Women Still Unequal Before the Law

By Carey Roberts
September 28, 2005

Bad news to the Lavender Ladies at the N.O.W.: Women are still lesser to men in the eyes of the American legal system. What's worse, it's women who are bringing this upon themselves. Three recent events show this to be true.

First was last week's trial of Pfc. Lynndie England at Ft. Hood, Texas. Leash-lady, as you recall, was the woman who brought dishonor and shame upon the United States military by posing with naked Iraqi prisoners, then giving the thumbs-up in a full-frontal display of sadistic bravado.

During the trial Pfc. England's lawyer trotted out the sob story that she was an impressionable young lass who fell under the diabolical sway of her boyfriend, Charles Graner. "What mattered to her was her relationship to Cpl. Graner," according to attorney Jonathan Crisp. And — get ready for this — "She has had and has a great deal of difficulty functioning in life in general.

"Yes, the poor dear obviously can't be held responsible for her actions.

Then there's the debate over who will replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. The argument now seems to be revolving around whether the nominee will be a woman or a member of a minority group.

Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein have joined forces with first lady Laura Bush — all of whom fancy themselves to be constitutional law experts — to lobby for the chick pick.

Not all women are ready to jump on the female-at-any-cost bandwagon, however. Columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez fumes that the gender quota argument represents a tacit acceptance of the Neanderthal view that "A woman is not going to make it on her own. She won't rise to the top. She can't compete with the boys." [www.nationalreview.com/lopez/lopez200509231057.asp]

These two cases are merely laughable or absurd. The first represented a futile legal ploy to keep Spc. England from spending time behind bars — on Tuesday she was sentenced to three years in jail. The second is an example of a pro-feminist cabal trying to stack the Supreme Court with yet another abortionist.

But in the third case, the notion of female inferiority has been adjudicated by an appeals court and is now chiseled into law.

The case involved a manager at the National Education Association who developed the nasty habit of regularly venting his spleen.

The male employees didn't take the incidents seriously, in fact they tended to laugh the whole thing off. But the women were less capable of tolerating the abuse. The women couldn't take the incidents like a man, so they sued for sex discrimination.

The problem with their discrimination claim was the manager was an equal-opportunity yeller — he berated male and female subordinates alike. So to make their case, the women came up with a controversial legal theory called the "reasonable woman" standard. The reasonable woman standard posits that if females experience "disparate impact," then that's sex discrimination.

Sure enough, on September 2 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the ladies. To conclude that they had suffered from sex discrimination, the black-robed justices wrote this Orwellian opinion: "There is no legal requirement that hostile acts be overtly sex- or gender-specific in content." [www.littler.com/nwsltr/asap_MaleTantrums_9_05.htm]

That's right. So a person who has never experienced a racial slight can now claim he is a victim of racial discrimination. And husbands can successfully sue for workplace sex discrimination, since they are less likely than their wives to take parental leave.

There's no limit to this looking-glass logic. If we continue in this direction, we will soon find ourselves with differing standards of justice for every identity group. Maybe this bizarre ruling will serve as an object lesson to those who wonder why the most prominent words inscribed on the frieze of the U.S. Supreme Court building are "Equal Justice Under Law."

Under old English law, when a wife over-spent the family budget, it was the husband who went to debtor's prison. And during the 1800s, if an American woman committed a crime, it was her husband who did time.

The rationale was, if a woman didn't enjoy full legal rights, then she couldn't be held accountable for her actions. After all, rights and responsibilities go hand in hand.

But times have changed. Women now enjoy the same legal rights as men. That also means they should stop expecting to receive special treatment under the law.

So 85 years after passage of the 19th Amendment, these three cases reveal a sad truth: some women are not yet ready to assume the duties and obligations that necessarily accompanied their hard-won legal rights.

Equal rights and unequal responsibilities. That's hardly the American way.
_______________________

Carey Roberts is an analyst and commentator on political correctness. His best-known work was an exposé on Marxism and radical feminism.

Mr. Roberts' work has been cited on the Rush Limbaugh show. Besides serving as a regular contributor to RenewAmerica.us, he has published in The Washington Times, LewRockwell.com, ifeminists.net, Men's News Daily, eco.freedom.org, The Federal Observer, Opinion Editorials, and The Right Report.

Previously, he served on active duty in the Army, was a professor of psychology, and was a citizen-lobbyist in the US Congress. In his spare time he admires Norman Rockwell paintings, collects antiques, and is an avid soccer fan. He now works as an independent researcher and consultant.

© Copyright 2005 by Carey Roberts
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/roberts/050928

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Pop! Goes the Weasel

Yes, the weasel has indeed popped. As we predicted here, the trinity of the gender feminist victim cult is making its all too predictable voice heard from the pedestals provided it by Seattle’s regressive newspapers just in time to attempt to arouse support for the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

The worst legislation since Jim Crow Laws, VAWA is currently in reauthorization proceedings in Congress. This time around, the fact that a noble cause – reducing family violence – was hijacked by angry feminists looking for a cause to hang their hat on, and hang as many men as possible in the process, is abundantly clear. The unconstitutional aspects of VAWA and the nightmare scenarios that have resulted for so many innocent men are more widely known. This has created so much concern that the author of the soviet-styled VAWA legislation, Senator Joe Biden, actually tried to ascertain during John Roberts confirmation hearings whether the soon-to-be Justice would rule that VAWA is unconstitutional. Roberts skirted the question.

Washington State’s man-fighting super hero Patty Murray has also taken note of the growing dissatisfaction with VAWA and its anti-family legions. She has been holding secret “community meetings” around the state with federal and state funded feminist organizations masquerading as domestic violence advocates. Murray isn’t known for her smarts, but she is clever enough to realize that if the average Joe found out the truth that his tax dollars are going to anti-male, anti-father hate groups whose sole agenda is the destruction of his family, he’d be mightily pissed off.

Murray is surely in Wenatchee today, meeting with 300 other people from the state’s domestic violence and family destruction industry. When it comes to the rights of men and fathers, as well as those of children that deserve fathers, this meeting is like a super-madrassa conference. Worse, these representatives of state-sponsored terror are meeting on your nickel. (Note that at these sorts of conferences, not a single person with a point of view that differs from the feminist hoard is allowed).

The first of the sisterhood trinity from Seattle’s newspapers made her appearance today. Susan Paynter has an emotionally wrought and misleading column in the today’s Seattle PI. Not surprisingly, Paynter lauds the extreme and totalitarian anti-domestic violence laws resulting from VAWA.

She fails to mention that these laws are based on gender feminist ideology and thus are designed to drive fathers out of families. She also fails to mention that VAWA and most local and state laws on the issue are draconian, extend government’s clumsy and oppressive feet into families where they don’t belong, and violate the most basic civil rights of half of the population. When it comes to putting women on a pedestal and attacking men, boys, and fathers, there are no limits to how far Paynter would like to go.

Of course, what Paynter does not fail to do is call for more money. The feminist establishment that has taken over the domestic violence industry is addicted to the pork VAWA provides. They then turn around and use this pork to attack many of the very same Republicans that support this horrible legislation because they like to have a cause in which they can call themselves "bi-partison."

Expect to hear soon from the other two parts of the unholy trinity, amateur columnist extraordinaire Nicole Brodeur and insightful-as-a-door knob Joni Balter. There was a time when feminist victim speech was untouchable. They are used to getting away with lies, made-up statistics, and gross exaggerations. In the past, they were able to propagate feminist myths about men, fathers, and the “patriarchy,” while ignoring female violence.

But, that time is changing. As more men and fathers learn what happened to their most basic rights while they were away at work providing for their families, more are starting to speak up against the injustice. Women too who don’t buy into the victim obsession of gender feminist orthodoxy are also making their voices heard. VAWA may pass yet again in Congress, but justice runs marathons while myths and hate usually collapse after the first few miles.

As the marathon continues, politicians such as David Reichert will pay the price. Running on the Republican ticket, Reichert takes the vote of men and fathers for granted while counting on their silence in the face of gross injustice. Next time around, though, his enthusiastic support for VAWA because it provides pork for the sheriff’s office he used to run will be questioned. He will have to answer.

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How Men Are Put Down And How To Get Back Up!

By George Rolph London 2005

Shaming men is a very effective way of putting men down. A technique that is useful for this is to find, within society, the worst cases of poor manhood and expose them, endlessly, to public gaze. This creates an impression that ALL men are like these unfortunates. Then, simply repeat those images and stories over and over again. In time, the public will begin to get the idea that most men are abusers, child molesters, unable to remain faithful within relationships, deadbeat fathers, too stupid to do housework or make major decisions and so on.

Examples of this behaviour can been seen in women’s magazine articles, soap operas and movies, sitcoms, news reports (Particularly on the BBC and Channel 4), newspapers, talk shows (Such as, Jerry Springer and The Jeremy Kyle Show), radio programs (Women’s Hour etc.), modern literature, cartoons, feminist web sites, Open University programs on TV, (UK). advertisements in the press, bumper stickers, editorials, T-shirts, and other items of clothing and in women’s studies groups in colleges and universities. The crucible of this hatred is left wing feminist politics.

Some men are animals. So what! Does that mean you are one of them? When the last time you abused a child, robbed a store or raped a female? Does it anger you that people think you might be a rapist or child molester? Does it bug you when you see women, frightened by the lie that most men are dangerous, crossing the street when they see a man coming?

Ironically, there is a side to this disgusting misandry (Male Hating) that is having a very positive effect. Men are becoming much more politically aware and are thinking through their own identity at a much deeper level than ever before. This is creating a sense of brotherhood in men and in turn, this is creating a very effective and organised force for change.


HOW TO KEEP MEN FROM FIGHTING BACK

One of the most effective ways for anti male bigots to keep men from speaking out is to launch savage and rapid attacks on any man who puts his head over the politically correct parapet. This is an identical technique to that used by female abusers of children and men.


It works like this:

THE BIGOTS ATTACK LIST.

First attack non stop, verbally and/or physically.
Wait for the victim to get angry.
Claim the anger is evidence that the person is unstable and hates women
Pour guilt upon the angry victim or punish him in other ways
Encourage others to join the attacks on the victim by crying, looking distressed, or by claiming personal victim hood status
Encourage the authorities to join in the attacks.
Ridicule the victim into silence

Anyone who has ever watched bullies at their work or, who has been bullied in school, will be very familiar with this list of techniques. That is why I call it,
The Bigots Attack List. For the list to operate effectively, the male victim of it must voluntarily back down. The sense that it is wrong to attack females, even in self defence, works against these men and they effectively silence themselves.
Note carefully: I am NOT talking about attacking females in a physical way here.
This can be observed by watching men in daytime chat shows being attacked and, despite the strength of their arguments or cases, folding under pressure because fighting back goes against their learned chivalrous behaviour.
If you study the techniques used by the Ku Klux Klan, domestic abusers, Nazis, various dictators, playground and work place bullies and Radical Feminists, you will find the same structure from this list always appears.

These techniques have been, and are being used today. The problem for those perpetrating this abuse of men is that the public they are seeking to brainwash, are growing ever more tired of hearing what they know is a lie. The outrage and fury at the constant denigration of males is growing ever more strident and It’s not just men who are angry. Mothers have sons and husbands too.


HOW MEN CAN FIGHT BACK AND REGAIN SELF WORTH

For men to be effective at fighting back against this organised bigotry it is VITAL that they first free themselves from the fear of fighting back. In turn, this means they must challenge their own thinking and emotional responses with respect to angry females. Retreating into silence or naked, uncontrolled aggression is, frankly, foolish. However, getting angry is NOT wrong and IS a perfectly healthy response to an attack. How ever much politicians, judges, policemen, social workers, feminists, the press and other women etc., try to convince men that their anger is not acceptable, the individual man must learn to ignore those voices and allow himself to feel angry in appropriate ways. To quote Morpheus in the movie, The Matrix..., “Free your mind.”

Do NOT accept the criticisms levelled at you or your gender as valid just because they may apply to some men. Some men are not all men. Spend time thinking about the wonderfully positive things that men have achieved. Take a look out of your window and make a mental note of all the things that you see that men have invented, built and given to us all. Do the same in your kitchen. Everything from the house you live in, the taps on your sink, the car in your drive and the roads you drive on. Every time an aircraft flies overhead or a boat sails past your beach, remember that it was men, just like you, who invented and built them. As you dwell on these things learn to love your own gender. Feel the great pride of belonging to a gender that has shaped our world. Men are great and its time we started telling people that. Its time we started to tell our sons that they are a part of a wonderful heritage and a powerful brotherhood they can, and should be, proud of. Men are not the oppressors that radical feminists like to paint them as.

Remember: When the Titanic sank the men stayed on board and gave up their places in the lifeboats to the women and children. How oppressive is that? As men we have fought and died in tens of thousands of wars to keep our families free. Every war memorial you will ever see is filled with the names of our brothers, who sacrificed all so that we can walk in safety. And that includes all those radical feminists who hate us. It was our fathers, throughout history, that bought the men-haters the freedom to say what they do and that blood was, and still is, too expensive a price to pay to allow those who hate the family and men to succeed in destroying them.
We have to start refusing to accept the lie that all men are pigs. We have to reject all those negative messages about heterosexual men, families and marriages etc. Until we free our own minds we cannot free those of our sons. Many men and women have always done this and live happy and fulfilled lives as a result. Join us and let us turn back the tide of what amounts to racist and sick man hatred. (Misandy)
Come and join in our determination to place men and their families back upon the mountain of respectability and pride they belong on.

We have all witnessed the terrible effects of family breakdown on our societies. We have seen our streets teeming with out of control kids brought up without the discipline and leadership of a genuine father figure. We have all shed tears at the images on the news of youngsters dead from drug overdoses, or shot while committing crimes. These, and many other tragic stories are the direct results of the attacks on the family, hetrosexual men and the institution of marriage. As the comedian Chris Rock puts it, “Just because you can raise a child without a father, does not mean it’s a good idea!”

The time has come to stand up and say that we will no longer accept those things going on. It is time for men to once again be real men and refuse to have anything to do with those sick social experiments that have come so close to destroying the very foundations of our societies. It is time for real men to use their votes to tell politicians that we are not going to take this anymore. It is time for real men to write to TV stations, the press, their elected representatives, companies that produce Ad’s denigrating men and on and on, that we are no longer going to stand silently by while they destroy those people and things we love. No reasonable man wants to put women down, but no real man wants to see his own rights and those of his father and son destroyed either. It’s time for real men to say, NO MORE!
OUR RIGHTS MATTER BUT WE HAVE TO FIGHT FOR THEM

Get educated about what is really going on in our world them come and help us to fight back. We will help you by pointing you in the right direction. We can show you what Internet sites are worth looking at. What books to read etc. You can help us by putting your skills to work for men just like you.

Come and join the greatest band of brothers the world will ever see and help us to help our future sons. It’s time for men to build a memorial to the living. A monument that our sons can be proud of. A page of history that reflects the glory of most men and not the failures of a few.


George Rolph London 2005

Posted with permission of the author, by the Geezer

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W is for 'What Men's Rights?'

Imagine you are 19-year old young man, holding down a job, a regular guy. You have a home, and a car. Your life is good, your whole life is in front of you. One day you get up, and grab a bite at the local fast-food joint, and then head off to your job at a building supply store. Just the regular workaday stuff. Little do you know that a couple girls are skipping school at the same time. No big deal for you. They are not even people you know, or will see today. But you are male. And the girls need an excuse for their truancy. So they claim that they were abducted and raped. The girls pick your photo out of a large collection that the cops have. Anyone would have done for them. You just happened to be about the right age to fit into their story. But that's fine, right, there's no evidence, you should be questioned and released, right? And you even have lots of alibis, your job, the people you were with that day, the eye doctor who saw you. Wrong. Not in this country. You are the wrong sex. -Instead you spend 86 days in jail awaiting trial, and are a target for every other prisoner, because you are a 'pervert'. You are severely beaten. You are placed in isolation for your own protection. The whole community knows your name, and believes you are guilty. Death threats are made. You cannot appear in court without a bullet-proof vest. You loose your home, your car, and your job. Finally, you are released when one of the girls finally admits she made up the charges. You can try to sue the girls, and the police, but really, the damage is done.

I hear a lot of stories like this. And it is because of two things:

1) Men don't have any rights anymore, and

2) Unfortunately, many, even the majority of rape and assault claims ARE made up, irregardless of what NOW and the gender-feminists tell us.

It really could happen to you. It could be happening right now. You might arrive home tonight and find the cops at your door, and say goodbye to your family for the next 10 years. ...Imagine if that one girl handn't recanted? Evidence apparently doesn't matter. Alibis apparently don't matter. Genetic evidence can be ignored. You could be in jail for a long, long time just waiting for trial. You might not live to make trial. And you might find that once in court, the evidence still didn't matter. After all, you are a man. A loaded weapon of sexual assault, just waiting to go off.

Be careful out there. Not that it will help.

-M

simulposted on MisforMalevolent

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We Need the UN Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

At one time, I held out hope for the UN. Not anymore.

Carey Roberts sums up the reasons why.

The UN is for the most part an irrelevant organization. When one says this to a UN supporter, they are quick to point out one or two of the things the UN does that actually helps people, such as providing aid to feed the children of impoverished countries. And, occassionally, it fulfills its peacekeeping role.

The fact is that the UN does not even do these few things very effectively. It is hard for an organization to promote peace when it is preoccupied with such nonsense as "gender mainstreaming."

Curing hunger and peacekeeping missions could much better be handled by organizations focused specifically on each function. That way, ideology and corruption would interfere less with purpose driven activities.

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T is for Today

Today - I called my state senator and representatives.

Tomorrow - I am contacting my US Senators and Representatives.

And I am going to get in their faces, and let them know what is going on, this week, and next week and the week after.

I will ask them what is the best way to influence them in the matter of 'Men's Rights'.

I will ask them how we can level the playing field for men again.

I will make sure that they see the statistics that we all are living with every day.

I will tell them my story. My story because it shows them how real people are affected.

And I am going to keep on telling my story, and the stories of other men, suffering at the hands of the system.

Because I have no recourse to the courts, because there is no justice left in the system, and my only hope of anything less than slavery is the legislature. They did this to us, they can undo it.

What about you? Click the links above, and pick up the phone. Your lawyers aren't doing you that much good that you can ignore the people who made the laws that you are dealing with. I think we need to GET INVOLVED, SPEAK UP, and ACT OUT.

TODAY.

-M

Simulposted on MIsForMalevolent

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Addressing the Listless American Male

Contemporary gender feminist literature sometimes exposes its underbelly in spite of itself. This happens much like in modern physics, where the various versions of string theory cannot be reconciled but nevertheless seem to be describing parts of a larger scientific truth that has not yet been fully revealed.

For example, a recent plaintive column in Salon.com that criticizes young professional male New Yorkers for being listless, paired with, say, a book by Peggy Drexler extolling the virtues of lesbian couples raising fatherless boys, nips at the edges of a larger truth: something less than positive has happened to the American male. The cultural phenomenon of the listless young adult male is one that deserves attention as it may well point to cultural dysfunction within western society.

The existence of the listless male persona described by Salon’s Rebecca Traister is unfortunately a reality; at least in so much as it is a symptom of a deeper problem. Indecisiveness, lacking in motivation, noncommital, and a generally fatalistic demeanor. These are not unusual traits to see exhibited by single (and married) men in their 20s and 30s. One might go so far as to suggest there is a palpable self loathing among these men.

The evidence is all around us. Just looking at one urban area - King County, Washington - marriage rates have declined so much that nearly 50% of all men in their 30s have never been married. Academic achievement among boys has declined rapidly over the past two decades, with both high school graduation rates and university enrollment among boys falling. Meanwhile, across all age groups, males are several times more likely than females to commit suicide and do so at alarming rates.

Salon’s Rebecca recognizes that a large part of what concerns her is her own lack of success in finding a permanent mate to commit to her. It is tempting, and probably more than a little appropriate, to suggest that she look in the mirror. One of the reasons that men are lackadaisical about committing to her generation of women may well be that these women simply do not inspire them. Worse, this generation of women has a sense of pedestal entitlement and a quickness to the draw on claims of victimhood – key ingredients of man repellant. In other words, some or even a large part of the fault for Rebecca and her sister's man woes may lie with the current crop of single women.

But, that is such an obvious path to follow and, while probably productive, will likely not help to shed light on a deeper cultural sickness that would leave so many single men so apathetic about so many facets of life. After all, what Rebecca really misses is men that behave like men. You can see the men Rebecca complains about all around urban areas like Seattle. They look disheveled and a little lost, and they make statements with the cadence and intonation normally associated with a question. It’s as if they have little solid ground under their feet.

Rebecca’s column is centered on her interview of author Benjamin Kunkel, who recently published a novel entitled “Indecision.” The central character of Kunkel’s novel, Dwight, caught Rebecca’s interest because he seemed to epitomize what she sees among her male cohorts in New York City. In this interview, Kunkel made an interesting observation:

Rebecca: But that has everything to do with feminism and women's roles in this discussion we're having. For a long time, I've been wondering about a crisis of masculinity in our generation, a generation in which opportunities were truly available to at least middle-class women. We weren't just told we could do anything; we were expected to do everything. But we were always told how difficult that would be, that we would confront challenges and pay high prices for our satisfactions. I don't know that men of our generation were sent the same message. So when things get tough, women don't enjoy it any more than men, but they are not surprised. Whereas men -- at least some of the ones I've known -- have been paralyzed by life's hardships.

Kunkel: If what you're talking about is the inculcation in women of a tragic sense of life -- the sense that nothing comes without a price -- that is the sine qua non of masculinity, the masculine tragic attitude that we see in books and movies. "This is gonna hurt, but it's necessary; it ain't gonna be easy, but you're gonna have to suck it up and take it." But what you're saying is very interesting. If the tragic sense of life, this masculine property, should have been transferred to women, [and] men have come to be seen as these cosseted creatures denied any sort of full contact with reality, then this is a really important historical crossover.

Yes, this does make sense. So, what then happened to the “inculcation” of men with a masculine sense that life is a bitch, so get over it, and get out there and do something good anyway? When asking that question, Peggy Drexler’s new book “Raising Boys Without Men: How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men” comes to mind.

Glenn Sacks recently reviewed Dexler’s book and made these observations about its contents:

According to Drexler, lesbian moms are “more sophisticated about how they teach their sons right from wrong” than heterosexual couples, and there are “real advantages for a boy being raised in this new type of family.” Heterosexual mothers don’t measure up in “moral attitude,” and are less likely than lesbian moms to “create opportunities for their sons to examine moral and values issues.” This in turn slows the “moral development in their sons.”

Furthermore, Drexler asserts that boys raised by lesbians “grow up emotionally stronger,” “have a wider range of interests and friendships,” and “appear more at ease in situations of conflict” than boys from “traditional” (i.e., father-present) households. Fatherless boys “exhibit a high degree of emotional savvy…an intuitive grasp of people and situations.” Best of all, sons of lesbian couples are much more willing to discard traditional masculinity than boys trapped in heterosexual households.

For example, Fiona’s son paints his nails, while both of Maria’s sons dance ballet. Ursula’s son chose sewing and cooking for his electives in 7th grade. Kathy's son has rejected playing baseball as being “too competitive”—no surprise, because in their local, father-led baseball league, “the better players get more playing time.”

Perhaps lesbian raised boys are the answer to the problem of listless young adult men. Then, again, perhaps not. Channeling masculine energy into painting nails and emotional adroitness would seem to have little relationship with inculcating the tragic sense of life in men. For a boy, a father is the source of that life lesson.

Again, Sacks:

While Raising Boys is being promoted as a harmless, feel-good affirmation for “maverick moms,” it is in fact an attack on the institution that research shows is the best-suited to raising children—the family. Drexler encourages women thinking of having fatherless children to make that “leap of faith.” But the rates of all major youth pathologies, including juvenile crime, teen pregnancy, teen drug abuse, and school dropouts, are tightly correlated with fatherlessness. Drexler waxes poetic about the nebulous benefits of fatherless parenting, but makes little attempt to explain why fatherless families produce so many troubled and pathological children.

From the complaints of a 30-ish urban single woman to the idealized world of lesbian run households - men and boys in both scenarios are footballs to be kicked about and experimented with, but never understood and, God forbid, appreciated.

Thanks to Salon’s Rebecca and lesbian-advocate Drexler, we now inadvertently have a bit more of the picture than we had before. Too many boys are growing up without the daily involvement of their fathers. Sometimes this is due to fathers that truly can be described as Deadbeat Dads; but more often fatherless-ness is due to institutionalized bias, even hostility, toward the nuclear family and the American male’s place in it.

This generation of boys is learning much about self-indulgence and little about discipline. They are not taught to channel their natural masculine energy into doing positive, instead leaving a chaotic mess of indecision on steroids. Their natural state of high energy engagement with their environment is treated as anathema while pseudo-scholars suggest that teaching them to paint their fingernails and to participate in communal emotion-fests is preferable. They see example after example of masculine decisiveness being met with cultural disdain. They hear the constant negative messages about masculinity that pervade our culture: men have a propensity to violence against women, their heterosexual urges are akin to rape, and the patriarchal role of fatherhood within a family is passé.

In other words, boys, men, and fathers have been inculcated, actually bombarded, with negative messages about the very essence of what they are. Is it really any wonder that Rebecca would find that men in an urban setting – where these messages are the most intense – would seem to be lost and behave as if they are powerless?

The results are obvious for anyone that cares to look. Something clearly set this destructive process in motion. It is well past time we stop allowing hysterical accusations of “turning back the clock” paralyze us as we seek to address it. It's happening in the UK and it can happen in the USA, even in Seattle.

Indeed, there have been times when turning back the clock would have been preferable to allowing history to play out – Hitler’s genocide of European Jews and Stalin’s mass murders provide a couple of examples. Unwinding the negativity and hatefulness of contemporary orthodox feminism in favor of rewinding that movement’s egalitarian roots is another.

[By the way, there are some interesting and witty letters in response to Traister's Salon column here. It's also fun to read Amanda go apoplectic about these letters here.]

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P is for Payor

Saw this on MENSACTIVISM.ORG - BBC News reports a British Court throwing out a false rape charge against a man, Levi Multilal. In short, the man, (hereinafter 'the Samaritan') gallantly tried to give a 'clearly drunk' young woman a lift, but after the woman had been in the car for no more than a minute, she opened the door and walked off. About half an hour later, when she was found slumped in a telephone booth by passers by, she claimed rape, and the Samaritan was fingered when he came forward to respond to a public inquiry by police for any witnesses in the matter to come forward. Strikes me as another case of doing the right thing being the wrong thing in legal matters between the sexes.

The evidence in the case, if anything, showed the innocence of the Samaritan. Semen on the woman's skirt did not match the Samaritan, nor was she able to pick him out of a lineup. Still the prosecution proceeded, grinding along for 9 months until the judge in this case (Roger Sanders) had had enoough, stating that the prosecution barrister Justin Bearman was talking "utter rubbish" and referring to the entire matter as a "travesty of justice". He went further and suggested that Justin should pay the costs of the state's prosecution of the samaritan.

All this is very nice, but a few things strike me -

1) What about the indubitably huge legal expenses incurred by the samaritan? I am suspect that the judge was in a position to levy legal fees against the Samaritan, or contempt charges, or the legal equivalent. Why not a similar order to benefit this man, who was punished for 'doing the right thing'.

2) What about compensation for his loss of reputation. In many circles, this man is probably indelibly labeled 'the rapist'. Now, for any compensation, he would have to go back to court to sue for loss of reputation, and I have to suspect that suing the crown's prosecutor isn't something that is easily done, or often won. I know it is fantasy to think the court would order compensation for this, but in a just world, it would have happened.

3) What about this woman? Was she unable to stop the course of this prosecution? I see her guilt secondary to that of the crown's prosecution and that of the British legal system, but she is, in short, a false accuser. When one cannot pick one's assailant out of a lineup, doesn't a reasonable person have SOME responsibility to halt the case? Shouldn't she have been ordered to at least contribute to the Samaritan's legal bills? What about penalties for her? The courts are supposed to provide justice, not a forum for the destruction of people who just happen to be the wrong sex, and have a weakness for providing lifts to damsels in distress, (and be foolish enough (!?!?!) to try and 'help' the police).

4) Which brings me to my next point, touched on so often above. Doesn't this case have a chilling effect upon men who might ever consider assisting a drunk or otherwise disabled or incoherent woman? Heaven forbid, women of the world, that you ever be in need and alone on the streets. No thinking man having heard of this case is going to come anywhere near you. They are going to go the other way. It will be the WRONG thing for them to do, but who can afford to spend 9 months of their life fighting a false rape charge, and be labeled 'rapist' for the rest of their life. Oh, but some of you may say 'but it turned out right in the end.' Riiight. He was Accused of Rape, Arrested, and suffered through 9 Months of Prosecution. I don't think that anyone has these on their 'to do' list, or even on their 'ok if it happens' list.
- And who is ever likely to show up at a police station with information regarding what they witnessed in the vicninity of a rape after this? Certainly any man reading this story would feel very hesitant.

5) The story in the BBC names the defendant, and as I thought his name has been trashed enough, it was important to put his name here too, as he is here vindicated, although mostly I have gone with 'the Samaritan' because it is what he was. The story names the judge. It names the prosecutor. Let's think who is missing here... Ummmm... Oh, right, it doesn't name the false accuser. That must be because she is a child right? No, article indicates that she is 20. Then it must be because.... because... because she was 'raped'. Why is the stigma of rape considered such that the identity of the 'victim' must be concealed, (even when the charges are proven false), while the identiy of the 'perpetrator' can be revealed? Woudn't you think that 'Rapist' is a worse label to carry around in your life than 'victim'? What's with the uneven playing field here? I think I know the answer, and it has to do with Misandry.

6) Another thing that concerns me is that this is news. Why is it news? Cases like this should be thrown out every day, given that we know that a huge percentage, even a majority of rape charges are false. So why is it news when a case like this is thrown out? It can only be because mostly, they aren't. -There was a reason why the prosecutor (Justin Bearman) kept on pushing ahead with this case, and it wasn't because he thought he was going to lose it.

Think about that as you sip your coffee today. Would you EVER pick up a female looking lost and alone in your car again? Even pause to check to see if a passed-out woman is 'ok'. 'Don't do it' the law says. Call a cop, or an ambulance. They'll come -eventually.

Let me end with my favorite quote from the story: Judge Roger Sanders: "You are starting on the basis that this defendant is guilty when there is not enough evidence linking him to the case." Yes, the assumption IS always that the man is guilty. Why is this news to Judge Sanders? Because he is judging in a criminal matter. If he had been in the family court, the civil court, he would be more comfortable with this.

Still, the samaritan, the MAN, ended up being the primary payor in this case. The prosecutor pulls his paycheck no matter how his case goes, as does the Judge. But the falsely accused man has lost months of time, perhaps years off his life (imagine yourself in his shoes), his reputation, and a huge amount of legal fees, with no sign of recompense for anyone except the state, who may require the prosecutor to fork over some of the costs. I'm sorry, isn't the state here to protect the individual? Best as we can tell, isn't the only harmed individual the Samaritan? Helloooooo! ANYONE HOME IN THERE?

There's someone at home, but they are barely awake, I think.

-M

Simulposted on MIsForMalevolent

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Tragedy wears a human face: Reply to Rep. Ellen Sauerbrey

Carey Robert
September 14, 2005

This past week Ellen Sauerbrey, US representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, went to Washington, hoping to shore up support for the State Department's pro-feminist agenda. But her plan backfired.

Sauerbrey's speech, "Freeing Women from Exploitation and Despair," presented this last Wednesday at the Heritage Foundation, was flawed in its framework, biased in its presentation, and dangerous in its social implications. [www.state.gov/g/wi/52821.htm] Let me explain.

Marxism divides society into two groups: haves and have-nots, with the interests of the groups pitted in primordial conflict. Traditional Marxism views economic class as the heart of the problem. In contrast, neo-Marxism — under the guise of gender feminism — places sex at the crux of its analysis. And neo-Marxism is the framework that representative Ms. Sauerbrey operates from.

I have lived and traveled in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Europe. I have visited some of the most remote and poverty-stricken corners of our planet. And this conclusion is clear: tragedy is not a gendered phenomenon.

Let's start with Sauerbrey's first claim, that the right to be safe represents "the most fundamental human right to which every woman is entitled." If that's true, then I'm sure Sauerbrey would agree that safety is the most fundamental right of men, as well.

According to the WHO World Report on Violence and Health, violence accounts for 14% of deaths among males and 7% of deaths among females. [www5.who.int/violence_injury
_prevention/main.cfm?p=0000000592]

Does that 2:1 sex imbalance warrant consideration and concern?

Sauerbrey also deplores the plight of refugees, singling out "the rape of displaced women in Darfur" for particular concern. But if Sauerbrey had read a little further in the UN Human Rights Commission report, she would have learned that the attackers also "indiscriminately attacked those who had not fled...with a particular emphasis on men and boys." [www.gendercide.org/darfur01.htm]

What moral code says we should deplore the rape of women and ignore the killings of men?

When Sauerbrey turns to the topic of healthcare, her remarks verge on the hallucinogenic.

Sauerbrey laments the notion that "Women's health receives too little attention in the developing world." What she fails to mention is that in almost every country around world, men lead shorter lives than women. This lifespan disparity is especially pronounced in Eastern Europe. In Russia, for example, women live more than 13 years longer than men.

Excess male suicide is another troubling indicator. "The rate of suicide is almost universally higher among men compared to women by an aggregate ratio of 3.5 to 1," according to the World Health Organization.[www.who.int.whr/2001/
main/en/chapter2/002g.htm].

Despite these facts, all the gender-specific programs of the WHO focus on women and neglect men. [www.renewamerica.us/
analyses/050312roberts.htm]

Then representative Sauerbrey turns to the problem of domestic violence. "In a sample survey of over 300 women in Santiago and in Managua, reports of domestic violence reached 40% and 52%," she notes.

But the bias of that statement is self-evident — why weren't men included in the survey? According to published research on international trends of domestic violence, women are just as likely to physically assault their partners as men. [http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID16.pdf]

The concerns with Ellen Sauerbrey's speech go beyond the matter of balance and intellectual honesty.

Because once we agree that women as a class are victims, that points to men as the perpetrators. And once again Sauerbrey falls prey to the feminist analysis, implying that all the woes of women can be blamed on men.

The scapegoating of large groups of people carries an ugly historical legacy. The lynchings of Afro-American men on trumped up charges of "violating" white women's physical integrity comes to mind. [www.ifeminists.net/introduction/
editorials/2005/0817roberts.html]

Traditionally, men have been viewed as the defenders and protectors of women. But once you start to suggest that males are a menace to women, then you are undermining the basis of the traditional family. Before long the social order begins to come unglued, and all manner of state invention into citizens' private lives becomes justified.

Indeed, Sauerbrey openly discounts the role of men as fathers with this comment: "When you educate a man you educate an individual; when you educate a woman you educate a whole family."

If this tirade had appeared in Ms. Magazine, it would be bad enough. But Sauerbrey's remarks represent the official US stance at the United Nations.

If there is an object lesson in Ellen Sauerbrey's well-intentioned but misguided speech, it is this: We should ponder the seductive appeal of radical feminism, a divisive ideology that plays on powerful psychological instincts that lurk within all of us.

[Note: If you wish to comment on Mrs. Sauerbrey's September 7 speech, feel free to send your message to Edwin Feulner, President of the Heritage Foundation, at
staff@heritage.org]

Carey Roberts is an analyst and commentator on political correctness. His best-known work was an exposé on Marxism and radical feminism.

Mr. Roberts' work has been cited on the Rush Limbaugh show. Besides serving as a regular contributor to RenewAmerica.us, he has published in The Washington Times, LewRockwell.com, ifeminists.net, Men's News Daily, eco.freedom.org, The Federal Observer, Opinion Editorials, and The Right Report.

Previously, he served on active duty in the Army, was a professor of psychology, and was a citizen-lobbyist in the US Congress. In his spare time he admires Norman Rockwell paintings, collects antiques, and is an avid soccer fan. He now works as an independent researcher and consultant.

© Copyright 2005 by Carey Robertshttp://www.renewamerica.us/
columns/roberts/050914

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C is for Crushing Injustice

I wonder if anyone who is not a divorced man or support-paying father who has run up against the system, can even begin to comprehend the truly crushing level of injustice at every level in our family court system.

The numbers just don't do it 'justice'.

I mean, you know that women win the vast majority of custody cases, (~38% of men have NO custody, and 77% of the remainder get no time with their children because the courts won't enforce visitation) and that women much more rarely pay any kind of support when they are the higher-earning spouse (~30% of custodial fathers receive support vs ~80% of custodial mothers). And so on, and on, and on....

But until you have gone through it, you just can't appreciate the true, insidious nature of it all.

You might assume that the judges don't enforce the more abusive portions of the law, and provide leeway for men.

And to a small degree, you would probably be right. The law allows for men who are in arrears to be just thrown in jail, but I suspect generally that if you are making payments, they are unlikely to do that, ...well, except for short periods of time to try and shake down your parents, spouses, adult children and friends for extra money for your ex.

But what you can't appreciate until you are there is how every decision, and every step will be tilted in your ex-wife's favor, not just the standard stuff, but mid-size stuff, the big stuff, and the little stuff, every step of the way.

The courts will claim that they are being 'fair'. But mostly 'fair' means giving your ex's lawyer a 'strict talking to' when she violates a court order for the 4th, 5th, and 6th time, and then turning and burdening you with her legal fees for your efforts to enforce the court's orders.

On the legal fees, first you will be told that they are the responsibility of the spouse 'with the ability to pay', and then you will be told it is because you did something wrong, and then the judge will start just making stuff up... ...and you will still be paying (whoops, building up arrears) once you loose ability to pay, and irregardless of the merit of your motions. And the court will give you 10 to 30 days to pay your ex's legal fees. -At best. But mostly they won't throw you in jail if you pay something.

And don't annoy the court by trying to 'enforce your rights' beyond the minimum. (Uh, who said you had rights? They lied.) If you appeal, and they determine it is frivolous they will hit you with penalties. -And in California, they can even penalize you for more than $10,000 for bringing appeals with merit, -they admit it. A penalty of $13,000 was levied in this case, in which a man was appealing being thrown out of his own house, where he was the sole occupant, per an ex-parte order from his wife, claiming that he was 'immediate threat to other occupants'. Perhaps he was frightening his goldfish. His wife then moved in and argued that she 'should be awarded primary custody since she and the kids were living in the house' - while the husband was an unfit parent living in his car.

Every step of the way, you will be punished, and your ex-wife will be coddled. Orders mean nothing when it comes to her. Perjury is ignored. Malicious behavior, fraud, theft, it might as well not have happened. Same with violence against you. She is, after all, the woman.

If you have any property (cars, house, motorcycle... anything), the sherriff will seize them pursuant to the liens on them for your arrears and penalties, and your ex's legal fees and auction them.

Meanwhile, without a trial, your pay will be garnished to 60% or 65% (convicted criminals aren't docked more than 10%), and you will be told that you will have a chance to appear at an ability to pay hearing to adjust this that is months away. Don't worry about eating or paying rent in the meantime. The court sure won't.

If you aren't living in a car already (either a junker not worth towing for auction or not your own), it is because someone has taken you in, or is protecting you from homelessness. Otherwise perhaps you give up, and become one of the lost men, the wandering homeless men who can't set down roots anywhere, or hold a real job, because they are, in fact, now fugitives by the definitions of the Bradley Amendment and the Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act.

Right now someone is reading this who hasn't gone through it and saying: "This guy has gone off the deep end." Perhaps you need to see the sad, defeated look on my face as I type. The slump to my shoulders. If I was telling you this, mostly my voice would be low, I would be glancing at the floor, ashamed that I am in this position, the victim, the one who has no rights.

You would see how it affects men to be treated like this - we think: "...somehow, this must be my fault, that I am in this position, that I have nothing, no property, no real income that I can keep, no rights - it must be my fault, that I am a peon, an outcast, a slave in the land of the free."

-No, this isn't a rant, its sad testimony.

There are a few unfortunate and small lessons to be learned. When you fight your ex-wife in court, whenever you appear in court, you are 'fighting city hall'. Avoid doing it where possible. No matter how evil your ex is, she probably is incapable of being as systematically evil as the court system is. Remember the court system is used to dealing with murderers and rapists, pursuing them across the country and imprisoning them - and you are worse than all those, you are an ex-husband. You WILL be treated worse. Try not to take it 'personally', -it isn't your fault; you were born a man.

All my best to you in your struggles...

-M

simulposted on M is for Malevolent

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Mythical Income

The Seattle PI recently perpetuated the myth that women are paid less than men.

The calculation used to determine the relative incomes of men and women is simple enough. Take the total income earned by each sex and then divide by the number of people.

The problem is, it aint so simple.

In a free economy such as ours, the incomes that people earn are based on a large number of factors. Years on the job, past experience, education, and especially hours worked, are all key determinants of income. Thus, a valid comparison of income levels between men and women, blacks and whites, or between any two groups, cannot be made without factoring in these variables.

An appropriate analysis should also consider who receives the benefit of these incomes. For example, the income of a man working to support a stay-at-home Mom and their children should be allotted to everyone in the family, not just the man. After all, any good marketer will tell you that women purchase the vast majority of consumer goods in our country. If the income of women is so much lower than that of men, how exactly is that happening?

Equally important, a good analysis should take into account the recipients of wealth redistribution. Our country’s combined tax rates are close to (if not over) forty percent of individual income. This income is taken from the hands of the person that earned it and redistributed throughout the economy. Women receive far more of this income redistribution than do men. For example, many federal programs are far more generous to women than they are to men. The Violence Against Women Act provides billions of dollars to women only, while the National Institute of Health provides several times more research funding for female-only disease than it does for male-only health issues.

Finally, a good analysis would consider the relative performance of men and women in different types of employment. Often, the obvious differences in the ability of each each sex to perform a particular job are considered too politically incorrect to even mention. Men, for example, are much more capability of performing some jobs because of their greater physical strength. It doesn't stop there though: a female friend recently told me that whenever she calls a company's customer service line, she hangs up if she gets a woman on the line. According to her, men customer service agents are more helpful and courteous, so she will continue calling until she gets one. That example is just anecdotal, of course, but science finds numorous and impossible to ignore biological differences in the brain structure of men relative to women that go well beyond our obvious difference in physique.

But, if these issues were taken into account, gender feminists would ultimately have one less thing to be hysterical about. A responsible newspaper would clearly caveat these studies before allowing their results to be printed. In fact, these bogus studies would have been long ago dismissed on the pages of our country’s newspapers if they cared much about truth.

They don’t, though. Perhaps this is why so many Americans are now looking to each other for sources of news instead of traditional sources.

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A is for Archetype

Maleness has been cast in a particular light by the women’s movement. Because of their struggle against the traditional role that women held in society, some of those promoting women’s rights cast men in a negative light – men as violent, prejudiced oppressors. To energize their battle, women’s rights advocates had to malign men. Women have been successful in their struggle; today women can and do vote, own property, serve as judges, senators, heads of major corporations, and maybe someday president. This change was good. However, the casting of men in the villain role has continued to take hold of our media and our culture.

In this way the meme of the evil oppressor man used in the liberation of women has become malignant. The women’s movement and the media continue to cast men in a role of stupid, sex-driven, violent abusers, who discard women for ‘younger models’ at a moment’s notice, and could care less about how their children fare. Men supposedly can’t cook, take a temperature, or get their kids off to school on time, all while oppressing women in various ways with their purportedly superior financial and legal advantages. With the victory of the women’s rights movement, this view of the male has become the default view, and continues to spread through our culture; a meme that casts men as evil oppressors.

So a very important part of the job of the men’s rights movement must be to re-discern the nature of men – to show people what men really are, and differentiate the male from the evil oppressor meme. Statistics that illustrate actual male behavior are slowly becoming more public – those who read the studies are learning that men tend to be hardworking to a fault, self-sacrificing, generous and caring, tend to put themselves in harm’s way for the greater good, and die early due to their work. But to counteract the evil oppressor meme, we need more than statistics and studies – we must influence the zeitgeist – the spirit of our times, and to do that we need stories – archetypical stories that speak to people about the nature of men and influence how they think.

We need to:
1) Find stories that catch the imagination, and show the truth of maleness.
2) Grasp those facets of male truth and claim them as ours.
3) Share them widely with others.

Here is a traditional story from the world of Zen, elements of which are practiced by many men worldwide, that I think illustrates one facet of maleness. See if you agree.

Two monks were washing their bowls in the river when they noticed a scorpion that was drowning. One monk immediately scooped it up and set it upon the bank. In the process he was stung. He went back to washing his bowl and again the scorpion fell in. The monk saved the scorpion and was again stung. The other monk asked him,
"Friend, why do you continue to save the scorpion when you know it's nature is to sting?"
"Because," the monk replied, "to save it is my nature."

Traditionally men are cast in a self-sacrificing role – a role of the hero. Some men find that role binding, especially in an age where women have equal rights and ‘no longer need’ a Hero, a Mr-fixit, a Car Tire Changer. But, I think the man-as-savior IS part of the archetypical man – a role so rooted in maleness that it cannot be eliminated. This is the other side of the ‘abuser’ coin, and the side which has more truth to it.

Let me phrase what I am trying to express in less theological terms: when you are lying in a ditch, bleeding, after an accident – what sex is the person that you would prefer to have to drive by and see you? And as a man, what role do you perceive yourself taking on if you are driving along that deserted road, and you see an accident? Does your response change depending on who the victims are? -Mostly not. The savior archetype is that strong. You try to save, irregardless of the victim, or the circumstances, or your schedule.

Perhaps men don’t HAVE to be the hero every time, just as men don’t necessarily have tools, or know how to change flats, but I do think that it is in men’s nature to save – to help others – and these other skills (like tire changing) are just ways in which one helps, and THAT is why they have become associated with maleness.

-M

Further reading: The Masculist Meme.
This post was simulposted on MIsForMalevolent as H is for Hero.

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Idle Hands

based on a real press release, updated to reflect the truth

SEPT. 9, 2005 NO. 69-69

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Ben Dover, Division of Child Support, (360) 663-5445
Bum Focker, Ph. D., Division of Child Support, (360) 663-5050

PUBLIC MEETINGS TO BE HELD ON GUARANTEED
INCREASES TO PAYING PARENTS CHILD SUPPORT SCHEDULE

OLYMPIA -- The public will have the opportunity cry and whine about increases to the state’s child support rate schedule that we are sure to make. We have employed the best spinners of data, known rad-fems, and the largest private child support collection agency to cook up data to guarantee that paying parents will be bent over even further. Even though our schedule now includes costs of health club memberships, and beauty salon treatments for custodial parents, we propose to now include that elusive pony that Marcus Monkey, agency critic and certified by the King County Sheriff’s office to be a political gadfly, always accuses us of having in the schedule.

The Child Support Workgroup, which consists of legislators, judges, public officials, NOW lobbyists and citizens (but citizens only after a bunch of whining from the dead-beat dad lobby) was appointed by Governatrix Christine Greg-wire’s corrupt head of OSE, violator of federal color-of-law statutes, and known father hater, Ray L. Weaver. Weaver’s appointments came as his last official act before being asked to resign under pressure and being placed on the last train leaving Washington State. “This group was carefully appointed to include only those with a ‘dog in the hunt’,” Weaver was quoted as saying. “We wanted to be sure we only had folks on there whose next paycheck depends on fomenting additional dissent, raising support obligations to drive out the maximum number of new dead-beats, and to insure that new cases, particularly guys that would have paid anyway, would come under the system, allowing us to do major chest-thumping and backslapping as we crow about the huge increases in support that we are collecting.” This will make us look like we are actually doing something, rather than just building a bureaucracy and effin’ the dog.

The forums have carefully been designed to hear only the testimony we want to hear, and will be packed with the obligatory rad-fems, NOW members, and with substantial representation from the DV industry, who will be there to oppose shared parenting. It has scheduled the Seattle meeting for Sept. 19 and the Kennewick meeting for Sept. 26, both in an undisclosed location, to make it hard for the secret patriarchy of dead-beats to find it.

“These forums will provide an overview of the current Child Support Schedule, taking up the majority of the time, then allow the public the opportunity to comment on recommended changes for the last five minutes,” said Ben Dover, director of the Department of Social and Health Services Division of Child Support.

“The workgroup has spent several months scheming on how to increase the schedule to levels far in excess of half the cost of food, clothing, shelter, guidance and a hug, and far in excess of what we know it costs to keep a child, which would be the amount we pay for foster care, and now wants to hear from two carefully selected custodial parents who do not work, and therefore can get there three hours in advance of the meeting to be first to sign up to speak, before the final recommendations are made, even though we know what those are, and will ignore any of those nasty dads who just want to get out of support, should they show up and bloviate,” he added.

The workgroup is reviewing the current rates and is scheduled to recommend changes to the carefully selected list of items which ignores the most egregious issues with the schedule, but is limited only to those items this group can see will help them build their bureaucracy. The schedule is supposedly used by courts and the state to set child support amounts, but we all know that the judges regularly blow it off, and do what ever they want, ignoring the law.

Interested persons may comment on the proposals by sending email to In your dreams @dshs.wa.gov or up your arse@dshs.wa.gov or by attending the forums. All such commentary will be printed out, then shredded without reading, to make excellent bedding for Mr. Dover’s pet rat cage.

For more information contact the division’s Flackmeisters at 1-800-I-SPIN-4-U.

# # #



If you got this far, you will note that some stuff is in bold. All the stuff in bold is TRUE!!!!!!!

Written tongue-in cheek, but I can absolutely back up and prove the stuff in bold type, unlike the pap, fluff, and outright lies in the reports that this group is relying on to make their decisions.


Well, except maybe I can’t prove that Mr. Dover does have a pet rat, but I wouldn’t put it past him. Name is probably Dead-Beat, and he probably feeds him leftovers.

---The Geezer

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Seattle's Silly Newspapers

The pathetic state of Seattle’s newspapers is amazing ... and depressing. Seattle has one of the highest percentages of college graduates of any city in the country. We all know it because people around here love to brag about it. Yet, reading the printed media from this city is about as interesting as watching the grass grow in August.

You would think that the Seattle PI and the Seattle Times would have already caught a clue. Everyone knows .....
that their readership and circulation is in decline. Yet, these newspapers exhibit customer focus and sensitivity that makes the big airlines look good. After all, do you know of any other business that deliberately alienates its largest customer segment?

In the case of newspapers, the largest customer segment is male. There is and has been plenty of hand wringing about this fact. Of course, any Women Studies madrassa graduate would tell you that this is simply because newspapers are part of the larger patriarchal conspiracy they are so paranoid about. But, really, newspapers are just a format that is better suited to men, while women, like it or not, prefer other formats.

They say the problem is that newspapers are run by men who stereotype women when they try to write for them. I’d say that is probably true, but for the opposite reason than, say, Maureen Dowd would give. Newspapers tend to hire Women Studies madrassa graduates when they are looking for female reporters. These women are obsessed with painting women as victims. Problem is, far left feminists are hardly the “voice” of women in the country (even though they scream the loudest). Anyway, who wants to read about what a victim they are every single day? Worse, what guy wants to read about how they are victimizers every day?

So, what do the Seattle newspapers do? They turn around and alienate men as often and as vehemently as they can. That would be like the NFL alienating beer drinkers or the Oxygen network running nightly programming about bitchy women with PMS.

As usual, amateur journalist extraordinaire Nicole Brodeur provides the perfect example. Her recent column is all full of angst over the fact that restaurants prefer young and attractive women (and men for that matter) to wait on tables and behind the bar. Oh, and the larger societal problem is that ugly waitresses get tipped a lot less than attractive young waitresses.

Brodeur defines an entirely new victim group: old unattractive women that are trying to make it as cocktail waitresses. I could go on about how stupid this, but let’s just leave it at stating the obvious. Most jobs in restaurants were never designed to be long term careers. They are tailor made for the young and mobile.

Brodeur, however, wants to blame it all on men. (Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah … all over the Seattle newspapers on a daily basis). I guess she’d like to have some sort of affirmative action program for overweight and angry butch waitresses pushing fifty and a law forcing the young attractive waitresses to share their tips.

And then there is another whinny column by Susan Paynter of the Seattle PI complaining about a woman tutor loosing her job in a Seattle school. Odd that Paynter and the rest of the preaching simpletons of Seattle's media had nothing to say about the teacher who was transferred out of a Seattle public school because he was charged with harrassing the Principal. Apparently, pointing out contaminated water coming out of fountains that children drink from in the school is now harrassment. Well, that is as long as the one doing the pointing is a male and the Principal is a female.

With the space and the eyes they have available, newspapers in Seattle could do so much more, especially for their most loyal readership: men. Instead, they will continue down their path to oblivion because, well, it’s the politically correct thing to do.

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The Jury Is Just For Show in Judge John McDonald's Courtroom

http://www.theoaklandpress.com/

http://www.detnews.com/

I don't know what else to say.

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Gender Bias in Domestic Violence Treatment

Aug. 30, 2005
By Wendy Mcelroy

The oldest battered women's shelter in New England, established in 1975, is setting precedent and making many feminists nervous in the process.

Transition House not only launched a "gender-neutral" search for a new executive director but also appointed a man as its interim director. Transition House explains that it simply wants to hire the best person for the job, and interviewing men doubles the chance of success.

Feminists of my ilk, who judge individuals on merit rather than gender, are applauding. (Admittedly, a muttered "it's about time!" may also be heard.)

Feminists who believe that gender must be a deciding factor in who addresses domestic violence and how it should be addressed, are appalled. They view the very prospect of hiring a male director as violating the "mission" of the shelter movement: to assist battered women and children.

In short, the "women-only feminists" believe males should be precluded from major employment and entry at shelters. Indeed, women's shelters often deny entry to male children over 12-years-old. (The legality of doing so at tax-funded shelters is dubious, to say the least.)

Why should even male teenagers be excluded? In a protest letter to the Transition House Board, the feminist organization About Women explained that the shelter must be a space where "women could feel safe from male intrusion and could openly unburden themselves of the experiences of male violence they had undergone without fear of censure, criticism or inhibition by male presence."

One interpretation of the foregoing statement makes sense. Some female domestic violence victims have been so brutalized by the men in their lives that a mere male presence may well terrify them. For that category of domestic violence victim, a women-only shelter may be the most compassionate and effective option.

(Men-only shelters for similarly devastated male victims would be equally valid.)

Nevertheless, it is difficult to understand why a male executive director who may have no direct interaction with battered women is so objectionable. To understand this response, it is necessary to enter the realm of ideology.

The argument for a women-only space is rooted in a belief that domestic violence results from the general societal oppression of women as a class by men as a class.

The "Power and Control Wheel" that is used by every domestic violence organization I know of embodies this belief. The wheel explains the origins of domestic violence through a pie chart; one of the pie segments is labeled "Male Privilege".

In short, women-only feminists argue that women are battered not merely by an individual male abuser but by the entire male gender and, so, they must be protected from both.

This is similar to claiming that a white person who has been beaten by a black needs to be in a black-free environment because they have been battered not merely by a specific black person but by an entire race.

To carry the analogy one step farther, it is similar to demanding that blacks should not be employed or allowed on the premises of a whites-only shelter…even if those premises are tax-funded and, so, prohibited from discrimination.

The ideological argument for women-only shelters -- as opposed to the practical argument that, sometimes, such shelters just make sense -- is class guilt. The guilty class is "male." Class guilt does not allow an individual male to demonstrate his innocence because, simply by being a member of a class, he is guilty by definition.

The concept of class guilt never ceases to anger me. As a victim of domestic violence, I know the fist that legally blinded my right eye was wielded by a specific man, not by a class. And I refuse to dilute his responsibility by extending it to men who've done me no harm.

It angers me as well because I'm the sort of domestic violence victim who needed exposure to non-abusive men, not isolation from all male presence, in order to heal. I needed to realize that decent caring men still existed and that I could interact with them in a positive way. In other words, a specific man was my problem; men as a whole were part of the solution.

As I mentioned, there are domestic violence victims who do not share my reaction.

It would be amazing if hundreds of thousands of people -- from different cultures, lifestyles and backgrounds -- responded to a complex experience in exactly the same manner. Just as there is no one explanation for domestic violence, neither is there a one-size-fits-all remedy.

But the ideological women-only argument for domestic violence shelters is inflexible. It denies to female victims the healing presence of benevolent men with whom they can re-establish trust.

It denies the very possibility of male and female victims occupying the same shelter and, so, coming to an understanding of their differences and shared realities. Such mingling of the sexes is common in other forms of therapy and rehabilitation but it is akin to heresy to even suggest the prospect for domestic violence.

In short, women-only zealots dismiss the feminist goal of 'diversity' and insist instead upon only one explanation for domestic violence and only one organizational principle for shelters.

Women-only zealots are hurting victims. They are harming those battered women who would benefit from learning how to regain their trust and respect for male. They are harming the significant percentage of domestic violence victims who are male themselves.

Estimates vary on the prevalence of male domestic violence victims. Professor Martin Fiebert of California State University at Long Beach prepared a summary of hundreds of studies and reports which indicates that men and women are victimized at much the same rate. A recent BOJ study found that men constituted 27 percent of domestic violence victims between 1998 and 2002.

Whichever figure is correct, a significant percentage of domestic violence victims are refused admission to most shelters in North America based solely upon their gender.

The anti-male prejudice in domestic violence must cease.

The deadline for Transition House's job search is August 30, which means there may be a new executive director as you read this column. Whether it is a 'he' or 'she' is secondary. What matters most is that the individual will have been judged upon his or her merits and no longer upon genitalia.

Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and a research fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of many books and articles, including the new book, "Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century" (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives with her husband in Canada.

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