True Control

I am by no means the author of this post. I am only reposting it because it was so well written. You can find the original here.

Well, then, since it is not immediately obvious, allow me to explain.

Women have much more power in relationships than men do. Not just by social convention (which, believe me, is power enough), not just because others are more sympathetic to their side of any story (which, believe me, is also more than power enough), but via the full weight and majesty of the law.

Let us construct, in our heads, a hypothetical scenario. I shall use you and I as examples, just give some sense of the impact of these events on people's lives.

Let us suppose that we meet, by chance, in some gathering place in some city where, at some time in the future, we both reside. I am tall, handsome, muscular, well-dressed, and confident; you are pretty, intelligent, charming, and you get my jokes.

Nature takes its course.

About a year later, you decide that I am a good catch, the best of your available options, and you would like to be married. You drop hints, but I demur. I like you well enough, but you want children and I do not. Not to mention that I am still considering my options and am unready to enter into any sort of lifelong pact.

(This is the branch point. This is where we tell the story of what you could legally do, were you so inclined.)

You simply stop taking your birth control pills, without a word to me. This is not a crime, because legally, I have no right to know. They are your pills, and it is your body.

After a couple of attempts which I did not know were attempts, you become pregnant. You may have attempted with other men as well. Let's leave that matter unresolved for the moment.

You do not tell me until you start to show. This is also perfectly legal.

Once I figure things out, I offer to pay for half the termination procedure. You decline to undergo one. This, too, is legal. The law allows you the "right to choose". I, however, have no such right.

I do a little snooping, and discover unused quantities of birth control pills in the bathroom cabinet. Since they come in those neatly dated little wheel-things, I am easily able to deduce the exactly day you stopped. I terminate our sexual relationship post-haste.

You are angry and accuse me of putting you in this delicate situation and then abandoning you. I demur, arguing that you placed yourself in this situation. Negotiations deteriorate.

I demand a paternity test, not feeling very trusting at this point. You refuse. You can do that. You have the legal right, it's your body, I cannot force you to undergo amniocentesis.

You give birth to a daughter, and name her Zoe. I am named on the birth certificate as the father, simply because mine was the name you gave when they asked. I was not even there.

Now, I have refused to marry you. I still have that right, in most situations. (Look up "common-law" marriage, a law that allows a woman to force a man to marry her.)

So you legally demand that I provide you with the benefits of marriage anyway, to wit, a large portion of my income. You have the legal right to do this. It's called "child support".

In court, I demand a paternity test, but am denied one. You see, because I offered to pay for an abortion, I acknowledged the child as mine. And my name is on the certificate. And, most important of all, the very court that is ruling on the matter receives a cut of all child support payments. (Bet you didn't know that, did you?)

Legally, the money is for Zoe, but the checks come to you, in your name. You can spend them however you like, with no oversight whatsoever.

I'm not even sure Zoe is mine.

Now I'm in a bad situation. But the story does not end here.

The tanking economy causes budget cuts, and my cushy job as an engineer at a major defense contractor is lost. The only thing thing I can find to replace it is a job hawking cell-phones in one of those mall kiosks. This is not, however, grounds for reducing my child-support payments. The initial amount of them was determined by my income at the time, but legally, they are a right belonging to Zoe, and determined by Zoe's need, so my income is not a factor.

Now I cannot pay. I am a "deadbeat dad", according to society. And the newspaper my photo is published in. And the website my picture is posted on.

My failure to pay tanks my credit rating, too, with all its attendant woes.

The economy loosens up a bit, and I reapply to my old firm. They're keen to hire me, but they can't. With a record of delinquent child support payments, I cannot pass the background check. Now my career is blighted, too.

Many years have passed at this point, and I'm in deep trouble. Broke, no career prospects, poor credit, spotty criminal record (failure to pay child support is a misdemeanor in some jurisdictions), depressed, no means or confidence to attract another woman even if I could ever trust one again.

But the story doesn't end here.

Desperate, I manage to find some pretext to visit you, and I steal some of Zoe's hair from her hairbrush in the bathroom. I pay for a lab test out of my meager remaining resources.

Zoe isn't mine.

I take you to court, and lose. Yes, lose. Because I had already been paying child support, I am the publicly acknowledged father. (If you do not believe this could possibly happen, I sympathize. It's crazy. But google "joseph michael ocasio" and prepare to be shocked.)

Okay, end of scenario.

Look where we are. My life is indeed ruined. At no point did I have any power to stop it (except by remaining celibate my entire life). At every point, what you did, you had the legal right to do. You didn't have to "get away" with anything. You could write a book about it, and nothing would change, because it was all legal.

The only thing protecting most men from this fate is nothing but women's lack of inclination to do this. They are entirely in her power.

Would you accept being in an 1700's-style marriage, where your husband owned everything, and had the legal right to beat you, simply because he was a "nice guy and wouldn't do that"?

That is precisely what men are being asked, no, expected, to accept.

Is it any wonder we are distrustful and suspicious to the point of paranoia? It's our only defense. The law will not protect us. The law is against us, straight down the line.

Think about it. Try to imagine how that might feel.

What Privilege?

I’m bisexual, male, legally disabled (and thus pretty poor) and in a racial minority, but I’ve been told by feminists none of that matters because so long as I’ve got a penis, I’m ‘privileged’.

I don’t feel privileged when I look at women who get state funded grants to help them through school which I cannot have on the grounds of being male.

I don't feel privileged when laws are designed to protect and serve women, yet pointedly exclude men, such as the VAWA.

I don't feel privileged when I cannot get the same degree of medical treatment as another person because they have a vagina and I do not.

I do not feel privileged when I cannot apply for financial aid and support because I must be a woman to do so, or business financing grants because they are only for women.

I do not feel privileged when my public school program is oriented to the learning process of a girl, while myself and the boys around me struggle as a result.

I don’t feel privileged when I am told I probably won’t be able to adopt kids because men who do so are suspicious.

I don’t feel privileged when society tells me that the opposite sex doesn’t feel safe around me, regardless if I have never done anything to deserve that prejudice.

I do not feel privileged when I am forced to pay for a woman’s sex life or when I am told that I have no right to whether or not my unborn child is killed.

I do not feel privileged knowing that if I am raped (and I nearly have been) by a woman it will not be considered as rape.

I do not feel privileged that if I am abused by a woman and try to seek help, I will be dubbed the abuser and possibly even incarcerated.

I do not feel privileged when I am so discomforted by the sexism against men in society that I must seek refuge in an online community because no such place exists for me elsewhere.

Where is my privilege? Am I so unseen that even gender studies supposedly designed to promote learning about my gender encourage further attack of my gender?

Am I privileged when I am told to ‘man up’ and ‘grow some’ and take care of whatever woman who blesses me with her approval (should I manage in this economy to get a job she finds worthy) and then spend my life providing for her? Of course, if I do provide for her, society will think I’m oppressing her. But if I don’t, society will think I’m a slacker. And if I simply avoid marrying a woman, I’m just a loser.

If this is privilege, someone else can have it. I don’t want it.

Maybe We're Living In Matriarchy

I had a conversation with a feminist today over the old subject of whether Americans are living in patriarchy. I was directed to an article which supposedly proved that we are, indeed, patriarchal. This was my response:

my first issue with the article is that it relies on an instance in which we cannot see the study itself. a single one which may or may not be made up. it also mentions things such as "men don't have to wait in line to use a bathroom". this isn't always true, and to state it is would require proof. another example: "men can get away with simpler wardrobes". how can women not get away with simpler wardrobes? neither of these rely on anything but assumption. which makes me question the study in itself, which is already quite vague.

it concludes (using the single opinion of a single man as further 'evidence') that this study says "something powerful about people's lives." the study does not. it says what a (supposed) group of (un-numbered) individuals listed. that is all it actually says. i further question this article now as evidence toward patriarchy because it has already shown intense degrees of assumption. it continues to go on about more assumptions, following a ladder of one assumption concluding another assumption without ever using a single piece of objective evidence.

the only objective thing i've read so far at this point is that "patriarchy is a kind of society, and a society is more than a group of people." which nobody is arguing. but this doesn't in any way show that our society is patriarchal. only that a society can bepatriarchal.

continuing on.

it further (and inaccurately) defines patriarchy as being "male dominated, male identified, and male centered." inaccuracy aside, the above definition given by the article would suggest something our society itself does not; that media and consumerism are primarily male-oriented. these are key parts of society. they are, however, primarily female dominated, owned, and focused. 

it goes on to state patriarchy is male dominated in that positions of authority are reserved for men. however, in America, such positions are not reserved for men. in some religious communities they are, but in America as a whole (particularly with regards to separation of church and state) such positions are not reserved for men. in fact, such would be illegal. keep in mind that correlation does not equate causation. even if most of the members of congress are male, that does not mean they must be male, either legally or socially. 

it continues on with more assumptions, concluding these assumptions based on the fallacy of correlation = causation repeatedly.

the article goes on to give an occasional comment from someone here or there (presumably providing this as evidence, which is fallacious) and further describe how women (and men) can be affected or are affected by patriarchy. 

the article has yet to actually show the slightest bit of proof that current America is patriarchal. i'm on page 10. 

page 12 continues on with more assumptions, such as stating that males dominating conversations (ie., leading a conversation more often than a woman) equates to 'male focus everywhere'. correlation does not equate causation. fallacy again.

and more fallacies. more assumptions. i still haven't seen any proof or actual non-subjective, non-bias evidence. it mentions obscure things like "boys get more attention than girls in school" but doesn't mention facts such as:

Quote:

three of the four students who tied for valedictorian were girls. Among the National Honor Society members, 76% were girls. And girls comprised 85% of the students on Franklin's 4.0 honor roll.

or that women tend to graduate more than men.

the author then gives a story of her own experience on something and, while perhaps her story is valid, this doesn't conclude that patriarchy exists.

it goes on to describe that men are in control (without providing how) and vaguely put expectations of men, such as they are assumed/expected to be unemotional and so forth. this does not in any way define America to be patriarchal. it just means a social stigma exists. again, correlation does not equate causation. because one thing exists which another thing requires, does not mean the thing which requires it exists as well.

continues on with various instances of stereotypes which for the most part, could arguably be considered out-dated by society. for example, i don't see how society expects women to bake bread. bread is available in the supermarket readily baked. many bakers are men. women are not demanded by society to bake bread. 

the part that really gets me, though, is the 16th page.

"what other term can one use to describe a state in which people do not have rights over their own bodies, their own sexuality, marriage, reproduction or divorce, in which they may not receive education or practice a trade or profession, or move freely about the world?"

if this is what describes patriarchy, America is, by the author's own definition, not patriarchal. 

women have rights to their own bodies. laws state such. abortion being legal is a prime example.
women have rights to their own sexuality. there are more contraceptives for women than men.
women have the right to accept, reject, or dispose of marriage and account for the majority of divorce initiators.
women have the right to relieve themselves of the financial burden of parenthood. men do not.

given the above, women have more rights than men, which, apparently, by the author's own use of term, means we are living in a matriarchal society.

Male Students Forced To March for Feminists

Being forced to do something does on rare occasion have benefits. If someone is forced to drop the gun, forced to quit drugs, or forced behind bars to protect the rest of the population after they've done something highly illegal, we generally consider this a good thing. But being forced against our will for the sake of someone else's amusement or cause is typically considered illegal.

Unless you're male, apparently.

On March 5th of this very year, 2012, nobody screamed "sexism!" when hundreds of male college students were forced (yes, forced) to put on high heels and march around their campus. The Program, "Walk A Mile In Her Shoes" expects you to do just that. Walk for a mile wearing women's shoes while hoards of other students, faculty, and media laugh it up. In case you're wondering, this happened in Mississippi. America. The website for the program states:

There is an old saying: "You can't really understand another person's experience until you've walked a mile in their shoes." Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® asks men to literally walk one mile in women's high-heeled shoes. It's not easy walking in these shoes, but it's fun and it gets the community to talk about something that's really difficult to talk about: gender relations and sexual violence.

How sweet.

These kind young men have decided to suffer the pain of walking for a mile in high heels for the benefit of a program that addresses sexual violence on women. You know, rape and all that terrible business. Never mind that men make up more than half the amount of people who reported forced vaginal sex (penis + vagina penetration) during one year. Never mind that male victims of rape have less protection and virtually no services or social awareness. Never mind that a vast number of society feels men can't even be raped by a woman, including the US Government and the UK. But that's alright. You see, the site goes on to mention that men can be hurt by rape, too.

"Sexualized violence does not just affect women. It affects the men who care about them, their families, their friends, their coworkers, and their communities."

 That's right, folks.
Men can be hurt because women they care for might be hurt. And that is clearly enough reason to force men to wear these painful shoes and be publicly humiliated. Too bad the site doesn't mention the force part. Luckily, someone else did. Avoiceformen.com remarks:

On the strict condition of anonymity, a member of a participating fraternity spoke with AVFM about the event.  He said that the Intra Fraternity Council (IFC), an administrative body who enforces rules and guidelines set both within the Greek community itself and by the school administration evoked a “Standards Requirement,” imposed to ensure a participation rate of at least 80% for all fraternities. Consequences for non-compliance of this requirement include revocation of privileges for individual fraternity members as well as suspension or termination of a fraternity’s charter.

“People seemed to get hostile when topics came up like ‘hey don’t you think that this is weird or wrong’ and the reaction would be like ‘hey, what are you implying? there isn’t anything weird or wrong about rape?’ Said the student who indicated that there was an extreme amount of social coercion as well as administrative pressure to participate in the event.

“Its ridiculous, its humiliating” said the student. “I think that it doesn’t serve the purpose that it’s meant to serve, I think that it is more or less of a shaming tactic aimed at humiliating instead of teaching someone a lesson and if they are trying to teach a lesson what lesson would that be? You are taking gentlemen, basically, who care about women and care about women feeling better about themselves and their safety and you are making them humiliate themselves for the benefit of what? Not all men are rapists but that is basically the message that an event like this conveys. Even the thought of that if you take a step back is preposterous that all men are rapists.”

Did I mention the stats this organization's speakers parroted off? "One in four women will be raped." False. "Women are more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence than men." Actually, it's the other way around. Men make up more than half of all victims. Good job, you unbiased, informative equal rights organization, you. If only I could have been there. I would have loved to take a picture to show the "Daddy, Why Did You Steal My Innocence" banner to all those men out there struggling to adopt children and being forced to answer questions about their sex lives that women don't have to answer, because it's wrongly assumed men who want to adopt children are just perverts.

I guess I'll just sit back and read the letter these poor men had to vow out loud as hundred of people watched, promising never to rape a woman.

Myths About Male Rape Victims

1. You Can't Rape A Man Because If He Has An Erection He Wants It
Wrong. Sexual arousal does not equate an erection, nor does an erection equate sexual arousal.

A woman's body can respond 'sexually' when she is being raped. She can even reach orgasm during the rape. This does not mean she wanted sex. Just because her body was aroused does not mean she was aroused. A man can get an erection without any interest in sex. A man can even ejaculate without wishing to or being sexually inclined. Just because his body was aroused does not mean he was aroused.


2. Men Are More Likely To Rape
Wrong. By the sexist legal definitions as seen in the first post of this thread, it's hard for a man to report a rape if a woman raped him, given that legal systems seem to feel women cannot rape people. However:

* 2.1% of men reported forced vaginal sex compared to 1.6% of women in a relationship in the previous year. From: Predictors of Sexual Coersion. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID45-PR45.pdf

*94% of sexually abused youth in correctional facilities reported being abused by female staff. From: Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities, 2008-09. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/svjfry09.pdf

* Among inmates reporting staff sexual misconduct, ~ 65% reported a female aggressor. From: Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2008-09. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/svpjri0809.pdf

* 50% of homeless youth reported being sexually abused by a female. From: It’s Not What You Think: Sexually Exploited Youth in British Columbia. http://www.nursing.ubc.ca/PDFs/ItsNotWhatYouThink.pdf

3. Male Rape Victims Get Just As Much Protection As Women 

The FBI says:

For UCR reporting purposes, can a male be raped?

No. The UCR Program defines forcible rape as “The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will” (p. 19). In addition, “By definition, sexual attacks on males are excluded from the rape category and must be classified as assaults or other sex offenses depending on the nature of the crime and the extent of injury” (p. 20). An aggravated assault is a Part I offense and would be reported on the Return A form. (A simple assault is a Part II offense but also would be reported on the Return A form.) Sex offenses qualify as Part II offenses and would be reported on the appropriate Age, Sex, and Race of Persons Arrested form (pp. 96 and 142).

However, in the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), a sexual assault on a male by a female could be classified as a forcible rape, depending on the nature of the attack and the extent of the injury. For NIBRS reporting purposes, forcible rape is defined as “The carnal knowledge of a person, forcibly and/or against that person’s will; or not forcibly or against the person’s will where the victim is incapable of giving consent because of his/her temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity (or because of his/her youth)” (UCR Handbook, NIBRS edition, 1992, p. 21). In the NIBRS, at least one offender must be of a different sex than the victim for the event to be classified as a forcible rape. For example, a female can rape a male, or in the case of multiple offenders, a female and male can rape a male. However, a male cannot rape another male, or in the case of multiple offenders, two males cannot rape a male.

supposedly this information will be changed 'over the next few years' to include “Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”

which means that for a man to be raped, he still must be penetrated. so if a woman ties a man down and forced him to penetrate her, it is not considered rape. 


Meanwhile, UK law states: "Women cannot be charged with the offence of rape as this is defined as penile penetration, but she could be charged with another offence such as causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, sexual coercion or assault, or assault by penetration. These may not all apply in each country." 





Information and sources:
http://www.avoiceformen.com/mission-and-values/about/ 

http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/02/in_a_belated_stroke_of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+racewireblog+(ColorLines) 
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/advisory-policy-board 
http://www.fpa.org.uk/professionals/factsheets/lawonsex 

Why Patriarchy Doesn't Exist in America

America Is Not A Patriarchy (nor are most 1st world western countries)

dictionary.com states that patriarchy is:

Quote:

1. a form of social organization in which the father is the supreme authority in the family, clan, or tribe anddescent is reckoned in the male line, with the children belonging to the father's clan or tribe.
2. a society, community, or country based on this social organization.

In America and most western countries, no human being holds authority over another based on sex. This is illegal. Descent is reckoned by both male and female lines (see: family tree) and children are 100% the property of women during gestation. Women win custody rights in 84% of child custody battles. Patriarchy in America and most western countries is not only illegal, but culturally impossible in this modern time.


But Women's Rights Are Ignored!
Evidence provides the contrary. For example, there are over 700 Women’s Studies programs on colleges and universities throughout the United States teaching thousands or tens of thousands of classes from the gender feminist perspective, but not one program or class, teaching men’s studies from the masculist perspective.

To date, there are numerous federal offices on women’s health, and not a single one for men. Also, the lion’s share of gender specific medical research is done on behalf of women.

But The Wage Gap Shows Sexism Against Women!
Actually, it doesn't. 

One could also logically assume that if this myth were true, employers would be eager to replace their male workers with cheaper (and better) female workers, and thus increase their profits. But the “72 cents” claim is misleading because it only refers to the median wages of all men and all women in the work force, without regard to age, education, occupation, experience or working hours — factors that even the NCPE admits are valid explanations for different pay rates. When those key factors enter the equation, the “wage gap” disappears. Studies based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, taking into account these key variables, reveal that among people ages 27-33 who have never had a child, women's earnings are actually 98 percent of men's.

Remember, (wage) discrimination has been unlawful since 1963. You would not be surprised to know that bosses earn more than their assistants or that full time workers are paid more than their part-time colleagues. Market forces and common sense dictate that some people earn more than others because of their education and skills, their experience, the demand for their services, or their willingness to work longer, harder or under more difficult conditions. Differing wages exist for many reasons and are not in themselves an indication of discrimination.

The NCPE claims that certain jobs (like sales, clerical and service work) are paid less because they are held by women, and they say that any earnings differences not explained by differences in education, experience or time in the work force are “proof” of discrimination. But the NCPE is overlooking some important facts. First, the value of a job is determined by the supply and demand of able and willing workers. Women who might be able to hold a better-paying job often choose a job that pays less but provides more flexibility. This is not discrimination.

In case you didn't know, the "72 cents" claim was coined from a study done by a sexist organization; American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. A group which has been criticized since their founding for being sexist against men and providing anecdotal, bias evidence in their studies.

An excerpt from The War Against Boys: 

Quote:

In 1990, Carol Gilligan announced to the world that America’s adolescent girls were in crisis. In her words, “As the river of a girl’s life flows into the sea of Western culture, she is in danger of drowning or disappearing. Gilligan offered little in the way of conventional evidence to support this alarming finding. Indeed, it is hard to imagine what sort of empirical research could establish so large a claim. But Gilligan quickly attracted powerful allies.”


Gilligan’s ideas had special resonance in women’s groups already committed to the proposition that our society is unsympathetic to women. Such organizations were naturally receptive to bad news about girls. The interest of the venerable and politically influential American Association of University Women (AAUW), in particular, was piqued. Officers at the AAUW were reported to be “intrigued and alarmed” by Gilligan’s findings. “Wanting to know more,” they commissioned a polling firm to study whether American schoolgirls were being drained of their self-confidence.


In 1991, the AAUW announced the disturbing results: “Most [girls] emerge from adolescence with a poor self-image. Anne Bryant, then executive director of the AAUW and an expert in public relations, organized a media campaign to spread the word that “an unacknowledged American tragedy” had been uncovered. Newspapers and magazines around the country carried the bleak tidings that girls were being adversely affected by gender bias that eroded their self-esteem. Susan Schuster, at the time president of the AAUW, candidly explained to The New York Times why the AAUW had undertaken the research in the first place: “We wanted to put some factual data behind our belief that girls are getting shortchanged in the classroom.”


At the time the AAUW’s self-esteem results were making headlines, a little-known journal called Science News, which has been supplying information on scientific and technical developments to interested newspapers since 1922, quoted leading adolescent psychologists who questioned the validity of the self-esteem poll. But somehow the doubts of the experts were not reported in the hundreds of news stories the AAUW study generated.


The AAUW quickly commissioned a second study, How Schools Shortchange Girls. This new study, carried out by the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women and released in 1992, asserted a direct causal relationship between girls’ (alleged) second-class status in the nation’s schools and deficiencies in their level of self-esteem. Carol Gilligan’s psychological girl crisis was thus transformed into a pressing civil rights issue: girls w…

A little about this Carol Gilligan individual:

Quote:

There has been criticism of Gilligan’s work and much of it has come from Christina Hoff Sommers, PhD. She says that Gilligan has failed to produce the data for her research. She condemns the fact that Gilligan used anecdotal evidence, that researchers have not been able to duplicate her work, and that the samples used were too small. She thinks the field of gender studies needs to be put to the test of people from fields such as neuroscience or evolutionary psychology rather than from the area of education. She feels strongly that promoting an anti-male agenda hurts both males and females. Public policy and funding has been allocated based on Gilligan’s data, which Sommers says is not publicly available.”

But Social Patriarchy Exists, Even If Not Legal Patriarchy!

1. You'd have to prove that men are socially favored, which would require overwhelming evidence aside from social stereotypes. The issue with proving men are socially favored is that if they were socially favored it would only be rational to assume they are also legally favored. This is typically how society functions. 

2. You'd also have to explain how women owning/running/controlling the majority of media and consumerism would not be indicative of women being socially favored, given that media and consumerism are a massive aspect of society. 

3. You'd have to take all data on male social favoritism and all data on female social favoritism and compare them objectively to come to any reasonable logical conclusion that could be provided as sound evidence. Good luck with that one. 

4. Laws are created by society. Laws come into affect because they are of the general consensus, not because a group of old and domineering patriarchal men decided them to exist. This is a democracy and contrary to the beliefs of prestigious UFO hunters and conspiracy theorists, it really does work quite well. 

5. Given that we live in a democracy which regularly promotes female rights in literally every single branch of government to include the White House, while male rights are ignored to such a degree that they have less rights and, that organizations such as the Domestic Violence Hotline redirect male victims of abuse to batterer programs, it would be easy to come to the rational conclusion that we do not, as a society, live in a patriarchy. 

Information and Sources
http://www.avoiceformen.com/mission-and-values/about/
http://mensnewsdaily.com/2007/04/23/the-gender-feminist-wage-gap-myth-appears-to-be-growing-legs/
http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/gilligan.html

Domestic Violence Against Men

Domestic abuse, or 'intimate partner violence' has existed for as far back as we can trace our roots as human beings. Through perseverance and activism, women over the decades have fought long and hard for rights and, in turn, strict laws against domestic violence. The 'Violence Against Women Act' is surely an example of how far they've gotten. We hear about it in the news. We see pamplets for potentially abused women at doctor clinics. Domestic violence awareness commercials are prominently found all across the western world, advocating for awareness of abused women (and children).


What we don't hear about is violence against men. We don't hear about the fact that more than half of all domestic violence cases involve a man being the victim, or that the Domestic Violence Hotline routinely treats male victims who call as batterers, referring them to batterer programs rather than giving them help.

The statistics above are from the 2010 national survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Department of Justice.

Government laws and billions of dollars worth of funding paid by taxes exist that support only female victims. The Domestic Violence Hotline has little to no information for male victims and the US department of Health feels it would be sexist to create funding for male victims even though it's okay to fund female victims. 

Most anti-MRA individuals and groups will reason that this is okay, because women suffer domestic violence 'worse'. That men are more likely to repeatedly abuse and less likely to be caused trauma by abuse as women are.

American social scientists Murray Straus and Richard Gelles reported from two large national surveys that husbands and wives had assaulted each other at approximately equal rates, with women engaging in minor acts of violence more frequently. Elsewhere, they found more wives than husbands were severely violent towards their spouses.


Moreover, there is now considerable evidence that women initiate severe violence more frequently than men. A survey of 1,037 young adults born between 1972 and 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand, found that 18.6% of young women said they had perpetrated severe physical violence against their partners, compared with 5.7% of young men. Three times more women than men said they had kicked or bitten their partners, or hit them with their fists or with an object.


Men assaulted by their partners are often ignored by police, see their attacker go free and have far fewer refuges to flee to than women, says a study by the men's rights campaign group Parity.


The charity's analysis of statistics on domestic violence shows the number of men attacked by wives or girlfriends is much higher than thought. Its report, Domestic Violence: The Male Perspective, states: "Domestic violence is often seen as a female victim/male perpetrator problem, but the evidence demonstrates that this is a false picture." 

Given the above, I'd like someone to explain to me why it is that there are few services for male victims. I'd like someone to explain or try to rationalize how it's alright that we turn a blind eye to male victims on account of them simply being male. Why the government passes laws and provides funding for female victims, yet accuses male victims of being perpetrators. 

info and sources:

http://www.batteredmen.com/
Men are victims of domestic violence
Women are more violent, says study
Wiki on violence against men

Who Kills