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thedrifter
03-26-05, 08:14 AM
When Men Are Victims of Domestic Violence

March 26, 2005


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by Ray Blumhorst

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In a recent TV docudrama called Iron Jawed Angels, http://www.hbo.com/films/ironjawedangels/ the efforts of certain activist women to win the right to vote were detailed. Lucy Burns and Alice Paul were two key figures who diligently lobbied our nation to address its second-class treatment of women’s voting rights in the very early part of the 20th century. Around the time these events occurred, WWI broke out. In one scene from the movie, the women discussed the propriety of protesting for women’s suffrage at a time when our nation was at war. The women decided to do what was then deemed unpatriotic and continued their protests in front of our nations White House. As the movie depicted, many were opposed to these women on the issue of suffrage, but many others were offended by perceptions, that the protests of these women were insensitive to our nation at a time of national crisis (war).

Today protesting in time of war has become commonplace in America, although it seemed to reach a zenith during the Vietnam Conflict. Many Americans still believe criticism of policies and laws, at times of national crisis, to be inappropriate. However, free speech advocates support the constitutional right of America’s people to assemble peacefully, and to petition government for a redress of grievances, even when our nation is engaged in such difficult times.

Amendment I to the United States Constitution:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Considering my own patriotic feelings in light of the statements above, it is with some chagrin that I come to a point in my life where I must emphatically say, “Shame on our social institutions for ‘battering’ men.” I do not say that lightly, but in all truth “battering” is the appropriate term to describe a society’s attitude, which results in abusiveness experienced by so great a number of its male citizenry. Given the domestic violence movement’s definition of “battering,” there is no other word more appropriate for the neglect, exploitation, emotional abuse and physical harm, that is routinely and unaccountably inflicted on males by everyone from social institutions to intimate partners. Even our nation’s current administration contributes directly to the unequal treatment that America's male citizenry must unfairly bear,

“’’President Bush's policy on women in ground combat takes just four words to articulate: "No women in combat."

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20050111-101005-5277r.htm

Today as our men and women (mostly men) are again fighting and dying in this county’s war, our society faces an enemy at home that works to undermine the rights of all men and relegate them to the position of second-class citizens. Has “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” for every adult male citizen been put beneath that of other citizens? Are the fundamental rights of men to equal protection and equal justice trampled on for the sake of specially privileged class(es) of entitled citizens? Are men’s fundamental constitutional rights repeatedly and egregiously infringed upon?

While our fighting men are once again shouldering a vastly disproportionate burden of this nations national defense, anti-male ideologues work on the home front to portray all violence as a characteristic unique to the male sex. http://endabuse.org/bpi/

Of all our societal institutions, it appears to me that our nation’s domestic violence industry is one of the main culprits harming men (and veterans). Men are a very significant percentage of intimate partner violence, and simply ask for shelter and unbiased treatment when trying to flee intimate partner violence. When men are in a situation where they are victims of an abusive female intimate, they merely expect the same consideration as any other domestic violence victim, yet the domestic violence industry obstinately denies men shelter, and cannot bring itself to admit the truth, that women batter and injure men at very significant levels. http://www.women.ucla.edu/Newsletter/Shelters.htm It appears to me that the domestic violence industry’s obstinate denial, that male victims of domestic violence exist, contributes heavily to society’s wholesale acceptance of male battering in all areas. The negative effects, of the domestic violence industry’s anti-male bias to male victims of intimate partner violence, must not be underestimated.


With men comprising more than 97% of combats deaths, and women making up less than 3% of combat deaths, a woman made the front cover of Time magazine in 2003, standing in front of two men. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2003/200312225a.jpg Meanwhile, in anti-male bastions like California, men make up more than 16% of domestic violence victims by the gender feminist sympathetic, California Attorney General’s own official records (Table 2). http://caag.state.ca.us/cjsc/publications/misc/dv98.pdf

Men have virtually no shelter available to them in California, and no domestic violence funding to speak of. According to a large number of scholarly studies, men are a much higher percentage of domestic violence victims than 16.5%, but in our nation it is the female victims of domestic violence who get the billions, while men‘s needs get ignored.

I am saddened to see such gross hypocrisy on the part of our social institutions as once again this great nation prepares to kowtow to the gender feminist agenda, requesting reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Very soon VAWA activists will aggressively lobby for billions of dollars to address the exclusive need of intimate partner violence committed against women by men as if women were the only real victims. If you visit your favorite gender feminist web site you will already see the wheels turning to begin the lobbying effort. Once again, the same old gender feminist lies, and gender feminist “cooked” statistics will be marched out to show that women are almost all the victims of serious domestic violence - but they are not. The battering that men receive at the hands of women, http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm that is subsequently covered up by our nation’s misandrist, domestic violence movement, is an epidemic of shameful proportions. Such abusiveness stains our nations honor, and such dishonesty diminishes our nation’s integrity.

It is the height of hypocrisy, and political arrogance, to pretend that we care about the rights of people in foreign nations, then treat our own male citizenry as if they are predominately criminals, or “criminals waiting to happen,” when they are not.

If this rebuke were only addressing the plight of male victims of domestic violence at the hands of our nation’s domestic violence law, things would be bad enough, but things are worse, far worse than that. Thanks in large part to gender feminist ideology, society’s institutionalized hatred and bigotry against males is pervasive and deeply entrenched. Negative stereotyping of males bombards the male psyche from the time a male wakes up, until the time he goes to sleep, day after day.

The effects of all this misandry on men seeking to educate themselves, and build a life, have been worse than devastating.

continud...........

thedrifter
03-26-05, 08:15 AM
Through thousands of taxpayer funded Women’s Studies classes on college campuses across our nation, a steady drone of male bashing propaganda is preached to impressionable young minds. Men are unfairly stereotyped in a vilifying portrayal, casting them as advantaged recipients of special “male privilege.” Through the unscientific and unreasoning prejudices of taxpayer funded Women’s Studies curriculum, men are portrayed as dangerous oppressors of women who need special, unconstitutional, restraints put on them. Some young, Women’s Studies indoctrinates are given internships to work in pubic policy positions, and thereby further the anti-male goals, issuing from Women’s Studies indoctrinations. According to doctrine evolved from the propaganda preached by gender feminist programs and classes, all males are criminals, or “criminals waiting to happen” who should be treated as guilty until proven innocent.

On our college campuses, normal male heterosexuality is more likely to be defined as the mark of a sexual harasser, than healthy male behavior. Sexual harassment, you see, has gone far beyond acts of overt discrimination to include all behavior of a suspected sexual nature that has made the complainant (almost exclusively female) “uncomfortable.” Not to be overlooked is the fact that the perception of what is “uncomfortable” is left to the interpretation of the accuser.

In the home, in the workplace, in the media, in our courts, in our schools, and even in our churches the vilification and hatred of all things male is relentless. Is it any wonder so many men wind up behind prison bars? Using a “cycle of power and control,” hundreds of taxpayer subsidized Women’s Commissions institutionalize more and more misandrist, gender feminist bias into our nation’s laws, thereby increasingly affecting, courts, schools, workplaces, places of worship and more.

The Pygmalion Effect is a weapon gender feminists use in a variety of settings to destroy the lives of men. Here, in a nutshell, is one example of how the Pygmalion Effect works, when positively applied: http://www.hrzone.com/articles/pygmalion_effect.html

“If you tell a grammar school classroom teacher that a child is bright, the teacher will be more supportive, teach more difficult material, allow more time to answer questions, and provide more feedback to that child. The child receiving this attention and basking in the teacher's belief learns more and is better in school. It does not matter if the child is actually bright.”

The Pygmalion Effect (self-fulfilling prophecy) spewing “the vileness of the evil male” now permeates every strata of media communications, and prime time entertainment, and is only interrupted by half-witted, comic relief advertisements, depicting the biggest buffoon that can be found, once again, the hapless male.

For many men, prison is the culmination of the negativity used against them through the Pygmalion Effect (self-fulfilling prophecy) that began in liberal male bashing propaganda on our college campuses. Today America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, having now passed Russia, and 93% of those incarcerated are male. http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/1035.pdf Sixty eight percent (68%) of those incarcerated don’t even have a high school education. While the needs of women in prisons, in states like California, are watched over and addressed by a Commission for Women, http://www.statusofwomen.ca.gov/doc.asp?id=143 men’s needs are ignored.

At last count, there were 31 women’s commissions in California alone, and none for men. In L.A. County, where I live, there is an Office of Women’s Health, but none for men. Women already far outlive men, but what’s a little more special privilege for Los Angeles women, heaped on top of an already high pile? The number of homeless people littering the streets of Los Angeles is again vastly male, and those males serve as a testament to the overall misandrist public policies of the L. A. County Board of Supervisors. The list of grievances, documenting discrimination against males, could go on to many other valid issues affecting males in many places throughout our nation, but I will conclude - for now.

It is good for social institutions to address the needs of women (and children) to the extent that a humane, and responsible society ought to. It is not good for social institutions to deny men the same needed care and work to tear men down, using misandrist, gender feminist ideology embodied in laws like the Violence Against Women Act? Such man-hating laws (and there are others beside VAWA) harm us all.

In closing, it is with some pain, but a sense of righteousness and justice, that I must wholeheartedly say, “Shame on our social institutions, for caring so little for male citizens, just for having been born male. What a terrible example of equal rights under the law our social institutions set for the world.” I sincerely hope that all our returning war veterans, return to a country that treats them more equally, than the one that sent them to war.


Ray Blumhorst

Ellie