What Constitution?

Ahmed Ressam is an Islamic fascist terrorist sent by Osama Bin Laden to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport.

In sentencing Ressam to a measly 22 years in prison yesterday, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said, "The tragedy of Sept. 11 shook our sense of security and made us realize that we, too, are vulnerable to acts of terrorism. Unfortunately, some believe that this threat renders our Constitution obsolete. ... If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won."

But, where is Coughenour when the Constitutional rights of men and fathers who are citizens of the United States are violated? Passed in 1994, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) violates the written word as well as the spirit of the Constitution. VAWA has funded and been used as an excuse to deny fathers due process and a fair hearing in family courts. But, Judges do not seem to have a problem with the injustice done to these fathers.

No, Coughenour is nowhere to be found when it comes to protecting the most basic Constitutional rights of the average citizen. Nor are any of the other blowhards that worry more about what our Constitution guarantees detainees in Guantanemo than they do about the American man behind them in the line at the local grocery store.
It takes nothing more than accusation for a father to be forceably removed from his home and separated from his children, sometimes forever. Fathers are left spending thousands of dollars and suffering stigmatic but unfounded accusations in the family courts of King County just so they can have a day or two per month with the children they love.

In fact, VAWA and out-of-control judges in family courts are driven by the same sort of hysteria that Coughenour says has driven the United States to take extreme actions that are out of its historical character. Mayor Nickels' new five year plan to combat domestic violence makes the bold statement that his objective is to “end domestic violence.” Of course, when the term has been expanded to include everything from serious battering to a women simply feeling bad, this is yet another silly promise that cannot be delivered. The document is also rife with allusions and suggestions about the City’s “innovative” success in achieving this goal. In Seattle, however, “innovative” refers to the City’s successful runs around the Constitutional rights of its male citizens.

There is one difference between the hysteria of September 11, 2001 and the irrational and exaggerated concern over domestic violence, however. September 11 was real. The hysteria used by gender feminists to scare members of Congress into supporting VAWA is not based on reality.

Islamic fascist terrorists really do exist. “The patriarchy" that our government has been conducting a war on for the last ten years does not.

Robert Jamieson of the Seattle PI says that Ressams relatively light sentence considering what he planned to do sends a signal that "shows the rest of the world that the US system of justice -- at times imperfect, at time heavy-handed -- is not entirely cold or blind." There are thousands of men and fathers in King County alone that would disagree with Jamieson on that point.

So, Your Honor, when you and your colleagues begin to show some respect and concern for the Constitutional rights of the average American male, we might be up in arms about the Bush administrations tactics in the global struggle against Islamic extremism. In the meantime, you’ll just have to be content with standing on your soapbox alone.

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Intellectual Insolvency

The corrupted Family Violence Prevention Fund recently boasted of its success keeping the truth out and myths alive in the Soviet-style July 19 Senate ‘hearings’ on the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) hosted by Comrade Joseph Biden. Father's rights advocate Glenn Sacks remarked that such behavior is “a sure sign of weakness and intellectual insolvency, whether in the case of governments or of organizations.”

When criticism and debate cannot be countered, corrupted organizations avoid it. When myths are presented as facts, science is excluded, scholars are gagged, and only politically correct psuedo "experts" are allowed. When men meet injustice, hysteria is fomented to obstruct rational thinking.

Members of the US Congress put themselves into a political trap with VAWA, especially Republicans. Too many citizens now realize that their own government is waging an irrational and destructive war on them. But, having been lead into this trap by gender feminists intent on destroying their make-believe bogeyman called “the patriarchy,” Republican members of Congress are not only surprised by the uproar, but at a loss for how to escape the quagmire. They are beginning to see that the male vote they take for granted might not be so reliable in the future. Meanwhile, Democrats are faced with the obvious contradiction of arguing against the Patriot Act because it encroaches on civil liberties while gleefully stripping half the population of their most basic Constitutional rights with VAWA.

While fixing the injustices of VAWA would be relatively easy, the gender feminist orthodoxy that runs the domestic violence establishment places their sacred ideology above practicle solutions. There is one clear path out of the VAWA hole for members of Congress, however, and that is too loose in the next election. Representative David Reichert of the 8th District of the State of Washington is in a particularly vulnerable position.

The truth about Reichert’s transparent pandering to the gender feminist establishment of Seattle is out, and with a little luck and a lot of hard work by a new organization being formed specifically to counter his reelection, Reichert will be out of Congress and living a private life among the men and fathers he has helped to destroy.

And, there will be plenty more of these devastated men in Seattle, as Mayor Greg Nickels launches another Soviet style five year plan for domestic violence. He says the "plan was developed with the help of police, courts, public health, human services and community members." Translation: it was developed within the cocoon of gender feminist orthodoxy, with "men are bad / women are good" solipsistic thinking.

Ironically, the double-speaking Mayor says this will "make families stronger." Sorry Mr. Mayor, but what families are you talking about? Fewer and fewer men in Seattle are willing to risk their economic and physical liberty by starting a family. Men also do not want to risk the agonizing heartbreak of having one of King County's notoriously anti-male family courts rip them out of their children's lives. The few that are willing to take the considerable risks involved often move out of the area first.

Perhaps this is why Nickels supports gay marriage. The families he wants to make "strong" have to come from somewhere.

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Seattle Murder Highlights Absurdity of VAWA

A mother of three killed her husband in front of her three children in Seattle this past Saturday night. In an effort to hide what the rest of us know about domestic violence having no gender boundaries, the Seattle PI is just reporting on this horrific crime today.

In a sickening story of premeditation, Nai Wang Saeteurn sharpened a large butcher knife, waited until her boyfriend and father of her children fell asleep, and then stabbed him in the abdomen.

Her three children were left to restrain her and call 911 while their father, Kao Vang Saeteurn, bled to death before their eyes.

Is this the sort scene David Reichert was talking about in his VAWA press release where he said:

In my 33 years as a cop, I walked into many volatile domestic violence situations. Domestic violence is the most dangerous call an officer can be sent into. One can never be completely prepared for the explosive and unpredictable nature of the highly personal situations.

I saw children sitting on couches crying and holding each other before police officers resolved the situation and brought quiet back to their homes.

Well, no, because Reichert is wearing the gender blinders the Seattle domestic violence establishment gave him.

Surely, the gender feminist victim cult that hijacked the topic of abuse a decade ago will concoct an elaborate and implausible story of “self defense” to excuse Nai Wang from killing the father of her children.

But, the Seattle PI provides the real story:

According to police, Nai Wang later confessed that she killed Kao Vang because he had threatened to break up with her. She has been charged with first-degree murder.

Power and control?

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VAWA Promises Political Fall-Out

Phyllis Schlafly provides the best article to date on the problems with the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and makes a dead-on argument about why it should be scrapped. Please read it here.

Instead of the gender feminist ideology that hijacked the issue of domestic violence ten years ago, the US should look to Ireland for a model of how the topic should be treated. Please see Ireland’s pragmatic and scientific study of domestic violence here.

Ireland’s approach is vastly different from the patriarchy fighting war conducted by US local, state, and federal governments on its own male citizens. The Irish have pragmatically divided the issue into minor intimate discord and major abuse. Their study also used scientific sampling that shows clearly that both men and women are about equally guilty of instigating both domestic discord and major abuse.

Irelands proposed programs to address this issue are designed accordingly, separating domestic discord from major abuse, and focusing on the underlying problems involved in genuine abuse as opposed to treatment programs that preach feminist ideology.

The Irish approach is reasonable and will be effective. In contrast, the approach in the US is utterly ineffective and causes massive harm to men, fathers, families and children.

VAWA reauthorization will likely pass in the US Congress while the country is distracted by the hoopla of the Supreme Court nomination hearings of John Roberts.

But, shortly thereafter, everyone in Congress ought to start seeking political cover, especially Republicans. Men and fathers are increasingly organized and are searching for the first political target to label “The Enemy of Fathers.”

Our own David Reichert, a Republican pandering to the Seattle gender feminist establishment, is a likely target.

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VAWA Debate Not Allowed

Hiding behind the smokescreen of media attention paid to President Bush’s prospective Supreme Court nominee and military base closures, the US Senate Judiciary Committee is holding “hearings” on the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) today.

This event is more of a love fest for celebrating victimhood than a hearing. The attendees on the two panels are handpicked to ensure maximum drama centered around female victims of domestic violence. In fact, one of the panels even has an actress, Salma Hayek, on board so that emotions can hit a fever pitch during the hearing. Salma is a paid representative of Avon, with both cynically using the manufactured hysteria of domestic violence for publicity.

Having an actress on the panel is apropos since most of the information being presented is based on the fictional concoctions of the gender feminists who hijacked the topic during the Clinton administration. Responsible and scientific studies, such as one recently released in Ireland, will not be allowed. Instead, we will hear falsehoods, such as "95% of the victims of abuse are women," and "1 in 3 women will suffer from domestic violence in their lifetime."

You will hear the blatant lie that domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women. The 1,200 women who die each year at the hands of their intimate partner, while sad, pales in comparison to the 30,000 men who commit suicide each year. Many of these men commit suicide after loosing all hope in family courts that villify them, take their kids, and turn them into criminals simply because they made the mistake of getting married and having children.

As planned by Senator Biden, there will be no dissent during this hearing. Nobody will provide an opposing view to the drama queens on these panels. Nobody will be there to point out the facts and refute the make-believe statistics dished out by the domestic violence industry that has developed around VAWA. And, rest assured, every person testifying today will have their hand extended and demanding more federal pork to feed the anti-patriarchy monster they gave birth to and have nurtured for ten years. Consider a hearing in which only military contractors are allowed to express their views, decide for themselves who the "enemy" is and what weapon systems will be purchased to attack that enemy, and you will have the picture.

But, out in the real country, there are many opponents to the worst legislation since Jim Crow. These include men that have been victims of violent women, scholars that are appalled at how the topic has been taken over by radical feminist ideology, men who have been caught in the web of VAWA for nothing more than a yelling match, and fathers who find that their ex-wives unscrupulously use VAWA inspired laws in family courts to separate children from their fathers and maximize financial gain.

Moreover, police officers are frustrated with mandatory arrest laws that leave them in the uncomfortable position of having to arrest a man, no matter the circumstances they find when answering a call. Police officers have also woken up to the fact that nothing more than an accusation of domestic violence will result in the loss of their career, since nothing more than accusation results in the loss of a man's right to possess a firearm.

Women of many stripes are also opponents of VAWA. These include women that are appalled by the victim mantra of contemporary gender feminism, as well as women who have seen their sons and brothers vilified by vindictive ex-girlfriends and wives. And, women who are simply interested in maintaining the freedoms and liberties guaranteed by our Constitution. But, you will not see any of these women in today's victim parade.

Senator Biden has planned quite a Soviet-style spectacle in which opposing views and real science are excluded. VAWA is a sad example of just how wrong our government can go as our politicians jockey to appear politically correct. Today's politicall correct politician likes to think of herself as more advanced than those of Jim Crow's day, but VAWA reveals that bigotry and hate are as alive today as ever.

No doubt, VAWA will be reauthorized and likely in more evil form than it was before. Dissent is growing throughout the country, however, and there will be a price to pay.

After all, the nation's men and fathers, and the people who love them, can only tolerate so much of the hateful bile of disaffected feminists with a gender political ax to grind before they lash out at the perpetrators of the violence that has been done to their most basic civil rights.

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New! Reichert Watch

Previously, we provided a list of the US Senate co-sponsors of reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

Here is a list of the co-sponsors of the same bill in the US House of Representatives.

On this list you will find the usual suspects from Washington State, such as Jim McDermott, who never met an anti-Constitutional law he did not fully embrace as long as it fit with his socialist ideology (and to think this guy opposes the Patriot Act on Constitutional grounds). But, you will also find Republican Dave Reichert, Representative from Washington’s 8th District, which is in King County.

Dave Reichert has opportunistically been selling the men of his district up the river as a way to gain popularity on the waves of manufactured hysteria and myths propagated by the domestic violence industry. He has been doing this in support of the worst legislation since old Jim Crow laws. VAWA has resulted in the loss of the most basic Constitutional rights of men and fathers in his district, while doing nothing to help either men or women who are victims of abuse.

There are few things more disgusting in politics than watching an elected official screw a class of constituents for personal political gain. For that distinction, we are adding a new on-going series called “Reichert Watch” in which we will pick this man apart and present multiple reasons why he is not fit for the office he currently holds, or any other elected office.

Dave Reichert is no friend of men, fathers, or families. Anyone that cares about them ought not vote for Reichert when he comes up for re-election.

And, now that Dino Rossi has officially removed himself from the race against Maria Cantwell (one of the most reliably anti-male, anti-father gender feminists in the state), Reichert will obviously be salivating over the prospect of running against her. He will use his support of VAWA as a way of saying to the gender feminist crowd of Seattle, "See? I'm not so bad."

Reichert is among those Republicans – that is, most Republicans – who just assume they have the vote of men in the bag and so happily support legislation that treats them like second class citizens. The next time an election rolls around, men and fathers in King County or the entire state should not give Reichert their vote. If voting for a Democrat is unpalatable, we recommend voting for a Libertarian.

These legislative atrocities will continue until people like Dave Reichert learn that there is a price to pay.

In the meantime, go here to send an e-mail complaining to Dave Reichert about his cynical support of the bigoted and radically ideological VAWA. Ask him if he knows the ideological roots of the Duluth Model and how it is being applied to men in his district.

While you are at it, you might want to refer to this report from Ireland, which was based on sound statistical sampling and clearly demonstrates that their is no gender bias when it comes to perpetrating or suffering from domestic violence.

The ideologically centered gender feminists, and the chivalrous cowards like Reichert who support them, hate real science. That explains why Senator Biden will not allow anyone that is not from the domestic violence industry to testify in the Senate hearing on VAWA on July 19.

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Prepare for Vagina Warrior Offensive

Here is a prediction for you.

With Senate hearings on the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) scheduled for July 19th (well, if you can call them hearings, since the only testimony allowed by Senator Biden will be that of victim oriented gender feminists), the Seattle area Vagina Warriors just wont be able to resist piping in.

Yes, that means columns from Joni Balter and Nicole Brodeur of the Seattle Times and Kathleen Paynter of the Seattle PI. They will provide a few anecdotal cases of abused women (remember, this crowd hates actual science and the rigorous statistical analysis that goes with it), together with the tired old myths along the lines of, So-and-So-from-some-shelter says, “1 in 3 women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime.”

Then, they will allude to how abuse is practically every family’s dirty little secret, with husbands across the state making their homes into their own private Idahos of violence. Of course, no column would be complete without saying this is something we do not talk about enough and have to stop sweeping under the rug. Yes, this even though a search on domestic violence in Google nets you 7.7 million hits, while a search on, say, father’s rights nets you only 57,000 hits.

There will be no mention of the Vagina Preditors chronicled on this blog, who routinely rape adolescent boys, get pregnant, and shackle these kids with the responsibility of parenthood before they even graduate from high school. And, no mention of devious women like Shannon Elizabeth Hollister of Bellingham, who attempted to have not just her ex-husband, Nicholas Martin, but his father as well, knocked off by a hit man. And, no mention of the facts that Ms. Buffington mentions on Sunday’s post to Silly Seattle. No mention, either, of the fact that children are abused by mothers at much greater rates than they are by biological fathers. And, of course, no mention of how VAWA inspired hysteria and family court GALs with a gender political ax to grind have driven the most important factor in the success of children out of their lives - their fathers.

Oh, and especially no mention of actual scholarly research, such as that of Dr. Don Dutton, which clearly demonstrates that domestic violence does not know any bounds when it comes to either gender, or sexual orientation for that matter. The gender feminist crowd utterly hates anything that smacks of science.

Nope. Damned reality should never be allowed to get in the way of ideology. They just want to keep the federal pork money flowing to their gender feminist friends who hijacked the issue a decade ago so they can continue to wage war on “the patriarchy” and especially marriage, which they see as just another patriarchal institution.

You think men in King County are reluctant to get married now? Just wait a few years. Things are only going to get worse.

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Could Marriage Be Less Attractive for Men?

Numerous studies show that up to 30% of men are raising children that are not their own, while believing the children are their offspring. The reason: Numerous studies also show that women are likely to attempt to mate with a dominate male, and trick a less dominate, but more doting male, to raise the child. In other words, infidelity.

The smell of power

Jul 7th 2005
From The Economist print edition


Odour and mating preferences

WHAT'S a girl to do when faced with the choice between a powerful action man who has great DNA but is likely to love her and leave her, and a carpet-and-slippers kind of bloke who will hang around and bring up the kids but may not be Mr Right in the genes department? Well, ideally, she should fool the latter into bringing up the former's children. And a piece of evidence that this is exactly what happens emerged this week from a research group led by Jan Havlicek of Charles University, in Prague.

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Scream Queens Fuel Nightmarish VAWA System

By Lisa Scott (07/04/05)

Picture this: Ordinary citizens arrested in the middle of the night, thrown in jail on false charges, never seeing the inside of their homes again. Show trials with predetermined outcomes. Dissidents forced into treatment for politically incorrect thoughts.

Does this describe Stalinist purges? Totalitarian repression? The USA Patriot Act in action?

No, this nightmarish scenario is our current domestic violence system. Introduced in the 1980's with good intentions, these laws have mutated into a system of repression, power and control, manipulated by the domestic violence industry and exploited by vengeful spouses seeking advantage in divorce and child custody.

The crowning achievement for the victim industry was the passage in 1994 of VAWA, the federal Violence Against Women Act. VAWA codifies gender-based myths that domestic violence (DV) is virtually always committed by men against women. VAWA is up for reauthorization in 2005.

VAWA was based on lies and distortions about the true extent of intimate partner violence, yet it continues to be funded at astounding levels. Feminist groups, led by the domestic violence "scream queens," tout hysterical claims such as "the leading cause of emergency room visits by women is domestic violence," and "95 per cent of victims of domestic violence are women."

The government's own statistics contradict these ubiquitous factoids, yet Congress can't help pandering to the women's vote with a billion-dollar gravy train. The Justice Department's 1998 "Intimate Partner Violence" report reveals that 1/3 of total domestic violence murder victims are male. Further, less than one per cent of females (and males) are victimized each year. Hardly an epidemic justifying a monstrous government system.

In today's domestic violence police state, it's expected the woman is the victim. All she has to do is call 911 and report her husband assaulted her. In many cases she conveniently fails to mention she slapped, punched, kicked or pummeled him to the point that he pushed her away. As a family law attorney for 17 years, I have experienced the DV system personally. Every example cited in this article has happened to one of my clients.

The stereotype that the man is always the abuser ensures he has no chance of being believed when he says he is the victim. The police take him to jail, and in many cases, he never goes home again.

The next scene in his nightmare is getting served with an order for protection. Originated to immediately protect victims of severe abuse, protection orders have become "weapons of mass destruction" in family courts.

Drive-by protection orders (obtained ex parte, with the accused not present) almost always prohibit contact with his children and presence at the family home, virtually guaranteeing full custody to the accuser.

After 14 days living in a van down by the river, the accused gets a hearing, an "opportunity to be heard." In reality, it is a show trial with a predetermined outcome. Whenever a woman claims to be a victim, she is automatically believed. No proof of abuse is required.

Judges with "do-something disease," afraid of some real victim being denied relief, hand out protection orders like candy. In fact, the accused is sometimes treated more harshly for having the audacity to object. Meanwhile, real victims must share crowded courtrooms with DV fakers.

In many cases, the accused is sent to "domestic violence perpetrator treatment," following an "assessment" with the foregone conclusion that he needs treatment. If he admits any abuse, it will always be used against him. Denial of abuse is punished more severely than actual abuse. Those who profess their innocence are often forcibly "re-educated" for two or even three years.

The only escape is to unconditionally surrender to the authority of the oppressors (the court and treatment providers), bow down and capitulate to the accuser, then you might get some time with your children. You still don't get to go home.

Ten years of VAWA has resulted in the wholesale criminalization of being a man. VAWA didn't originate this nightmarish system, but it legitimizes and subsidizes it. To some, the solution is a gender-neutral law, such as "Violence Against Persons Act." Even without overt gender bias, federal intrusion into local domestic violence policies is corrupting. It nourishes a gargantuan beast and ensures a massive stream of taxpayer dollars creating endless constituent groups lining up to feed at the federal trough.

We must de-fund and de-fang VAWA. We must let police do their jobs without fear of making politically-incorrect decisions. In the old days they used their discretion on how to handle domestic conflict. The parties were often separated until things cooled down. Without evidence of serious assault or injury, that was the proper response.

VAWA turns every argument into a potential murder case, and what police officer wants to risk making a wrong decision? The easy way out is to arrest the man.

It's time to stop systematic violence against civil rights and recognize that even well-intentioned laws can be used as a bludgeon. Like the war on terrorism, the war on domestic violence can go too far.

The laudable goal of ending domestic violence cannot justify nullification of the fundamental rights of an entire gender. We should all be outraged at what is being done to innocent people in the name of helping victims.

Lisa Scott is a Bellevue, Washington attorney practicing in the areas of family law, divorce and domestic violence. She is also a founding member of TABS, Taking Action against Bias in the System, www.tabs.org.

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Female Friendships

Original Reporting by John Ray
A psychologist's reply to some feminist boasts

Feminists quite routinely hold their friendship structure up as an example to men. They say that females have supportive friendship networks that men lack and that they are emotionally stronger for it. They see men as incapable of the intimate friendships that women have and see this as a weakness that explains many of the problems that men have. They say how much they value their friends, how often they talk to their friends and relate how helpful friends have been to them in times of crisis.

This is in fact, however, only one side of the story and overlooks both the different evolutionary role of men and the full reality of female friendships. In her book Lip Service, American feminist author Kate Fillion notes part of the downside in female friendships: The difficulty women have in being honest with one another. If a woman's friend is wearing a ghastly dress or hairstyle that does not suit her at all, it is almost impossible for her friends to tell her that. The nearest the friend can go is to say something like: "You're looking well today". The friend is supposed to note that she and not the dress was complimented and draw the conclusion that the dress is awful. As nobody wants to receive or believe negative messages about themselves, however, the import of such extremely indirect criticisms is often missed and woman carry on gaily looking awful when honesty might have helped them. So emotional support is given but realistic help is withheld. Men, by contrast, are much more used to giving and receiving criticism and have nothing like these severe barriers against it.

Another problem with female friendships that seems often to be conveniently overlooked is that female "friends" can often be extremely bitchy. If one female seems to be getting ahead of the pack in any way, that female will tend to be put down. If, for instance, she is a sexually attractive older woman who dresses in a way that shows her attractiveness, she will be told that, "You don't want people to say that you are mutton dressed up as lamb, Dear", in an endeavor to get her to dress in a more dowdy way. Great stuff! Really helpful!

It also takes a woman to really rip a woman to shreds. When I read in a newspaper an article about some woman that really tears her into small and odious pieces, I know what I will find if I look at the byline: It will be written by another woman.

The bitchy and trivial-minded nature of female friendships seems to be the major reason why there is in fact a considerable minority of women who have little in the way of female friendships and prefer the company of men. Attractive women, in particular, often remark that they prefer the company of men as they get much more ready acceptance there and much less trivial conversation.

There are however undoubted differences between men and women in their emotional makeup. Men do have their "mates" (Australia) or "buddies" (USA) and these friends do help in emotional crises. They do so differently, however. They do not try to help by listening for hours to a repetitive outpouring of problems, for instance. Women seem to believe that repetition has almost magical powers but men are much less enamored of it. If a man is "having troubles with his Missus", his mates will, for instance, "take him fishing to get his mind off it". Men are interested in solutions to their problems. They seldom find it helpful just to talk about their problems.

This appears to be connected with differences in the male and female brains. Recent work in brain physiology suggests that (as would be expected on evolutionary grounds) a much larger proportion of the female brain is devoted to emotional processing. Male emotional processing, on the other hand, tends to be connected to "fight or flight" brain centers. So emotional problems will first be worked on in a practical way by men but if that is not successful, the problem will be dealt with by the man "leaving the field" (either physically or emotionally) rather than by worrying further. So males and females find different things emotionally helpful but that is about all you can say about it. Claiming that the female way is better is simply dogmatic.

It does seem true, however, that many men do have few or no close male friends in later life. This is due to the different sex-role specializations that men and women have. Women are the socio-emotional specialists (specialists in emotional relationship maintenance) as part of their biological role as mothers and men are much more task-oriented as part of their biological role as providers and protectors. In later life, these roles are well set for men because they have by then committed much of their life to their generally competitive role as breadwinners. In an endeavor to provide for their families they have developed the competitive side of their nature and neglected their emotional relationships -- in the expectation that the woman in their life will look after that side of things. This is a perfectly normal example of specialization of roles -- and it is role specialization that is mankind's great trick, a trick that is a large part of the advantage mankind has over the other animals. At times of marriage breakups, then, it is little wonder that many men in later life suffer much more emotionally than women do. The specialization of women tends to leave them with friends whereas the specialization of men does not.

Even there, however, while men may have greater emotional difficulty from breakups in the short term, it seems to me that it is women who have the long-term problems. A breakup does not usually cause men to "leave the field" where it very often does for women -- particularly if the breakup occurs while the woman is in her 40s. Men tend to keep trying to form a new relationship after a breakup (even with a Filipina if nobody else is available) whereas women quite commonly give up on men entirely after a divorce. They are in fact often severely damaged emotionally by a relationship breakdown of any sort and react by tending to avoid future relationships. They may eventually come out of their withdrawal but only after years alone. They let one bad experience put them off life, in effect. They are often seem to be so fragile emotionally that they cannot stand just one disappointment. After one man is "bad" to them they over generalize frantically about the desirability of all men and say to themselves and to others: "That's it! I'm off men for good. Never again. Men are just no good." Not all women react that way but very many do.

The poor dears! Cutting themselves off from love just because of one or two bad men! It seems like weak character to me. How foolish to let just one bad man put you off life, love and relationships! If that is not letting the bad guys win, I do not know what would be. I suppose all I can say in extenuation of such folly is that perhaps such women have never had a good relationship and therefore do not know what they are missing.

There are of course plenty of red-blooded women who are going out with men again within weeks of a big disappointment (I have known some of them) but I have also met lots of women who have had an unhappy divorce and then deliberately avoided relationships for ten years or more -- mostly during their 40s. How do I know that? Because they tell me. Why do they tell me? Because eventually (particularly around the 50 years of age mark) they do tend to change their tune and seek out relationships again -- when the prospect of a lonely old age is looming before them. How foolish can you get? Fancy missing out on the joy of a loving relationship for a significant fraction of one's life. That sounds a quite disastrous and irremediable loss to me.

So the idea that women withstand later-life relationship breakups better than men do seems to me to be only very partly true. In the long-term most women (particularly women after 40) seem to deal with relationship breakups very badly and maladaptively. Men after 40 may be more distressed initially by breakups but divorced or separated women in their 40s tend to have attitudes which lose them a lot more when looked at over their life-spans. They would therefore benefit themselves greatly by being less supercilious and more generous in spirit to the men about them. I was once at a party for single over-40s when a very attractive woman I know said to me, "Where are all the men?” I pointed out that there were roughly as many men as women at the party. She replied: "No, not THOSE men!” Since she went home with me, however, I couldn't really accuse her of being too fussy.
John Ray blogs at Dissecting Leftism.

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