Letters to the Editor
alarajrogers
Published Letters: 449 Editor's Choice: 87
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I make do, but I shouldn't have to, and neither should dads
[Read the article: Diaper-changing dilemma for dads]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've had to change my baby in a restaurant or gas station that didn't have a changing table more than once. Sometimes, absurdly, in restaurants that are kid-friendly -- the Ruby Tuesday I ate at a few days ago had no changing table. And yeah, I'll squat down on the floor and put him on the mat and change him.
But I shouldn't have to. And fathers shouldn't have to in situations where mothers don't have to, just because they have penises. If a store has a changing table for women, but not men, that is sexual discrimination and it is every bit as bad as, say, stores where the men's room is easily available but to get to the women's room you have to go down to the basement through the dark hall full of boxes past the sign that says "Beware of the Leopard." (Haven't we all been to that store?) It's not that it makes it impossible for men to change diapers, but it makes it damn inconvenient, and if you inconvenience men while conveniencing women to do a certain task, well, what a big shock it will be to find that more women will be stuck with the job because it's just easier for them to do it. (I mean, greater male strength usually translates into men being stuck with the job of moving furniture, although women *can* do it; any time something is easier for one person than another, they will tend to get stuck with the job. And we can't legislate that women be able to move furniture as easily as men, but we can damn well legislate that men can change diapers as easily as women.)
Once again -- discrimination against men is a feminist issue. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and making life hard for either gender in any way usually ends up hurting the other gender somehow as well.
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Infinistesmal? Sorry, but no.
[Read the article: New hope in the fight against domestic violence]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's an infinitesimal percentage of intimate partner abuse.
Haven't you ever heard the much-quoted statistic "Women end up in the hospital as the result of partner abuse seven times as often as men do?"
Well, one-seventh is 14%.
14% is about the percentage of African-Americans in the American population. It is significantly higher than any reasonable estimate of the number of homosexuals of either gender.
Yet we as liberals do not shrug off the concerns of those groups as "an infinitesmal number" and therefore not worth our concern.
I believe women probably do hit men as often as men hit women, but that men do vastly more damage when they hit. I believe in women starting it based both on NIH studies of "who throws the first punch" and on my anecdotal experience in which I know three men who were all hit by women *first*. The first two defended themselves, and as a result, one of them lost his child and one spent the night in jail (although he successfully prosecuted his wife for assault, due to having photographs of bite marks and a broken pair of glasses, plus being legally blind); the third never hit back, although she broke his nose, but he did leave the relationship. I also know teenage girls who appear to believe that it is perfectly acceptable to hit a boy for doing something rude, but nonphysical, to them. However, the truth is women have on average two-thirds male strength and seven times as many women as men end up in the hospital as the result of partner abuse. So logically, no matter who starts it usually the man gets the better of it (in the fight; later consequences may be another story.)
However, "usually" in this case means six-sevenths of the time. One-seventh is not a negligible number by any standards and anyone who attempted to argue that we don't need to concern ourselves with the problems of African-Americans because they're only 14% of the population and therefore comprise an "infinitesmal amount" would be decried as a racist.
BTW, even in an environment that makes it hard for men to go to shelters, Howard County Domestic Violence Center in Maryland reports that 5% of the people they serve with their shelter programs are men. 5% is still about the size of most estimates of the gay population, again, not infinitesmal.
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Yeah...
[Read the article: Why can't women compete in Olympic ski jumping?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The penis and testicles are *far* more delicate and subject to damage from external stressors than the uterus. Hell, male bikers suffer from infertility due to compression of the testicles and male fighter pilots apparently father more girls due to the effect of g-forces on the more fragile Y-chromosome sperm (at least, I read about this ten years ago; dunno if further research ever bore it out.)
I'm sure a pregnant woman should not be ski-jumping, but if a woman's not pregnant her uterus is in exactly as much danger as her stomach, liver and intestines, from anything she chooses to do. And last time I checked, men had stomachs, livers and intestines too.