I wonder how it would look if we applied that concept to women. I know three men who married women who didn't want children and then changed their minds. In each case the woman's attitude was "either agree or we divorce." Selfish? In a way, but actually it was just their realization of a deeply-felt need. Their husbands agreed and all has been well these last 20 or so years. So why don't we apply the same understanding to the men in the letter that my friends applied to their wives?

Catherine Price abhors the distortion of medical evidence for political purposes but supports a frankly distorted report on DV. As is by now well known, men and women commit DV equally, but Carmona's report claims that women are the great majority of victims. That's false, but Price supports it anyway. Could that have anything to do with keeping large amounts of federal, state and local money flowing to DV programs which benefit women but not men? Nah. Price would never distort medical evidence for political purposes, right?

Even if what you say is right, which I don't believe it is, you ignore the same cases I mentioned when the sexes were reversed. Why did you do that? Why apply one standard to men that you (and CT) don't to women? In the cases of my friends, I strongly believe that the women truly changed in their very real desires to have children. I see no reason to think differently about the men the LW dated.

I don't. While men's DV is more injurious than women's, the incidence of DV is equal by sex. Those are the facts and the report misstates them.

of course DV includes sexual violence. It doesn't include all sexual violence, but it does include sexual violence done by one intimate partner to another. Sexual violence by one stranger against another is by far the minority of the sexual violence committed in this country.

to "break out of gender roles" than by taking up boxing. Boxing results in brain injury. Period. It doesn't matter if you use gloves or headgear; those are to protect the hands, not the brain. Blows to the head cause brain damage. Repeated blows to the head over long periods of time result in permanent brain damage. It's not worth it for anyone - men or women.

The best site to go to is Martin Fiebert's page. He's a Psych prof at Cal State Long Beach. He maintains a database of research on DV which includes over 170 scholarly investigations of current research with a sample size of over 170,000. If you just google his name, you'll come up with his site. Let me know if you have any difficulty and I'll find the exact site for you.

Just so you'll know, even women's DV centers no longer contest the fact that women and men batter equally in this country. They did for a long time, but now they've started admitting the facts.

Since you're an "endless student," I wonder what you've been taught on this topic in school.

words mean what they mean. When I said that men and women commit DV equally, I meant exactly that, and it's true. What is not equal are the results of the DV. I didn't comment on that because the article didn't. I was responding to the article.

It's actually very simple. When it gets hard is when the facts contradict your opinions. It's always easier to base your opinions on facts and let logic take you wherever it does.

As I said in my response to endlessstudent, even women's DV centers agree on this one. Why don't you?

Interesting conclusion you draw. Actually, I've been involved in liberal politics for almost 40 years. That includes over three decades of feminism. I won't regale you with the countless hours I've spent working for these causes, but I will say that it is precisely because I do value the equality of the sexes that you perceive such frustration in my posts. Supporting sexual equality requires treating the sexes evenhandedly. It requires intellectual honesty in public discourse. And it is because those things are routinely lacking in feminist writing that you perceive a certain shortness of temper in what I post, and that I no longer call myself a feminist. Feminism has become special pleading on behalf of women irrespective of facts, honesty and balance. So the short answer to your question is "yes" which is why I find such fault with Broadsheet and other feminist screeds. (By the way, when they do get it right, I try to say that as well.)

I heartily second the motion to have Glenn Sacks published in Salon. As the earlier poster said, Sacks is temperate and balanced, but raises important points about misandry in popular culture, anti-male/father family law and procedure, DV and other topics. He's published in mainstream papers and appears on TV and radio a great deal. He'd be a great addition and would do at least a little to counter the anti-male slant of Broadsheet. (Is that why Salon no longer carries Cathy Young's work? Because she challenges feminist orthodoxy?)