital where Lynch was held, it was a staged event for TV cameras as there were no gunmen present. It may have been Iraqi chivalry though that led her to be taken to the hospital rather than just finished off or left to die. You may not agree with that but if we start having arguments about the Iraq war, or even child abuse, I feel we are hijacking the thread away from the original premise - male culpability in stopping male on female violence. These issues deserve their own articles.
You say "Men must take steps to stop hurting women." and that is just what her preface states, though she feels the need to justify including non-violent men like yourself. Now perhaps you could say to her that even non-violent women have a duty to stop male violence on women too, or perhaps even female violence on men and I see nothing in her article that would refute that. It would be silly for me to speak for her. I'd agree the article was hyperbolic, perhaps to provoke such a busy response, but by taking the time to address male violence in an article she is hardly washing her hands of her responsibility of it.
You ask "but why according to Utopia are the women my responsibility? " and her response, and my response too is contained in the preface "because globally, men as a group hold more power than women." I don't think you'd deny men hold more power than women although you could argue that you aren't one of them so feel no such responsibility.
Listen, as an analogy, I may have better chances of getting a better job since I'm a white male, and I have no control over that. I do have a responsibility if I hire someone not to discriminate so, and to challenge sexism in the workplace when I am aware of it.
I feel people who have martial arts training are more centred and confident and less likely to provoke bar room brawls - less likely to even be in a bar - as they can take out their frustrations in training. Again though, lets not digress to far since that was my point and not Utopias.
The article I quoted was to prove the UN 113-200 million figure on selective abortions favouring male children and leading to gender imbalances, it is widely quoted in webpages of various political shades, and it doesn't just apply to China. Here is a quote from a different article that is specific to India :
"In India, female foeticide - the sex-selective abortion of girls - has led to an alarming "gender gap" in the country's population. In 1990, when the census showed that there were 25 million more males than females in India, the government reacted by introducing a law making it illegal to detect the sex of a foetus through ultrasound examination. Yet by 2001, the gender gap had risen to 35 million, and now experts estimate it as high as 50 million."
Again, it is not strictly related to Utopias article but it is an example of the detrimental effect of patriarchy.
"However Dan, I’d like to know how you think we as a society should address violence, and what measures you would impose if you were in a position to do so."
If I was in charge I'd execute every last one of you. No, sorry, that is a joke. Educating everyone from birth to know that war is the greatest crime would be a good start, and that no one should obey orders to fight, and to treat each woman as you'd want your own mother or daughter treated by others. I'm an anarchist so I'd naturally recommend reading anarchist writers or playing Ani Difranco songs all day long but I'm sure there are other valid philosophies for limiting global violence. Spending proper cash on assisting people from reoffending rather than just dumping them in prison and then letting them out seems sensible. I'd come across all hippy if I attempt any other easy answers I'm afraid, I'm not a pacifist myself so perhaps you should be telling me what how you'd answer your own question ? I'm having to leave now so unless any women or feminists step up then the macho men can 'win' the arguments, try to restrain their influence with your more sensible attitudes please and I look forward to seeing later if your own answer to addressing violence - I may even follow your advice.
cheers,
dan
Equality when it suits
12.12.2006 16:26
Me: “Are you suggesting driving offences be treated with the same feminist outlook of all men are responsible for stopping driving offences?"
You: “If you saw a drunk get into a car, then yes, I'd say it was a duty for you to stop them from killing, especially if they had caused injury before.”
If it were a drunken man who would not listen to sense, would it be OK for a woman to use physical force to stop him? (Presumed answer: Yes all men are bastards and deserve the wrath of a angry woman to keep them from harming others..)
What if that drunk was a woman who would not listen to sense? Would it be OK for a man to use physical force to stop her? (Presumed answer: No women are delicate little creatures who reject all forms of violence – except against men, women and children..)
Think about it..!
Better still. If a man knew a woman who was violent and abusive to children, but would not listen to sense, would it be OK to use physical force to stop her abusing children? Yes? No? Not sure? You’re making it up as you go along.
Can you imagine if bigger men had to put up with this type of shit from smaller men? No! Neither can I.
When you say there are 200 million women 'missing' from the planet do you mean metaphorically, as in a world of their own. I only ask because I could perhaps believe there are 200 million feminists ‘out there’…
Think about what you are saying; if more men are killed than women, logically there are many more men are missing than women. Doesn’t that undermine your logic for presenting the dubious statistic in the first place? Or don’t missing men count in your world?
Q: What have Zionists and Feminists got in common?
A: A self-deluding belief they are above any criticism, and indeed above any law, mixed in with a perverse attitude of righteous indignation and of zero tolerance towards an opposing view.
Non-Extremist
Before I go...
12.12.2006 18:38
Not meaning to harp on about the Iraq war, but it does cover a lot of gender issues, particularly those of chivalry, Jessica Lynch being the first that sprang to mind. But again I ask if what happened there is the same as what’s happening here; men must come to the rescue of women. In my opinion having groups of men dedicated to helping keep women safe (and just women, men can after all look after themselves) then it is no better than me saying ‘ladies first’ or offering my seat on a lifeboat to a member of the ‘weaker sex’. It’s patronizing and insulting and it reinforces the stereotype that women are not capable of looking after themselves.
With regards to ‘men must stop violence towards women’, I was repeating what Utopia had said, but still haven’t been informed about how I (the man responsible for the recent deaths of 3 prostitutes, through simply being male) can stop it. Call me old fashioned, but if I am being held responsible for something I haven’t done, then please tell me how I can change matters.
“Each man must look into his heart and ask himself what he can do to stop male violence against women. Speaking out is the first step.”
I’m sorry, but if that’s the best suggestion then we’re all in trouble. I’ll say again what Don, the 14%er has already said, how many of us men were brought up and encouraged to hit women? Dan, I’m sure you were taught exactly the same thing, and here you are speaking out against violence against women, but you’re still as responsible for the deaths of 3 prostitutes as I am. Not guilty, but responsible, simply by birth. How does that help matters? My entire life, I have had the same ‘don’t hit women’ mantra repeated to me by my parents, teachers, friends and colleagues. In this time only 1 man that I can remember condoned hitting women, but several women thought it was okay.
Let’s say for example that the article’s heading was this:
“All Muslims are responsible for stopping terrorist bombings in the UK.”
Some dullard reads it and automatically associates Muslims with terrorists and their view of any Muslims that they encounter has become that little bit more jaded. The story is one sided and deliberately geared to invoke anger, as we have both said. I’ve taken a paragraph from Utopia’s article and changed ‘men’ to ‘Muslims’. The only place I could ever imagine seeing this published would be on a National Front leaflet.
“Muslims may feel unease when Muslim violence against British people is addressed including non-violent Muslims. However, all Muslims, both violent and non-violent, must be held responsible for stopping terrorist bombings in the UK.
Violent Muslims must stop assaulting British people. Non-violent Muslims must not sit by and allow Muslim violence against the British to continue. Their inaction-or indifference- is passive Muslim violence against the British. Breaking the silence by naming an atrocity is the first step in ending it.”
Be honest, if you were handed something like this by somebody in the street you’d chuck it in the next bin you saw, and maybe tell the next police officer you saw what was going on. It’s bordering on hate speech. So why is it okay to speak about men in the same way? You’re right that Utopia doesn’t say women shouldn’t help too, but that’s not the point of the article is it, anymore than a National Front pamphlet might suggest that the UK has improved since we’ve become more racially diverse. Dan, would you defend someone who tried to put the blame of the London Tube bombings on all Muslims, or confront them?
To quote Spiderman; “With great power comes great responsibility”. But in my case it should say; “With no real power comes great responsibility.” You can’t have responsibility without power (unless you a man), if you can’t wield your power then you have nothing to be responsible for. Am I responsible for what the finance director of my company does? No. Is she responsible for what I do? Yes, because she has the power to sack me if I screw up and that’s her responsibility. Pointing the finger at a quadriplegic, or a Downs sufferer and blaming them for violence which men do against women is ludicrous, but they are ‘in power’ after all. What ‘power’ do they have other than being men?
Anyway, I gotta run now. Hopefully I’ll set the world straight tomorrow.
Cheers
Neil
Riz, Neil
12.12.2006 19:53
I've been delayed so thought I'd reply again one last time. Your response is wasn't deleted, it was merely hidden, and in this respect Indymedia is a freer site than any other. Notice that more of mine are hiden than yours, although perhaps with more cause. Although to be honest I could swear I did see one deleted from this thread but then I'd just threatened the friend of an admin so maybe either that or my tiredness explains it. By the way I forgot to say I loathe and detest Germaine Greer and consider her neither an intellect not a feminist, just a self-promoting sad Aussie 'media-personality'. I do hope you were mocking her too as you seemed to be and not agreeing with her.
Here's what you were missing, as most regulars know just add
You can always see alll the hidden posts here:
Neil,
I forgot in the Iraq example regardless of the gender breakdown of victims, you can't deny it is men who are doing most of the killing, which sort of proves UBs article more than the opinion poll thing I said. I just thought I'd open with a cheap shot.
I would've guessed from your attitude that you would be the sort to offer your lifeboat place to a woman, or to me even - though I'd decline politely I hope. It's five prostitutes dead now Neil and I'd guess from your spelling you aren't a UK voter so I wouldn't hold you responsible, but I do hold every UK voter/resident partially responsible for laws which force prostitutes into unecessaily dangerous situations. The killer is almost certainly mad and irresponsible, but the people who make the prostitution laws are not. Your responsibility for changing things that you haven't been party to is to change the attitudes of those who have and the environment that permits their folly - and also to take action to prevent that abuse. I'd bet my life if you saw a man killing a prostitute then you wouldn't just walk on by thinking 'It's not my concern', and I'd bet if you thought someone you knew was likely to do such a thing you wouldn't just ignore it, you'd cause a stink.
I am very amused by how close your Muslim pastiche of Utopia sounds to the last few Tony Blair speeches I have heard, identical almost, and you are quite right it (and he) does sound fascist. However, unlike men, muslims don't have most of the power in the world, non-muslims do, and that I feel still validates Utopias point. As an anarchist I always have to go with the underdog. And although it is true you may not be one of the men who hold the real power or so hold the real culpability for men abusing women, you must admit it is still mainly 'a man's world' ( to quote James Brown) and that you have advantages you are probably not even aware of because of that, similar to the workplace-sexism analogy I made. And so I feel you have responsibilities to match, again perhaps without being aware of them.
Anyway you robbed me of your advice to address violence - never ask questions you don't have an answer for !
Nice to have spoken with you though, goodnight,
dan
My plans to rule the world
13.12.2006 09:52
Alas, if I only asked questions I knew the answers to, my days of learning and understanding would come to a very abrupt end! But I’ll come back to my plans for world domination later.
Also, I think you may have my comments confused with another poster concerning the Iraq war and male violence in general. Mine wasn’t that women commit more acts of violence than men do, but that the main recipient of male violence is other men, by a considerable degree, and that concentrating our resources on protecting women seems to be an act of chivalry.
I’d like to think I’d have the character and courage to offer up my place in a lifeboat to somebody more deserving, like a child, but I’m not sure of the ethics involved with giving up spaces for women anymore. It’s a chivalrous act, just like only concentrating of stopping male on female violence, and if my offer of assistance is accepted then it is an admittance that women need men’s help and are not equal to us. But if the lifeboats are being lowered and it is indeed ‘every man for himself’ then I guess very few women and children would be on those lifeboats, since men are bigger and stronger than women and children. Indeed why would men sacrifice themselves to save women?
I’m sorry to see that the ‘new Jack the Ripper’ has now killed 5 prostitutes, and the number looks set to rise. However, surely this is the responsibility of men and not UK voters, of which I am one (long story), since it is men that have the power regardless of who votes. Although by blaming any faceless majority you are simply passing the buck onto a group of people who are unaccountable for what has happened. I’m a UK voter, but being considered responsible for what has happened does nothing to make me want to do anything about it myself. You are just as responsible for what has happened as I am, and so is Utopia (I guess), so why should I bother to do anything about it? It seems to be a big issue to Utopia, so why isn’t she doing something? Sure I could “look into my heart and ask myself what I can do to stop male violence against women”, but what does that actually mean? No one has argued that men in the UK aren’t brought up not to hit women, and from what I’ve seen in the media no man has said “Well done! Killing female prostitutes is a good thing”, so what good is reaching into my heart and speaking out about it?
The environment in the UK only permits the murderers folly insomuch that we have freedom there, and freedom works on the principle that people can be trusted not to murder people. If the murderers actions were indeed permitted then we wouldn’t be trying to arrest them, and if caught wouldn’t then be baying to execute the perpetrator (which will happen). I’m not sure of the law, but is prostitution legal in the UK?
The Muslim pastiche was a big strong, and I agree that what much of the government has said recently is shockingly close. I am a little worried though that only the people in power can commit acts of fascism though, since that would open the door for increased race hatred between minority groups. However, I’m becoming unsure as to what you mean by ‘power’ and in particular who has it? The trendy view is that white men have all the power and therefore (as both Utopia and yourself agree) are responsible for the world’s wrongs. The 9/11, the Spanish train and the London tube bombings are all the responsibility of white men, since we have the power. But then doesn’t that also make us responsible for all the good things that have happened in the last 5000 years as well?
Surely if a white man looks at the last 5000 years and believes that more good stuff than bad stuff has happened, then he is free to leave things the way they are? Since the world he is responsible for isn’t perfect, but could be a lot worse. So why should he change anything? For example, white men are responsible for abolishing slavery, opposing racism and sexism because these things are happening under our ‘power’. Have I got that right, or are we only responsible for bad things?
Anyway, regarding a few of my ideas for stopping violence:
Firstly I don’t personally think ignoring violence or refusing to fight is an answer. There will always be someone who’ll resort to violence, because they are either greedy or insane. Plus no societies that refrain from violence exist anymore, because they got wiped out and are therefore an extremely bad model to work from. I think that telling people not to get violent would have the same effect as telling people not to touch each other fondly. People would ignore the rules.
A better idea would be to understand why people use violence, rather than simply saying “don’t do it”. For example, people get violent because of ‘road rage’ which has lead to deaths. If you can make sure the situations which cause ‘road rage’ don’t occur then you will most likely stop any associated injury or deaths. Lack of control or a feeling powerlessness seems to be key factors in triggering aggression. Why (powerful white men especially) do people feel this way and why does it cause them to lash out.
Plus people shouldn’t be attracted to power. For every Hitler there are ten thousand Eva Brauns, all happy to be with such a powerful man. Power seems to be an aphrodisiac, especially for women, so why shouldn’t men want to pursue it and fight tooth and claw to hang onto it? Just look at the Crays, they didn’t have any trouble getting women, proving (to them) that their violent way of life was justified.
“In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women,” Says Tony Montana in the movie Scarface.
If you got the women first, why bother with the rest of it?
Anyway that’s all for now. I look forward to reading your responses Dan.
Cheers
Neil
inequitable violence
13.12.2006 12:25
Since men as a group commit most violence it is incumbent on us to try hardest to stop that.
Most victims of male violence are probably other males.
Women as a group are generally less physically able to resist this or retaliate.
Therefore you could argue that the greatest reduction of violence would be to address male on male violence, and that would be true.
However, I argue that because male on female violence is less equitable there is a greater responsibility to reduce that first. And that if we can't stop inequitable violence towards another group we will never be able to address our inter-group violence.
You said your grilfriends violence towards you left psychological scars. Now I'd bet you have received at least as much violence from males and it didn't leave so many scars. And that this would be the case even if you cared for the man as much. And I'm no psychologist and hate pyschobabble, but part of this would be down to you being raised not to hit females and therefore conditioned not to expect violence from females, and feeling psychologically unable to defend yourself. In a way it must have made you feel abused not only by the violence but by the advice of your parents and society that made you defenceless, morally impotent so to speak, doubly abused.
You have asked several times if there was a man here who wasn't taught not to hit women. I kept silent but I was never taught that by my family at least. .As a young child my close relatives and cousins were strong, bigger girls who could fight well, and when there was trouble my parents would let us fight it out. At school, where other boys who could fight would run away from the one or two violent girls for reasons you could probably empathise with, I'd stand my ground and treat them as equals. I fought a lot at school but I only had to punch a girl once and it was in self-defence ( at about age seven or so). She was bigger than me and had dirty fingernails and was poised to rip me open, she apologised after I'd picked her up. And I can remember once asking without shame my older sister to beat up a guy who was bullying me, though she settled the matter without violence.
Saying that a lot of my girlfriends have been good fighters, and some of them have lashed out at me and bruised or even drew blood, but I can laugh that off. Even now though if I felt under serious and major physical threat from a woman I would belt her without qualms, I've just never felt I had to.
I don't think we have been a patriarchy for 5000 years, I'd guess less than 1500 years, perhaps only 600 years. And while it is arguable if we have progressed in the right direction, sure men deserve a lot of the credit for that as they did for the good things that happened previously in matriarchies. However we'd be in a better world now if the power - and the credit - had been shared equally over that time. We have left virtually half the population stuck doing nothing more than housework. Like 99.999% of feminists I 'm not a man hater. I wouldn't prefer living in a global matriarchy, I only recommend local matriarchies to balance out the current global patriarchy. Feminists want equality not domination. I want to have sex with women who are my equal - not live in a gender imbalanced world where if I'm lucky enough to meet a woman she becomes my property. I have happier relationships with women who I know can defend themselves because I know I don't have to feel I need to worry about them from the sort of damaged men I know and could easily become.
Power is money and money equates to physical violence. From the street to the boardroom to parliamment it is obvious which sex is still dominant. And since racism is related, which race.
Women can host new life and that's why lifeboats generally have a higher representation of women, it's an innate species survival instinct, I think, and so probably predates chivalry. In an equitable society lifeboats should be populated with the young, the fertile, the worthy and the worst swimmers. In reality the men who survive at other expense are probably the most intelligent and the most cowardly.
By the way, in case you are new here, this isn't meant to be a discussion forum and the admins will be frowning on this. We could've cured cancer together and they'd be likely to hide the thread if we congratulated ourselves too much after the initial announcement.
all good things,
dan
Title
13.12.2006 15:34
Anna Theseology
Dan's comments....
13.12.2006 16:32
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I never justified rape/murder. What a primitive allegation from Dan.
A typical example of a feminist comment from a frustrated and disappointed person, who is totally running out of arguments and cannot accept that other people do not share his/her opinion and tries to provocate by quoting other posters out of context and insulting them.
We talk here about violence - any kind of violence - and only to consider rape/murder crimes and on the other side totally ignoring any violence including child mistreatment from women against children shows me, that you are totally biased and single-sided against men.
Yohan
=======================================
Like 99.999% of feminists I 'm not a man hater. I wouldn't prefer living in a global matriarchy, I only recommend local matriarchies to balance out the current global patriarchy. Feminists want equality not domination. Dan
----------------------------------------------------
Feminism means to fight for advantages for some - but not for all - women solely out of the justification that they are women. - This does not mean necessarily equality, not even among women themselves, not to talk about equality between men and women.
What about reading Solanas (a feminist, prostitute and convicted killer) manifesto to get an idea about equality, many leading feminists made openly man-hating statements.
To argue about violence from men against women, but to ignore violence from women against men and children is not equality...
As a married man since over 30 years and with 2 daughters and 1 fostergirl, I can only smile about your double-standards and double-speak. I think you are a very lonely and unhappy person, who sees a rapist and murder everywhere...in the streets and in the bedroom - and I feel sorry for you.
Yohan
yohan
anticipate
13.12.2006 19:58
French I presume ? We talk here about the article, have a look in it to see if child abuse comes up ? No, then why hijack this already long and digressive thread - why not start a new article on your pet subject ? Can't you handle the facts and arguments here ? There is plenty on this thread about female violence on males, it is probably over represented.
Solanas was convicted of attempted murder but I think if she had met you - or me for that matter - she was have taken better aim. She is as representative of feminists as Michael Stone is of Rangers fans, although I'm sure most feminists would be embarrassed by my support too. Why not try to criticise some real modern day feminists intellectuals or activists ?
Thanks for your concern about my happiness but I have close friends and beautiful women who'd sleep with me if I wanted to - though I admit I must have problems if I'm taking the time to respond to you. And as for being argumentative, well I think Neil proved I can sometimes argue courteously.
You say I see murders and rapists everywhere and luckily that isn't true, I do know safe men who I'd trust with my neices care, I just know dangerous men too. And say you lived in Ipswich, wouldn't you be looking at every man you knew and every man you didn't know with suspicion tonight ? Would you let your daughters go out with an older man you didn't know ? I doubt it. Does that make you a 'lonely and unhappy' person or just sensibly cautious ?
About my most extreme recommendation was self-defence classes for girls. It said on the news tonight that Ipswichs self-defence classes are full of worried young girls. I'd agree with Neil that this is too little too late and will just give them a false sense of security, but at times of worry it is important to be doing something. Too many women wait until they are attacked and their confidence and trust is shattered before they commit to the years of training required to have genuine confidence in themselves. Now thanks for your pity Yohan, it is very comforting, but you could promise me one thing just to humour me and cheer me up - how about asking your daughters to take a proper self-defence class so just in the extremely rare possibility they ever meet a dangerous man they don't freeze ?
someone you don't know
is someone you don't know
get a firm grip, girl
before you let go
for every hand extended
another lies in wait
keep an eye on that one
anticipate
dan
SCUM manifesto
13.12.2006 20:31
"There is yet another reason for the male to isolate himself: every man is an island. Trapped inside himself, emotionally isolated, unable to relate, the male has a horror of civilization, people, cities, situations requiring an ability to understand and relate to people. So like a scared rabbit, he scurries off, dragging Daddy's little asshole with him to the wilderness, suburbs, or, in the case of the hippy -- he's way out, Man! -- all the way out to the cow pasture where he can fuck and breed undisturbed and mess around with his beads and flute.
The `hippy', whose desire to be a `Man', a `rugged individualist', isn't quite as strong as the average man's, and who, in addition, is excited by the thought having lots of women accessible to him, rebels against the harshness of a Breadwinner's life and the monotony of one woman. In the name of sharing and cooperation, he forms a commune or tribe, which, for all its togetherness and partly because of it, (the commune, being an extended family, is an extended violation of the female's rights, privacy and sanity) is no more a community than normal `society'.
A true community consists of individuals -- not mere species members, not couples -- respecting each others individuality and privacy, at the same time interacting with each other mentally and emotionally -- free spirits in free relation to each other -- and co-operating with each other to achieve common ends. Traditionalists say the basic unit of `society' is the family; `hippies' say the tribe; no one says the individual.
The `hippy' babbles on about individuality, but has no more conception of it than any other man. He desires to get back to Nature, back to the wilderness, back to the home of furry animals that he's one of, away from the city, where there is at least a trace, a bare beginning of civilization, to live at the species level, his time taken up with simple, non-intellectual activities -- farming, fucking, bead stringing. The most important activity of the commune, the one upon which it is based, is gang-banging. The `hippy' is enticed to the commune mainly by the prospect for free pussy -- the main commodity to be shared, to be had just for the asking, but, blinded by greed, he fails to anticipate all the other men he has to share with, or the jealousies and possessiveness for the pussies themselves.
Men cannot co-operate to achieve a common end, because each man's end is all the pussy for himself. The commune, therefore, is doomed to failure; each `hippy' will, in panic, grad the first simpleton who digs him and whisks her off to the suburbs as fast as he can. The male cannot progress socially, but merely swings back and forth from isolation to gang-banging. " - Solanas -
""I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families." - Thatcher -
dan
I need some help
13.12.2006 20:39
Can someone explain what the difference is between a matriarchy and a patriarchy and why one is better than the other? Also could anyone provide an example of a positive role model matriachy in existence today?
Rizla
SCUM manifesto
13.12.2006 21:17
It happens, it's life. Get over it Dan and don't ever let the opposite gender define what you should be.
Think like nature does and I can assure you many treasures for your efforts.
Rizla
take the compliment
13.12.2006 23:19
There are small scale positive matriarchial role~model societies in existence today but it's not my place to reveal them online as I'm not part of them. Although somebody earlier in this thread doubted there were a surviving pacifist people and the Sami (Laplanders) claim to have never been to war with anyone. Not exactly a world power but they might outsurvive us all. The fact that matriarchies are so rare, like the Sami, proves my point that they should be expanded.
Yes, some 'feminists', especially abused females like the two I quoted, go over the score in opposite directions with dangerous results but you have to empathise and see the context of their lives they are reacting against. This is still a patriarchy and I feel you are wrong to say they have no justification for their subsequent abuse. Personallly I can't forgive Thatcher though since she did cause more damage to people I love, though I do see it is silly to have shot Warhol who was hardly the most macho man around.
I wouldn't class Utopia that way from anything she said though she was hyperbolic and as her language was less violent than mine, you must admit her solutions were less extreme than mine too. She didn't condone the arming of women nor extermination of men nor did she try to overcompensate by being more macho and controlling than the worst of us.
Don't tempt me with treasures or I'll think you are grooming me ! In return, I could promise you if you treat women with greater respect then you will have better sex with better looking women than you have known before or probably deserve. Not all 'chicks dig jerks', from my own experience anyway. You may not have a sister or a daughter but you do have a mother, and assuming you weren't one of these majority of lads that were seemingly abused by her, treat the girls you know with the same level of respect you'd wish for her.
And unless you have other sexual preferences then don't think of females as an opposite gender, think of females as a complimentary gender and try to download some of the work of the woman who said this:
i search your profile for a translation
i study the conversation like a map
'cause i know there is strength
in the differences between us
and i know there is comfort
where we overlap
dan
title of this comment
13.12.2006 23:36
Absolutely. But 'feminism' is like saying 'mustard.' Which feminism or which branch of feminism? To me, I always like the term 'humanist,' which I think I am. I'm pro-sex, pro-pornography, pro-NRA. That divides me from a lot of so-called feminist who I've readily debated as well as other forms of censors. We need more equality across the board. I think feminism certainly is not an outdated idea. I consider myself a 'femi-nazi' (a term which I use to my advantage) because in a lot of 'conspiracy of women' speeches, I'm making a sarcastic proposal. It's not completely eliminating half the population but finding a planet where women could be by themselves just to see if it would make any fucking difference. Not of course painting all men with the same fucking broad stroke. Realizing that my target is men in positions of power which the average man sadly completely lacks. My target is always the politicians, the fathers, the fore-fathers, the fuckers, the corporate soldiers. "
Author information
Bob-Dan's views on violence and responsibility
14.12.2006 02:36
-------------------------------------
The topic of this article:
All men, both violent and non violent are responsible for stopping male violence against women ....
------------------------------------
Strange judgement indeed:
The above title clearly contains an accusation against ALL men.
However, I am not responsible for wrongdoings and criminal actions of any other man, solely because I am a man...
Following the logic of the above article, all women might be kept responsible for any wrongdoings or criminal actions of women in return.
To accuse all men of being responsible for violence against women and to call non-violent married men with children 'idiots' will not work. Asking for help and support should not be done in this way.
This subject itself might be acceptable for non-violent men (the huge majority by the way) if you write: 'For all non-violent men, please help us to stop violence against women...'
Accusations are the wrong way to go...
Yohan
PLEASE help us to stop violence against women...
14.12.2006 05:28
If you see a woman being attacked, please go to her assistance. If you know a way that might prevent such an attack, please pursue it. If you can understand that something may be dangerous to women, please speak out about it even if it means personal risk or loss. Don't worry about being accused of patronising women, if anyone says that to you then send them back to this newswire and someone will explain it to them.
As a fellow man I'm happy to say please to you for your help in stopping male violence on females if that is all it takes to win your empathy, but please don't ask any women to say please for helping to stop violence against them - you can see how that may come across as a bit insulting. If you were drowning in a river then you wouldn't like it if the person who pushed you in asked you to say please before they pulled you out.
Please, please, please especially also consider my request and allow your daughters the choice of attending a long term self-defence class, before you regret not doing that. If you say you are considering that then I will withdraw all my insults and apologise unconditionally, I was tired and probably mistook your comments for someone elses and never gave you the benefit of the doubt because of circumstances beyond our control. Really, it is probably the best single thing you could do to help protect women in general and those you care for in particular if you genuinely want to help. Take them to a martial arts class or better yet ask your wife to take them. The more females of the next generation who can fight well, the more muderers and rapists will think twice, the less guys like me will worry. The world will be a better place. Please.
dan
caveat emptor!
14.12.2006 10:59
On this Web site, we also address many of the fads, marketing trends, fallacies and pitfalls promoted in the martial arts, women's self-defense, streetfighting, knife fighting markets regarding self-defense. Just because an organization has the words "self defense" in their advertising doesn't mean they are providing reliable information. In fact, there is a lot of dangerous misinformation being sold out there. We address these issues so you can be an informed consumer -- if you choose to pursue further training. We provide supported facts about these markets because misinformation is more dangerous than no information. It is dangerous because, commonly:
It is untested and unreliable against both how criminals operate and the wide spectrum of how violence occurs in this society.
With the training that would work, it is often excessive use of force for self-defense -- and is therefore illegal.
It commonly panders to preconceived ideas, assumptions about violence, dysfunctions, the desire of the student to "win" a fight and -- even more disquieting -- to "prove something."
It fails to take in considerations/complications regarding violence: like issues arising from adrenal stress, ingrained moral/ethical inhibitions against violence and the long-term psychological damage of committing severe violence on another human being.
It usually fails to address the legal issues, such as the difference between self-defense and fighting.
It does -- as many people outside these markets believe -- promote physical violence as the primary answer to personal safety. It, in fact, encourages it.
Although these statements are not categorically true of all training, they do apply to an overwhelming majority of what is commercially available. All too often instruction in these markets overly focus on the physical prowess aspect and ignore the countless other aspects that go into developing effective personal safety habits.
For the record, let us say: Personal safety is not about your ability to fight.
But that is what some slick talking salesman at the local martial arts school is going to tell you. And if you believe him, you not only are more likely to limit your options instead of gaining more, but you actually increase your risk. This is often because a conviction based on false/flawed training will usually result in you attempting to stay and fight when withdrawing from a situation is the more reliable option.
There are countless other issues that are far more important and far more effective for keeping you safe than knowing a martial art. If your goal is safety, you need to understand what is involved in the subject before you pay for what they call self-defense training, because most of it won't help you against a criminal assault. Nor does it match our definition of what needs to be in effective self-defense training. As such, if you buy into what they are selling as self-defense, then you are wasting your money.
Again, we stress, you need to be an informed consumer.
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Safety Tips and Self-Defense Against Rape
The best defenses against rape take no training. They are:
Yelling, running away and calling the police
If you feel uneasy about someone, don't let them isolate you.
Make a scene if you must.
Get to where other people are.
Use your viewer to see who is outside before you open the door.
Never let someone in if you feel uneasy about them.
Teach your children not to let others come into your home without your permission.
If someone wants to use the phone you can take the number and make the phone call for them.
Never enter your home alone if you think someone has entered illegally.
POW! About Physical Self Defense
Can women defend themselves? You better believe it! Women can be strong, and women can fight successfully. Women learn to punch and kick and break holds. In a 6-8 week class, women become so much stronger and more confident. It's exciting to watch fear turn into action.
A good suite of self defense techniques --
is easy to learn
works for all women's bodies, including those that aren't athletic
has both agressive techniques, like kicks and punches, and defensive techniques, like hold breaks
has enough moves to be useful in many situations, but not so many you can't remember them
works in a variety of positions -- standing, against a wall, and on the floor
I can't teach you how to throw a punch online, but I can give you some guidelines on fighting back. First, believe you're worth fighting for -- because you are. Next, increase the resources you have in a confrontation by learning some new physical techniques. Then practice, practice, practice, so your body knows instantly what to do.
Every confrontation is different, but statistically, women who defend themselves improve their chances of preventing rape. And while a self-defense class is not a guarantee, women who have taken one are statistically more likely to fight off an attacker. I encourage you to find the rape prevention class that's right for you.
Scenario-based self defense training
Having to physically defend oneself (e.g. blocks, punches, kicks, weapons, etc) should be considered the last line of self-defense, that needs to be used if several other techniques and strategies have failed which can often be much more effective than physical self-defense. Even if one is quite capable of physical self-defense, it is still often best to avoid being in a situation of having to physically defend oneself, because of possible:
Legal trouble.
Injury.
Revenge from attacker, on not just the defender, but family, friends, or property of the defender.
Use of firearms by attacker.
Multiple attackers and only one defender.
It is always better to use techniques to avoid or diffuse trouble before it gets to oneself, e.g:
Stay in groups at night
Park in well-lit areas
Avoid excess consumption of alcohol or drugs which could make you intoxicated and vulnerable
Try not to attract too much attention from potential attackers
Don't hang out with violent people you can't trust
Don't attend parties or other gatherings (especially where alcohol and or drugs are being heavily consumed) where there are people (especially groups) you don't know and/or can't trust, who could become violent.
Don't unnecesarily use violent language, threats or fighting stances (e.g. fists up, especially if a potential attacker tells you to do so) (genuine or joking), because:
A potential attacker may seize upon this as a Self-defense (theory) legal excuse for attacking, even if they know there is no real threat.
An intoxicated (or generally violent) person may perceive this as a genuine attack or threat and attack you pre-emptively.
If attack is imminent, there are further options before physical self-defense may be required:
Escaping by running or vehicle, if possible.
Attracting attention from others who may be able to help defend you or frighten or distract attackers, by:
Yelling or screaming.
Personal alarm.
Emergency telephone number (000 in Australia, 911 in the United States, etc.)
Physical barrier, such as locking yourself in a building or vehicle.
etc
but sometimes there isn’t a viable option before physical self-defense. An important aspect of self-defense training is teaching techniques in the context of self-defense or “attack” scenarios. One person will play the role of the defender, and one (or more) people will have the role of the aggressor. Systems such as jujutsu make considerable use of this training methodology.
Eyes, nose, nackers and shins
Nice Dan
14.12.2006 12:33
LOL.......if you don't know what the "emporor" is, and it is clear that you don't from your responses, than there is not much more to say.
Nice dig, this is exactly the type of blame and shame response feminists dole out when you disagree with them. It fits very well with this article, since thats what it does as well.
Yes, I agree it's all talk. I could provide refutable evidence, but than we would be debating over who's study is correct, and I don't see the point, it's clear you aren't listening.
Robert
e-mail:
coldcatsnose@ispwest.com
High testosterone
14.12.2006 14:49
Their careers often have no obvious direction, and so they have little prospect of developing a sense of self-esteem or importance in their work. They are often socially and sexually inept and carry a large amount of anger towards others, who they perceive as responsible for their situation, Wilson says.
In this particular case, Wilson says, the level of control shown by the killer suggests he is not psychotic. Rather, he is a psychopath who has “incubated certain fantasies and is now translating them into action”. The fact that the murdered women were all young – between 19 and 29 years old – and found naked suggests sexual excitement was involved.
Forensic psychologists tackle UK serial killer
Gaia
When's it right to hit a woman?
14.12.2006 14:59
I must say that your last post was your most thought provoking (for me) so far, we share some similar views, although don’t agree on everything (of course).
My girlfriend’s violence towards me did leave psychological scars, not flashbacks like John Rambo or anything so dramatic, but a serious decrease in self confidence and depression. Due to her violence and belittling comments I found it very hard to deal with women for years afterwards (I was 20 at the time) as I was very timid for fear of upsetting them (the feminists in college were very vocal about disrespecting women). I also agree that I was hurt by her actions as up until that time I had nothing but good experiences with women until the violence. It was like having Mother Teresa spit in your face! The whole situation was very complex.
But I can honestly say I’ve never been so affected by another person in a negative way, than by this woman. I’ve been threatened by men and even slapped by other women, but none of it was as damaging, since it wasn’t long term.
I never raised a hand to this girl, since unlike yourself I was taught not to hit women, so I hope Utopia gives me credit for that (even though she still hold me responsible for hurting women). Maybe if on the occasion when she did threaten my life (attacking me whilst I was driving along the M4) and I had taken a note out of your book and given her a split lip or a bloody nose, she might have never attacked me again. Maybe. But I’m sure her dad would have come around to my house and given me a taste of my own medicine. For the record, my sister once slapped this girl after she struck me in public, which made her start crying.
However, I don’t think that Utopia was looking for us to justify when it’s okay to use violence on women or girls, but to stop it (she did name any situations when it’s okay to use violence on women), and it seems to me that its men like yourself who she is directing her pleas too. I understand where you are coming from i.e. if a woman slaps you as hard as she can and then you slap her back as hard as you can, you have treated her in the same way you would if a man attacked you, and she would have learned that if she tried it again she would get the same reaction. However, men have superior strength to women, so one could say that by using this system you are using your greater physical power to subjugate women. Whether it’s chivalrous or through more equitable means women will still be oppressed, by stronger men.
I think your suggestions that men could only stop being violent to each other, if they first stopped being violent to each other to also be rather bizarre. I thought the old saying was that if you can’t get your own house in order, don’t tell others how to. I also can’t see any other reason, other than to be chivalrous, to target women as the group to whom we must prioritise over everyone else, children included. I guess it’s because of things like this that I have a problem getting away from the concept of chivalry, or situations whereby we have to give special thought to women. Like you said, any man who survives a catastrophe at the expense of women or children is shunned and considered a ‘coward’ for doing so, even by the supposed patriarchy (whom one would have thought would have treated him like a hero). According to such standards women and children have a greater right to live than men, just as Utopia believes women have a greater right to protection from violence. Is it any wonder that many men still hold chivalrous views? You yourself are repeatedly telling me that violence against women must be prevented before we address violence against everyone else, so you are just reinforcing that.
“Power is money and money equates to physical violence. From the street to the boardroom to parliament it is obvious which sex is still dominant. And since racism is related, which race.”
Exactly, so if we stop worshiping money and power then you will stop the pursuit of such things in order to attract the opposite sex. Indeed an article in the Guardian from a few years ago said that more black women were dating white men, since they felt that black men lacked ambition and drive, although they clearly don’t know some of my mates!
As to the using this as a discussion forum, well I hope no harm is being done. I’m greatly enjoying this debate since (from my point of view) it’s not being done with pointless name calling and pedantic misquoting. In my recent experience with feminists I’ve found such conversation hard to maintain without being labeled oppressor or having my sexuality questioned.
Look forward to your response.
Neil
But
14.12.2006 15:25
There has been a lot of research and speculation on this subject. On a physical level, people with higher levels of testosterone (male sexual hormone) tend to be more aggressive than people with lower levels (mostly women). Psychological evidence points to the fact that while men from abusive backgrounds often come out of the experience hostile and abusive to others, women from with similar childhood stressors tend to direct the rage and abusiveness inward and punish themselves rather than others. While a man therefore might kill, hurt, or rape others as a way of "dealing" with his rage, a woman is more likely to internalize her feelings and become self-destructive (drug or alcohol abuse, prostitution, or suicputs it: "I can't think of a single case of a woman acting out a sexualized murder on her own".
When they do kill in a series, they tend to kill people they know, i.e. patients when working in a nursing home or hospital, not strangers (see also The Anatomy of Motive by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, 1999).
Eva
Homepage:
http://www.criminalprofiling.ch/females.html
Neil, Eva
14.12.2006 19:15
I think Utopia would give you more credit for simply approaching the subject with an open-mind, even if she doesn't then I do. In fact since it is patronising for me to speak for her, and since she is keeping silent, let's ignore what we assume her opinions are and stick to what we two can agree on. In fact if you'd like to continue this via email then contact me on
I think there is a big difference in a weaker boy striking a larger girl and a larger man striking a weaker woman. And I think there is a big difference between you retaliating in a measured way to a womans initial violence than to instigating and perpetuating it. What worries me is when men cannot respond to verbal abuse without hitting physically, or when men instigate violence, most especially serious and sustained violence. And I do think this is where the evidence, the mortality figures forces us to differentiate most strongly.
If a strange woman struck me as hard as she could, I would be tempted to slap her back, although I hope I'm hard enough just to laugh it off and forgive her that one time, If she was trying to rip my eyes out though I would subdue her out of self-defence. I am so proud of never having raised my hand in anger to any women that if I was struck once in a relationship for any reason then I would pull a hurt face and walk away for good because that is what I would want her to do if our positions were reverersed. And knowing that about myself, none of my relationships have resorted to violence. Sure, there is the low-level biting and scratching and verbal abuse that Gary describes, from both sides occasionally, but it never escalates to physical blows in anger. I pity and emphathise with but don't respect battered women who stay in violent relationships and so I'm sure as hell not going to become the male equivalent out of emotional neediness.
So many people seem to fear being alone more than being hurt and being alone is always temporary and never as bad as you fear - it's quite fun a lot of the time.
Listen, if you were my friend and your girlfriend slapped you and you never slapped her back, I would worry for you and advise you to leave her. If she slapped you and you beat her to a pulp, I would feel the need to intervene or beat you up. If she only verbally abused you and you didn't respond, I would respond for you, if you attacked her then I would defend her and condemn you. I'm not a pacifist but I hope you can see my attitude isn't too difficult to understand.
Our repsonsibility for ending male violence to me means not walking by in the street when you see a big man hit a tiny woman, as is all too common, and not keeping quiet when one of your female friends turns up with a black eye and a burst lip. And not allowing these things to be legal or acceptable in common society. Zero tolerance.
I'm only half way through my rant but I'm going to have to stop, there is a good band playing tonight and like Yohan intuited, and for reasons described on this thread, I need a little light relief. It was a pleasure to talk with you and you want to keep in contact to discuss this further then please do via email even if this thread disappears.
all good things,
Danny
Eva,
Good post and I agree, but as someone corrected me earlier, men with too little testosterone become irrititable. I am happy to point this out as I recently learned my levels were absolutely average - which is an odd but proud boast.
dan
“It is always better to use techniques to avoid or diffuse trouble”
14.12.2006 19:59
“Avoid excess consumption of alcohol or drugs which could make you intoxicated and vulnerable. Try not to attract too much attention from potential attackers”
In other words responsible women should not get pissed up and walk home alone, especially if they’re wearing sexy clothing because they could attract unwanted attention from potential attackers.
Which begs the question; is a lone drunken woman wearing sexy clothing knowingly putting herself in a dangerous situation? And if so, is she in anyway responsible for what may happen to her?
Reducing the risks
Some questions
14.12.2006 20:19
That sounds pretty violent and abusive to me and not at all normal.
"I pity and emphathise with but don't respect battered women who stay in violent relationships and so I'm sure as hell not going to become the male equivalent out of emotional neediness. "
Could this be because you have had no personal experience of abuse and do not understand the psycology of being a victim? Which would render your opinions on such women as practically worthless.
"So many people seem to fear being alone more than being hurt and being alone is always temporary and never as bad as you fear - it's quite fun a lot of the time."
This is the most bizarre assertion that I have so far heard in reference to battered spouses trapped in relationships. Domestic violence victims in such situations are dysfunctional through sustained psychological torture, trying to apply judgemental rationalisations to their plights is quite irrelevant and unhelpful.
"I think there is a big difference in a weaker boy striking a larger girl and a larger man striking a weaker woman."
What has size got to do with anything? An ex of mine isn't of any great stature but she is a pro martial artist- she nearly blinded a guy to tried to her rape, and that before she got into martial arts. I'll add too that she isn't a violent person at all, and despite her amazing act of self defence doesn't feel generally confident about dealing with real-world attackers.
Is the size thing some sort male hang up? Any pint-sized female is capable, if not better positioned, of fatally punching the nasal bones into a big guy's brains with the heel of her hand or dropping him with any number of subabdominal blows (shins are easier than the balls to kick, then a good elbow drop to the back of the head or kick in the face) and breaking his neck or bashing his brains out on the ground. Neither requires height or great force.
But irrespective, violence comes rarely out of the blue and can usually be premempted and avoided.
"If a strange woman struck me as hard as she could, I would be tempted to slap her back, although I hope I'm hard enough just to laugh it off and forgive her that one time, If she was trying to rip my eyes out though I would subdue her out of self-defence."
I find it a bit worrying that you assume that you could "subdue" any female (a rather nebulous concept- shooting someone in the leg could legally be described as "subduing" whilst being potentially fatal).
Why is resisting a violent urge "hard"? An interesting visual metaphor, but surely resisting a needless violent urge deserves a more positive adjective than one that connotes capacity for inflicting violence? Do you feel that the capacity to endure needless violence is somehow a virtue?
Eva
Reducing the risks
14.12.2006 20:55
In a perfect world, dress code shouldn't be an issue. But to be honest, I really don't know to what degree dress plays a part in attacks anyway.
I would guess that the statistics from the days when dress could be used as a "provocation" defence isn't to be trusted in prefence to criminal psychologists observations.
Eva
Dan
14.12.2006 22:13
Take a walk down your local high street and notice the lack of bumps and bruises on the women. Listen how they talk about men in general terms.
Rizla
Are these your pants ?
14.12.2006 23:00
>That sounds pretty violent and abusive to me and not at all normal.
Oh yeah, you mean you've never bit or been bitten during sex. never scratched or been scratched ? I think Gary was refering to how low level stuff that is defined as violence isn't necessarily violence at all in context and I agree with him, especially if it is balanced. It is not the same as scratching someones face in anger or biting their ear off in a fight. Intent and context are everything until you really beat someone up or want to. And no, I'm not a sado-masochist. But losing your temper and striking someone for verbal abuse, for me that crosses a quite different line. If I did that then I would confess it and seek treatment - but I never have since I've been an adult,
>Could this be because you have had no personal experience of abuse and do not understand the psycology of being a victim? Which would render your opinions on such women as practically worthless.
No, I have known abused women and though i don't feel like talking about it I never stood back and let it happen. In this regard my past is creditable.
>This is the most bizarre assertion that I have so far heard in reference to battered spouses trapped in relationships. Domestic violence victims in such situations are dysfunctional through sustained psychological torture, trying to apply judgemental rationalisations to their plights is quite irrelevant and unhelpful.
Fair enough. I was trying to be encouraging to people stuck in abusive relationships that ending the relationship isn't the calamity it seems, but judge it as you wish. I haven't seen you say anything encouraging on the subject yet.
>What has size got to do with anything? An ex of mine isn't of any great stature but she is a pro martial artist- she nearly blinded a guy to tried to her rape, and that before she got into martial arts. I'll add too that she isn't a violent person at all, and despite her amazing act of self defence doesn't feel generally confident about dealing with real-world attackers.
In reference to children fighting - which is the context i was speaking in - size and age seem to matter greatly. And even in adult fights, more bulk and reach can help greatly for people who have the same training and ability apart from those factors.
Getting away without fighting is the best option always as the indepth advice above makes clear.
>Is the size thing some sort male hang up?
Is that a sexual joke ? Not funny if it is.
>Any pint-sized female is capable, if not better positioned, of fatally punching the nasal bones into a big guy's brains with the heel of her hand or dropping him with any number of subabdominal blows (shins are easier than the balls to kick, then a good elbow drop to the back of the head or kick in the face) and breaking his neck or bashing his brains out on the ground. Neither requires height or great force.
I have been beaten up by a tiny girlfriend once, in the context of a t'ai chi sparring match, and in the same class I was pushed alll around the room by a tiny 80 year old woman without being able to do anything about it. So I don't disagree. But in general, untrained violent male assailants will pick on the smallest and least capable person that they can to attack..
>But irrespective, violence comes rarely out of the blue and can usually be premempted and avoided.
But when it does come out of the blue, it can be shocking, and those 30 seconds of shock can be enough for someone to overwhlem you. My point is training of any kind reduces that delay. I mean, even if you can't fight, just being taught to scream rather than panic and freeze is preferable.
>I find it a bit worrying that you assume that you could "subdue" any female (a rather nebulous concept- shooting someone in the leg could legally be described as "subduing" whilst being potentially fatal).
I should have expanded on that, I learned judo as a kid and once anyone has you in a good judo hold, no matter who you are or how angry you are, you are eventually subdued. Minimum force where possible.
>Why is resisting a violent urge "hard"? An interesting visual metaphor, but surely resisting a needless violent urge deserves a more positive adjective than one that connotes capacity for inflicting violence? Do you feel that the capacity to endure needless violence is somehow a virtue?
Resisting any urge can be hard, or difficult if you prefer, forgive my poor choice of adjectives if you aren't trying to be pedantic. That's why they are called urges. And sure, if I am attacked or hit, my instant reaction is to hit back harder, or to run. Flight or fight they call it. That is hardly just a male fault. I think the ability to be hit and walk away from a fight is a virtue and take great pride in the fights I've walked, or ran, away from. I'm certainly not ashamed of the fights I have avoided, especially the times I know without doubt I could have retaliated and 'won' without serious effort. I also know I have been beaten severely several times and it has left no lasting mental or psychological damage and that I don't use that as an excuse for future viciousness from myself. I've been fighting since I was three. I know there is no vitrue or joy in beating anyone up, even if they are bigger and stronger than me and the initial aggressor. "He started it" stopped being creditable by the time I got to school, other people always assume you were partly to blame even when you weren't. Nor do I fear anyone as I don't fear losing or dying. What I do fear is killing, or having my inaction lead to the death of others.
Now if you have finished your little unprompted demolition of me ( nobody more obnoxious than me to criticise in this thread ? ), are you actually concerned about male violence against females, and if so are you going to attend the Reclaim the Night action in Ipswich listed above ? If so, perhaps we can meet and talk rationally. And if not, why not ?
If you want my opinion (?) dress is never an excuse for 'provocation'. There was a young -17 - girl who was raped in Scotland a few years ago. Her rapist was caught and imprisoned, but at her trial his lawyer insisted on holding up her underpants insisting she identify them to the jury. As if there was some point to that, as if her hidden underwear was provocation. She hanged herself soon after that in shame. In my view his lawyer was as culpable as her rapist and should have faced punishment.
Sometimes it is stupidity not to feel great anger regardless of gender.
dan
more
15.12.2006 00:21
I would extend the martial training to all young adults. Boys are also at great risk of sexual abuse and assault. Thankfully the culture has changed enough to destigmatise the victim and allow more & more people to report, though males are particularly vulnerabe to hiding their victimisation.
I get the feeling that you think there would be some virtue to having the every female of the species trained and armed to the teeth. That would ineveitably result in a lot of injustice. Random female on male violence is already on the rise, lord only knows what we'd see as a result of a culture based on the presumption of innocence as a bias towards females.
Why anyone should see more violence as a natural solution to violence has always been a bit bewildering. Especially given that most violent crime isn't premeditated to start with.
Enabling all humans to defend and resist violence should fall in line with basic human rights. But as we see from the UN Security Council, those basic human rights haven't been given much of a chance at the most relevant institutional level. Our institutions fail comprehensively to control violence in a legitimate manner: illegal wars not prevented, war criminals not brought to book, criminal soldiers protected, and bad police let off the hook. It is no wonder that many feel violence is not only a solution but a virtue.
If there is any truth in violence being an innately male phenomenon then surely addressing the problem of violence at source makes sense. But to get back to human rights, collective punishment is unacceptable to any social group. Basic group psychology recognises the function of stigmatisation as being the byproduct of internal insecurity and little to do with reality. Perhaps, that can never be cured, but at least some attempt to control how that expresses itself is in order.
In terms of rape and domestic abuse, there is a lot to be gained from improving policing and criminal justice to ensure that dangerous repeat offenders are removed from society and that victims feel confident in a system to protect them and to pursue the matters with competence. That, I believe, will yield significant results quickly.
Eva
Couldn't agree more.
15.12.2006 00:22
Eva
Are you going to make the Reclaim the Night then ?
15.12.2006 01:11
Anyone else going, or needing a lift down and up from Scotland ?
dan
Eva, what is the best way to deal with an abusive man ?
15.12.2006 01:55
And where there is a personal despute, when you know you have been abused awfully and others more vunerable are at risk from further abuse, is there in your opinion a moral case to take revenge when you can easily do so ? Or should one just turn the other cheek to those who have deliberately abused ?
I'm guessing you will portray any retribution as self-demeaning, but I also know letting an abuser off scot free just leaves him free to abuse again. There is an argument for retribution isn't there ? Or at least for confronting abusers when they are uncovered.
Eva ? Would you personally leave an unrepentant abusive man in a position where he could try to abuse females again or would you stand up to him ? I'm just curious and would like a third party perspective.
dan
Never ever do nothing, but tread carefully!
15.12.2006 09:15
I have a few experiences on this topic:
1.) I was asked by a friend to testify at a children's panel because the social services had been informed that her live in lover was being violent to her kids. She asked me to confirm this wasn't the case. As far as I could tell, that was true. I did as requested and the police and child welfare backed off.
I later however began to find out from the kids that there indeed some violent incidents and frequently behaviour that constituted emotional abuse.
I spoke to the mother and they separated. It seems that the gradual creep of abuse just became normalised to all concerned.
They live in another country now.
2.)
I had a situation where I was living next door to druggy neighbours who were neglecting their infant. I consulted the neighbours. They agreed that something needed to happen. I notified Child Welfare.
I also made the cardinal mistake of telling the druggies what I had done. All hell broke loose. The druggies started with the threats of stabbings and property destruction. Finally, one neighbour had enough and broke ranks (we were instructed by the police to keep reporting incidents so they could build a case) and confronted the male. He ended up with half the male's family at his door and got stabbed in the face.
The stabee wouldn't press charges preferring for option of getting his family involved.
It all panned out that the druggies requested a move to another area and got it. Now the welfare of the child is in the hands of Child Welfare (they are only as good as they info they get) and the new neighbours.
I hope the new neighbours have at least one person willing to get involved.
3.) I knew a female who accused a friend of the family of rape. We'd known the guy for years, and the girl in question a few years. I can't say 100% for sure, but I suspect to this day that the guy was innocent. It somehow didn't add up. The girl was notoriously untrustworthy.
Whatever the truth is the police and PF laid out the case she had and the girl decided not to go to court and the guy left the country his reputation already in tatters despite nothing being established.
Like I said, I knew this girl very well and had severe doubts, but I'll never know for sure.
The problem with retribution is double. 1.) In a lot of circumstances it can target the innocent. Look at the paediatrician that got attacked when the hysteria over paedophilia was being hiked by the media. It is most likely that the emotionally charged and prejudiced will be the ones to act. 2.) It's an uncontrollable system. Like the incident above it can blow back on you and spiral upwards.
If anyone has any genuine concerns, try seek corroboration and go through the right channels. It's not perfect (but better than it was 30 years ago) but it at least balances the protection of the accuser and the accused by insisting on something substantial to go on.
Eva
Because the night [doesn't] belong to [haters]
15.12.2006 12:30
Wouldn't it be nice if every night (if not weekend) was Reclaimed. It would be nice to see volunteers giving up a night a week to make towns and cities safer (the police aren't doing such a great job and besides I'm sure they would be grateful for the act of community responsibilty).
Perhaps it could model itself around initiatives like Rainbow cabs in Soho. A minicab company set up by gays primarily but not exclusively for gays. I used to use them frequently despite being, thus far, straight because I liked the concept, they had competetive prices and it was just really cool getting driven home by a female and being able to have a laugh with her with the presumption there was no alterior motive to our chat. Actually, it was also a relief to drive home and not have to argue with some Asain/Black person that societies ills were not going to be solved by sending Asain/Black people back to "where they came from". It must be part of the Knowledge to be a rank bigot???
Perhaps, volunteers could undergo the statutory training that bouncers get these days?
I should think some sort of vetting would be sensible to minimise the attraction of vigilantes (and their notorious hair trigger reactions).
I remember Guardian Angels failing in London, as did the God Army in Kings Cross. Amusingly, a God Soldier threatened to beat me up when I told him what I thought about the idea of him approaching me ininvited and prosthletising. I guess, they were more in line with the Old Testament.
Eva
Hitchers & White Ribbons
15.12.2006 15:41
yourself list. No amount of anarchists could make some streets safe, at least not the numbers we realistically have, we have trouble keeping our own spaces non-violent or safe. Anyway, who would vet the vetters ? Non-violence training actually makes someone safe, just safer. An anarchist cab company seems a better idea, but at least where I live if a taxi-driver rapes someone then every other taxi-driver will track him down and beat him up long before the police can, as it ruins their business. A bigger problem is fake taxis picking people up and that would be the same with an anarchist cab.
A couple of years ago I tried to set up a safety program for hitchhikers, where hitchers could alert a central registry when they were gettting in a car, what the registration was, how they they expected to be in the car, etc. The phone companies weren't interested as it didn't sound profitable enough for them.
I always recommend hitchers to do this anyway, notify someone they know, even when I've just picked them up. The idea was to remove some of the fear from hitching and encourage more people to do it. I'll maybe try and get that off the ground again once I start earning and can afford to set it up.
I had a girl back at my house recently and her mother called up demanding to know my name and address, which I was happy to give, but I had to laugh as we'd been driving in the country for an hour before that and if I'd been dangerous then she'd have been too late. I hadn't insisted she notify anyone as I already knew her and people who knew us both knew she was with me.
I just found out an hour ago about the White Ribbon campaign that Amnesty helped launch, seemingly they had a huge publicity drive last month but I never heard a thing about it, it ties in exactly with the original article though, involving men in teaching the concept of zero-tolerance.
"The White Ribbon Campaign UK is the UK branch of the global campaign to ensure men take more responsibility for reducing the level of violence against women."
dan
Self-defence class....by Dan
16.12.2006 18:14
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I got the impression, that Dan-Bob is living in a really dangerous high-crime city somewhere in EU or USA, where violence can be observed daily.
I am not living in that part of this world, and my daughters are now already 30 and 26 years old, going home alone during night-time and nobody in our family is worried at all.
Same can be said about our neighbours, friends and about the female office staff at my working place. Violence is not the daily stuff to be worried about.
Maybe you should ask, what is wrong there...why men are so violent against women in your living area.
Yohan
Yohan
Yohan
16.12.2006 23:16
I'm afraid you are correct, I do live in a violent nation in the most violent state, and I wouldn't have to travel for long before witnessing violence.
"Maybe you should ask, what is wrong there...why men are so violent against women in your living area."
Well, it's not just against the women here, but you are right and the question needs answering. A culture of acceptable violence here, and of drinking too much alcohol, and of men carrying knives does need addressed. Also the fact even some peace activists here see offensive violence against women as excusable means there is a lot of work to be done before things improve. Perhaps your attitudes to violence do just differ from mine for cultural reasons, so you can maybe understand better my attitudes on this thread. If you really do live in a much safer place then I can understand why you think Utopia Bolds article perhaps doesn't apply to you, but please understand that it does apply to people where I live.
dan
Violent living area (for Dan)
17.12.2006 07:39
I'm afraid you are correct, I do live in a violent nation in the most violent state, and I wouldn't have to travel for long before witnessing violence.
......
.....of drinking too much alcohol, and of men carrying knives does need addressed. Also the fact even some peace activists here see offensive violence against women as excusable means ..... Perhaps your attitudes to violence do just differ from mine for cultural reasons ...
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Dan,
I did not know that Scotland is such a violent place, according to the link you gave to me, it is about 30:1 compared to where I am living - here in the outer districts of Tokyo, Japan since 35 years.
In your place, It seems to be much worse even compared to some cities in the USA.
We have no problems here with guns and knives, as the possession of weapons is illegal generally. To own a gun, sword or dagger - without using it - might bring you at least for one year behind bars.
In Japan, drugs are no problem. If you try to sell them - and some foreigners from Europe and Australia tried that - for the coming decade they will not see their native country anymore.
Some people think, that this punishment is all against human rights, but I can tell you, it helps a lot to keep streets clean.
In my living area, criminality against a foreigner like me is zero and I know only about very few complaints here in my district. No complaints of my wife, my parents in law, daughters and other relatives.
You mentioned "greenpeace activists" - You are right. I think you refer generally to any kind of people, demanding anti-authoritarian education for children and a zero-discipline for adults...free of restrictions, free of punishments...
We understand here in Asia, that such education does not work.
Yohan
Yohan
Scotland compared to Japan
17.12.2006 15:28
Violence in Scotland seems to me to be more due to alcohol abuse than drug abuse, although drug abuse may contribute more to thefts and the same sort of gangland violence that occurs everywhere, even Japan.
I can assure you that Scotland and the UK is hardly a zero-discipline society, we have similar sentences for carrying weapons and lock up more of our population in prisons. This doesn't seem to help here though and I'd say relative poverty is a major factor in this. Many people who go into prisons for minor offences like non-payment of fines and are brutalised by the experience.
Peace activists can be commit gender violence too, but not just in the UK. Hiroko Sato has said that she was repeatedly beaten by her husband Eisaku Sato, Japans first Nobel Peace Prize winner. Spousal rape is still legal and domestic violence only became illegal in 2001, and because the pay gap is higher there women would be less likely to report abuse, and until recently would have few establishment support centres. So there are important gender issues even in such a non-violent and afluent society.
Lowest among the developed countries, Japan was ranked 41st by the United Nations Development Programme in terms of the Gender Empowerment Measure in the year 2000. There are three main factors behind such an unfavourable evaluation.
One, Japanese women have little participation in political activities. The ratio of females in Parliament is only 7.5 percent (104th in the world, according to a survey conducted by the Inter Parliamentary Union).
Two, female managers are few. The ratio of female managers in Japan is less than 10 percent, the lowest among the developed countries and lower than in many developing countries including the Philippines.
And three, women earn much less than men. On the average, their income is only around 52 percent of the income of Japanese men.
dan
Poor Japanese women? (Dan)
18.12.2006 03:32
Lowest among the developed countries, Japan was ranked 41st by the United Nations Development Programme in terms of the Gender Empowerment Measure in the year 2000. There are three main factors behind such an unfavourable evaluation.
One, Japanese women have little participation in political activities. The ratio of females in Parliament is only 7.5 percent (104th in the world, according to a survey conducted by the Inter Parliamentary Union).
Two, female managers are few. The ratio of female managers in Japan is less than 10 percent, the lowest among the developed countries and lower than in many developing countries including the Philippines.
And three, women earn much less than men. On the average, their income is only around 52 percent of the income of Japanese men.
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Hi, Dan,
The article you refer was written by an American feminist – to mention Eisaku Sato, born 1901, married 1926 and died 1975 as a Japanese example of domestic violence, seems to me a bit outdated. To hear the other side of the story is not possible, as the accused man died over 30 years ago.
About ‘spousal rape’ it must be said, that most Asian nations are rejecting this ‘crime’ to be considered as a crime – all Islamic countries in Asia will never accept such a term, and Buddhist countries, too. In Philippines, the only Catholic Asian stronghold, divorce remains illegal.There is the crime of severe mistreatment of your wife/husband, but not a crime of rape between a couple. If you agree to a marriage contract in Asia, you agree also to sexual relationship with your spouse.
Western morality is somewhat strange, by accepting the fact, that a woman (only the woman!) has the right to agree to marriage, at the same time to refuse sexual relations with her husband, to be around the block with some other men despite being married, and finally should the husband complain, she has the right to ask for divorce, claiming abuse and get the house, the car, most money and still asking for alimony until the end of her life. – This is not equality, but discrimination.
What about discrimination of men?
In Japan, men’s life is up to 78 years, women will live up to 85 years, situation seems not to be bad for women regarding health care.
Working hours for men are much longer than for women – why should salaries be the same, if the man is working longer hours than the woman? To compare a female part-time worker with the income of a male full-time worker and claiming women are earning 50 percent less in Japan is pure nonsense.
Even this US-feminist writer has to admit in her article: ‘Younger women earn approximately 90 percent of men’s wages. Women in their early twenties are paid approximately 90 percent as much as men.’
Maybe you take a look in a Japanese department store, where sales/items for females outdate items for males about 4:1 – fashion, cosmetica, shoes, jewellery, healthy food, electronics, overseas shopping trips for ladies, golf for ladies, beauty salons….
May I ask you from where this money to pay for all this is coming from?
About politics, election system is a bit different from the Western democracy, based on voting for ‘persons’ and not for political parties. Every adult has a voting right and there are plenty of female candidates. If they are elected is up to the people living in this sector.
You have a right to vote, but you cannot claim to have a right to be elected because you are a woman – Japan is not Norway…
There are plenty of women, who have a high income owning a business or real estate in Japan – of course this is not a construction company or a steel mill, but anything else, which is between a nightbar with girls up to services for elderly care.
For sure a Japanese woman is not poor, far away from that. However many women in their 20s and 30s like the idea to change their life and prefer to become a housewife only with husband and children – what is wrong with that? This does not mean, that she is forced into marriage and this does not mean that all married women are oppressed and abused.
You mentioned the Philippines, a nation in deep poverty and corruption – despite 2 female presidents. Still better to be a Japanese woman than a Filipina or a woman somewhere in Africa…believe me.
Yohan
Hiroko Sato
18.12.2006 12:19
Spousal rape is a gender neutral term, so either you are rejecting females rape of men or rejecting the notion of consent within marriage.Presumably right up until the moment the judge grants a divorce a man could be taking his wife by force. Now since various men here have been claiming females raping men is as big a problem as males raping females perhaps they sleep safer at night knowing they have the legal right to refuse their wives sex.
"Western morality is somewhat strange, by accepting the fact, that a woman (only the woman!) has the right to agree to marriage etc."
No, the rights you describe are gender neutral, it's just the denial of those rights which is one-sided. The fact that more women get alimony than men simply reflects the patriarchial gender pay gap. As for the reasons for a 50% pay gap in Japan compared to 75% in the US, well, it's another argument deserving it's own article. It would be wrong to impose Western values on every country as if they are desirable and universal then they will spread globally with time. You should notice the trend in Japan though, from having no domestic abuse legislation to having some, and therefore perhaps expect spousal rape will become illegal there to at some point in the future.
dan
Waging a war against men won't help
27.12.2006 20:58
This is sounds like every man is out to attack or rape women and every woman must be afraid of men.
Waging a war on men won't help! We don't need to be battered round the face to know that raping or beating up a woman is disgusting and wrong!
The main article more or less suggest violence against men and childfren by women should be ignored as violence against women is a far bigger problem. But wouldn't it be good if we could denounce all violence against EVERYONE be they male, female or child? Why don't we have universal laws that severly punish those who are violent or abusive to anyone regardless of the sex of the perpetrator or the victim.
If a man punches a woman in the face send him to jail! If a woman punches a man in the face send her to jail! That's equality!
The man article wants violence and abuse to be regarded souly as a man against woman thing. Starting a war between the two sexes won't stop violence against anyone, least of all women. Let's condem all violence against everyone whether it's carried out by man against woman, woman against man, government against people or people against people.
To say we should proritise only stopping violence from one group of people towards another is totally wrong and WON'T lead to a peaceful society.
Dan Fac
e-mail:
danfactor@lycos.com
Dan, dan and the universe
04.01.2007 04:32
I say let men become the corporate style metrosexual that women do not absolutley desire but globalisation does. Let the females give up their children to state indoctrination for a temporary jamboree. Males of an independent nature should be planning an exodus, from this matriarchal by gender hatred headed ideology. It has historically failed, I am sure the statistics should be reflecting such a demography. Since the ideology requires tremendous social and taxpayer funds, to cater for the vast employment requirements to foster the fruit which are the childrens needs and problems, of which we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg. I am sure we in the next decade should look forward to some really scary replacements for the working and middleclass, who have the moral fortitude of the current ideological policies. I say to all males, abandon ship, because if you lift the carpet of this ideology, my goodness what misery it has caused in it's nuture and progression. Enlightened, because of this article I am not !, like all utopian ideals, it should remain thoughts and dreams. Not the deeds of some pretty nutty fruitcakes, who somehow through pretty shallow and decietful arguments have sent us (particularly the western world) all on a path of self treachery. Human nature is a wonderful thing, very predictable and government have always loved mass employment, I so look forward to the tax bill for all this. As for the human cost well wars are for diamonds, furs, oil and natures resources, so that the females may gorge on the spoils of men, and then blame them, how pathetic the argument for a bold utopia is.
Andrew Steiger
e-mail:
agsteiger@juno.com
So I just read this rubbish...
22.12.2007 14:31
I had no idea there was such a thing as "male violence". Is there "female violence" too? There must be! What about "female violence towards women". Should men be responsible for that, too?
Hey now that women are "liberated and equal now", why are men still being held responsible for just about everything?
The issue isn't "male violence towards women". If women really wanted that solved, they could start by not posting rubbish like this article online... but the real underlying issue is violence PERIOD and decaying gender-relations; mostly generated by feminist thinking that holds all men in contempt.
Feminist ideology holds half of the worlds population in disgust and contempt. And thus anyone who follows such an ideology is insane. Period.
By the logic of this... piece of work... we could say "all black men are responsible for stopping crimes committed by black men." Oh but that would be racist, right? I guess this theory is sexist... and as we all know, sexism = bad (thanks to feminism for telling us that!) so by feminisms own standards this article = rubbish, false, and wrong.
Teegan
e-mail:
feral_freedom1027@yahoo.com
Homepage:
http://myspace.com/feralteegan
Some things....
22.12.2007 14:34
Teegan
e-mail:
feral_freedom1027@yahoo.com
Homepage:
http://myspace.com/feralteegan