Letters to the Editor
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OMG! You linked to Glenn Sacks but then you had to link him to the defamation of feminism
Can you clarify your charge?
How has Glenn Sacks defamed feminism?
On many many occasions, including today, he has expressly backed the advances and campaigns of feminism.
Thank you for linking to Sacks, and you should do that more often. Shame on you if your linking him to defamation was not an accident, and I call on you to support your charge or rewrite that sentence.
You'll find Sacks is a political moderate, if not a liberal progressive. You'll find him intellectually honest, and much more so than many of the participants in your blogroll.
You'll see him cite his sources, and update his sources should the authors change their positions.
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Statistics, statistics...
...among adults between 18 and 28, women were responsible for instigating 71 percent of the violence in relationships with non-reciprocal-partner violence. (The guy doesn't hit back.)
The key here is the "with non-reciprocal-partner violence." All this says is that women may fight back more than men when assaulted, not that women assault men more than the other way around. Consider an example where three quarters of all assaults were instigated by men, and one quarter by women. Now assume for the sake of the example that all women fight back, and none of the men do. Then it could be said that "Women were responsible for instigating 100 percent of the violence in relationships with non-reciprocal-partner violence."
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Not only is it not funny, but it is abused in the courts.
As Sacks has documented, the men will often be arrested for acts of violence initiated by the women. These arrests are due to zero tolerance policies and will later be used in court to separate the men from their children, and often time the only assets they have.
To quote a feminist, "It's not funny."
I'm glad you recognize that, because most of your feminist blogroll treats it as no big deal and in fact many of them have advocated physical violence towards men on many occasions.
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But just try and come up with a concrete definition of psychological abuse, usable in a research context
Well, one defintion that has been widely used by domestic violence activists to "explain" female violence is that the woman was subjected to excessive criticism and was denied sex.
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A matter of balance of recognition
About 10 years ago I heard Diane Rehm on NPR WDCA interview I think it was Naomi Wolf on the issue of domestic violence. A man called up about a "male friend" with a violent spouse -- it was pretty clear he was the friend. They mocked and taunted him! I have never had any respect for Diane Rehm any since.
I think we need to recognise that tremendous progress has occurred vis-a-vis male on female domestic abuse. It is reliably prosecuted, socially condemned and recongised as a problem. Men are increasingly acculturated againts domestic violence and the penalties are serious. Women are not when it comes to violence against men -- worse, some like Diane Rehm seem to just think it is soooo funny. But the issue is that we have an imbalance of reconition - one problem is known and increasingly dealt with -- the other hidden in shame and ridicule.
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Look how often women get lighter sentences
for beating someone up, stabbing them (see Linney's comment today about an incident that were sexes reversed you would certainly be blogging about), or even killing them.
You folks claim to want equality, but you don't want to champion anyone that doesn't look like you.
That's why so many people can easily tell that there is nothing liberal, progressive, or equalitarian about broadsheet feminism.
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@KG, actually, that was her excuse....
Systematic abuse that no one else ever witnessed...
She brought up the shoes on Oprah, and Oprah couldn't believe it either.
You can read more about it at Glenn Sacks' site, including Glenn refusing to accept a similar justification from Murderer Darren Mack.
http://glennsacks.com/blog/?page_id=1178
GlennSacks.com » No child custody for husband-killer Mary Winkler
http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=1332
GlennSacks.com » Blog Archive » Darren Mack's Mary Winkler Defense
That's the best part of Glenn Sacks. He's fair. He's honest.
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Giving credit when credit is due
I probably wouldn't have been so critical if these kinds of entries were more commonplace. If people don't take women's violence seriously, it's another manifestation of not taking women seriously.
Carol, good job today.
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Whoops. Apparently Oprah did buy the excuse, and ironically, it was Gloria Allred's daughter that called bullshit
Perhaps the most absurd aspect of both the trial and Oprah was the way Mary highlighted the white platform shoes which she claimed Matthew “made her” wear, and which she said were deeply humiliating to her. During the trial, Mary held up the shoe and bowed her head down in mock pain and shame. Oprah bought it, telling her audience that on her show “everybody gasped when they saw the shoe.” It was up to feminist Court TV commentator Lisa Bloom, Gloria Allred’s daughter, to explain to Oprah that in any "big city" people would have “laughed at” Mary’s claims that the shoes were part of the “abuse” she suffered. Bloom added:
“We [at Court TV] all thought it was a first degree murder case."
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Re:Women hitting men, a few personal examples
I've had various experiences over the years with different women in my life hitting, slapping, slugging me. My sister and I used to get into such severe fights that my father went out and bought a couple pairs of boxing gloves from the Salvation Army store so we wouldn't end up hurting the other too much if we decided to start wailing on each other. My sister was only thirteen months younger than I, and up until I was about 18, we were similarly sized, even though she was a girl, people in our family tend to run big, and she was about 5'10" back then. So was I, but years later, at 6'1", 240lbs, I'm the smallest of my father's three sons. My two younger brothers are both taller, and heavier than I am. But I digress.
One girlfriend used to slap me when she got angry with me. My father told me that in that case, is was acceptable to slap her back, but never to hit them with a closed fist. His reasoning was, you can't put enough force to seriously hurt someone with a slap, the physics of it make it nearly impossible without dislocating your arm in the process. But one time she slapped me three times in a row, and after the third time she did it, I saw stars. I immediately grabbed both of her hands, and warned her that if she ever did that again, she was going to get slapped in return. She was a bit of a mean drunk who had too much affinity for a bottle of wine at the end of a hard day. I guess being an entertainment lawyer in LA is stressful, even if they pay you absurd amounts of money to defend celebrity clients.
On the other end of the spectrum, I once had the girlfriend of a former girlfriend hit me in the shoulder with her closed fist, and both times she dared to do it, she ended up hurting herself hitting me. The thought of the look of her pained expression, after she did it, still makes me laugh to this day.
The point is, women can hit you hard enough to hurt without necessarily leaving a bruise, or even a mark, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they should, or even that it's appropriate. I'm a pretty good-sized male, former Marine, all that; but I don't really consider myself that much of a tough guy. What I do consider myself to be, is a gentleman, and as such I would never hit a woman with a closed fist, unless she clocked me first. The law still looks at that as assault, and if she swung first, you still have the option of defending yourself, regardless of your gender, and that of your attacker.
My maternal grandmother was an incredibly abusive woman, both verbally, and physically. And as such, I was really glad that I never had to spend any great amount of time around her, because she definitely had anger-management issues. I once watched her retrieve a metal bowl out of the dishwasher during a Thanksgiving one year, and zing it at my Grandfather's head. My father told of one situation with her where she cleared an entire table full of glasses with a sweep of her hand because of something he had said to her. Conversely, my paternal grandmother once threw an entire jar of peanut butter at my Grandpa's head because of something he had said to her long before I was ever born. The dent it made in the kitchen wall was still visible years later, and when I asked her about it, she referred to her ex-husband as a "horse's petute" when she told me the story.
So female-on-male domestic violence isn't really all that unusual, even fifty years ago. Both women and men are capable of acting out their anger, it's just that in the last three to four decades, women have felt more empowered to do so. But it's still inappropriate, in any case.