Update: Jeff provides a link that has more information about “victim-defendents”, i.e. mostly women who respond violently to abuse in self-defense. Women are thrown in jail for slapping men to get them off them, throwing objects at men in order to fend them off as they barrel down to beat their wives again, or other measures that, taken in the context of ongoing abuse, are clearly self-defense measures and need to be understood as such. That victims of domestic violence are being routinely arrested to appease MRAs and other enablers of batterers is the real perversion of the system. The link also indicates that the routine arresting of victims is one reason that the numbers of female batterers seems to have gone up in some places—if you are considered a “batterer” because you kick a man off you as he attempts to rape you, then that would tilt the numbers.
So, Dr. Helen has an interview with Glenn Sacks about how all the problems in the world can be traced to bitches who don’t act right and just do as they’re told. (Via Scott, who is very funny about this.) It’s a truly nauseating attempt to rewrite reality, starting with Dr. Helen’s mind-boggling implication that the accused in the Duke rape case were found guilty of crimes they didn’t commit and are sitting in jail.
Many readers have written in to ask various questions about domestic violence laws, their effect on men and how to find justice for men in the legal system, especially in the wake of the Duke rape case.
Sometimes I think the Duke nuts really do believe that their heroes who heroically wrote things like:
tomorrow night, after tonights show, ive decided to have some strippers over to edens 2c. all are welcome.. however there will be no nudity. i plan on killing the bitches as soon as the walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off while cumming in my duke issue spandex.. all in besides arch and tack please respond
really are in jail. That they’re not is almost an affront to their fans, who are dying for some political prisoners to rally behind. Without them, they are stuck making shit up. Anyway, Glenn, who is admittedly an affable guy, continues his crusade to give domestic abusers a hand now that the government and feminists are making it much, much harder to beat and rape your wife in peace like you used to be able to do.
Oh, I know. We’re not supposed to say that anyone is for wife beating. It’s like how no one is actually a racist, since to be a real racist nowadays, it’s not enough to oppress black people, hang nooses from trees, call them niggers or boggle in amazement that they eat food like normal people. No, in order to be considered a racist in our “I’m not a racist!” times, you have to own slaves, and even then, it’s a safe bet that Michael Medved would defend you against the scandalous charges of racism.
Anyway, Glenn won’t say he’s for wife beating. But as he makes it clear in this interview, he’s on your side if you’re angry that your stupid, broken wife resists your abuse. He condemns restraining orders, because they make it harder to get to your wife in order to beat her, which she really has coming for filing a restraining order against you.
To pick one example, the restraining order issue is a nightmare. The father is booted out of the marital home and pushed to the margins of his children’s lives.
It is a nightmare for a wife-beating stalker to be deprived access to his victim in the “marital home”. I’m sure we can all feel for these guys—what will they hit now? The wall, a tree? Not nearly as satisfying as hitting your stupid wife who thinks she has a right to be safe from you.
But while we can all see how stupid it is to demand that abusers have the right to access their victims so they can beat and kill them, what’s really alarming is that Glenn uses some euphemistic language that’s designed to make sure that women don’t actually take immediate measures to stop violence against them, i.e. defending themselves and calling the police.
The biggest misconception is the woman-as-victim/man-as-perp model. Research clearly establishes that women are frequently the aggressors in domestic combat, often employing the element of surprise and weapons to compensate for men’s strength.
The term “domestic combat” is a deliberate attempt to imply that if a woman tries to save herself from a man, that’s just as bad as instigating domestic violence. It’s true that it surprises a lot of men when women they thought were cowed and broken find some reserve of energy to fight back, and it’s true that women often use weapons to protect themselves. What is not true is that women have no right to protect themselves and must submit to violence.
Here’s an example of these “domestic combat” encounters where the wife doesn’t play fair in the eyes of the MRAs:
One time when her husband, Elston, was beating her, Dolores managed to break away and grab one of the guns that he kept in an open cabinet. Dolores cocked the gun and held it to Elston’s head. While he was on his knees pleading for his life, Dolores told him, “If you ever put your hands on me [again], I’ll kill you.” As Elston grabbed for the gun, it went off, sending a bullet into the floor between them. This roused her father, who lived in the apartment below them. Her father came upstairs to “calm the situation down,” said Dolores.
In the next few months, Elston pistol-whipped his wife, and tried to kill her by running her over with the car. But you see, by the measures being laid out with euphemisms like “domestic combat”, Dolores is just as bad because she defended herself. (From the book Why Do They Kill by David Adams.)
Stigmatizing self-defense by using terms like “domestic combat” to make self-defense sound just as bad (and worse, even, what with the surprise and the weapons) as wife beating is pro-abuse in a number of ways.
- It stops the woman from taking immediate measures to save herself, which supports the abuser’s mission of breaking his wife’s will. If you’ve seen this video, you’ll see what I mean—this woman’s head down, barely moving attempt at acquiescence shows the end product of a reign of domestic terror, which is a woman who puts up no resistance at all. Stigmatizing self-defense assists abusers in this mission.
- It stops women from calling the police. In the “domestic combat” model, if the police are called, the victim is arrested if she put up any self-defense at all. Fearing jail for being abused, women won’t call the police. In the interview, Glenn supports arresting victims of abuse and treating them as criminals if they raised a hand in self-defense.
- It makes it impossible to leave. If you can’t fight back and you can’t call the cops, there’s nothing to stop the abuser from tracking you down, kidnapping you, beating you, or killing you if you try to leave him.
Ironically, for all that Glenn opposes women being able to use self-defense to protect themselves, his activism against the VAWA, if successful, will lead more of the abusers he supports to be killed by women who have no other out from abusive marriages. As you’ll see from this chart, the VAWA helped usher in a freefall of spousal murder:
The rate of women killing men plummeted more than men killing women for a simple reason: Women who used to have to kill in self-defense have other options. They can call the police. They can go to a shelter. All these are things that Glenn Sacks is trying to get rid of to help out his wife-beating fan club, but all it will do is get more of them killed as more of their wives find themselves without any options short of fatal self-defense.
Like I said, Glenn’s an affable guy. But let’s make no mistake about what’s going on here—he’s feeding abusive men stories they want to hear about how the abuse was all their wife’s fault. Yeah, yeah, you beat her, but it was just as bad if not worse that she resisted. (Abusers fill in the blank: And if women just did what they were told in the first place, this wouldn’t happen.) Then he cuts to commercial and it’s one ad after another for lawyers who are interested in taking your money and finding new, innovative ways to sue your ex-wife so that you can, despite the restraining order, get some contact with her and use the force of the law to control her life in ways that you used to be able to do with just your fists.
And yes, yes, yes, I’m aware that a minority of domestic violence cases are true examples of women instigating and controlling men through violence. Even more, there are male victims of man-on-man domestic violence. However, the genuine male victims of domestic violence will also suffer if the reforms that Glenn is advocating—banning restraining orders, giving abusers full access to victims, and criminalizing self-defense—come into play. If you sincerely care about male victims of domestic violence, you shouldn’t want them to be stuck in the hellhole that the pro-abuse men’s rights advocates are trying to recreate for women.
239 Responses to “The country started going to hell when they told women they don’t have to just buckle immediately”
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When I worked at County Hospital in LA, one of the female ER MDs tried to put up signs about domestic violence in the waiting rooms. Several of the older male MDs objected because “it might cause stress to the male patients with chest pain”
Really. In the 1990s.
The other comment was always “but what about all the menz”
Which says to me either a lot of men beat their wives, to the point where you can expect a significant percentage of heart attack victims to get stressed out by a guilt-tripping sign about it, or that a lot of men are just invested in the system where domestic violence upholds male dominance, whether you participate in wife-beating or not. Probably a combination. Fucking sick.
My friend’s 12-year-old is the one who finally called the cops when his mother was being beaten up by his stepfather. Does Glenn think it was horrible that this child called the cops, thereby preventing the man from continuing to abuse his wife in front of their three boys?
Don’t answer that.
He probably thinks it’s awful that the cops didn’t arrest her, too. Well, read the interview if you can stomach it. He’d probably say that she turned the children against him.
I don’t see what Sacks is upset about. It’s not like a restraining order will stop a guy who really, really wants to teach his property a lesson about being uppity.
If a restraining order is truly invalid, it’s not that difficult to fight. I know someone who had a restraining order slapped against him by an ex-girlfriend which, by its nature, would have forced him to leave college. His parents helped him get a lawyer and his ex-girlfriend, shocked that he was actually going to put up a fight against being thrown out of school, dropped the effort, because she knew it was bullshit.
By contrast, even when there is good reason for a restraining order, fighting the the order can get it removed eventually, as well, as happened to the restraining order my friend had against someone who raped her. After the restraining order had been in place for a while, eventually it was lifted after repeated overtures by the target of the order to get it removed.
It strikes me that Sacks should be railing against those who disobey restraining orders.
It strikes me that Sacks should be railing against those who disobey restraining orders.
But that would inconvenience men…
“Domestic Combat” Whaaa?!
Is “violence” somehow the wrong word to use when one spouse is beating, shooting, stabbing, or otherwise ummm… inconveniencing the other? Perhaps we should call it “spousal dueling” to avoid the implication that one person is the perpetrator and the other the victim.
He’d probably say that she turned the children against him.
Or that the children only saw the violence because she provoked him in front of them, and she is, therefore, a manipulative abuser of the children who had to see the results of her untoward provocations.
So…what does Glenn suggest that people subjected to violence in the home actually do?
Just wondering?
Thanks for highlighting what makes me feel queasy every time I still hear about the Duke lacrosse case: So many people seem to refer to the case as if it were a landmark case for fixing the ills of the justice system, but it wasn’t at all and I really think that this here is the motivation behind their impassioned outrage.
They think feminism has gotten so out of hand that these poor little white boys were railroaded into jail over a no-account stripper. Never mind those text messages on the night of the party nor that the boys had the benefits of wealth and political clout to have their cases immediately thrown out and have the prosecutor punished. The lasting effect of that case was to fuel these rantings of the “fathers’ rights” crowd and other misogynists like Glenn who think that female abuse victims are making much ado about nothing and are too empowered as it is when they try to protect themselves.
i had a friend whose ex-girlfriend filed a bullshit restraining order against him. frankly, even though it was bullshit, it was the best thing that could have happened because it prevented them from getting back together, but that’s not the point.
i’ve always thought restraining orders are fairly useless and pointless. if someone gets a restraining order for you for a bullshit reason, if you aren’t a possessive, mildly abusive person then it doesn’t really affect you since it’s just making you stay away from someone you were staying away from to begin with. if you *are* a possessive, mildly abusive person, then you aren’t going to abide by the restraining order anyway but at least it creates a police trail suggesting to the court that you have boundary issues.
You know, I heard a rumor at one point that my post-high school ex-boyfriend was going to take out a restraining order against me when I came home from college for the summer, but I have no idea what grounds he could possibly have gotten it on since I’d had no contact with the guy for six months.
I should take a trip through the county archives and see if it ever happened or if he finally realized by the fact that I never came within 10 miles of him that I just didn’t give a shit anymore.
Heg, I think they feel that if a no-count stripper can even file charges when raped, that’s feminism gone too far. Whether or not it actually happened appears to be beside the point for the whiners.
Reporting domestic violence = parental alienation syndrome, which was a crock of shit rejected by family court judges as not meeting any sort of evidentiary standards years ago and is only believed by MRAs?
Will be circle be unbroken?
So what does Sacks have to say when a woman is advised by the police responding to her latest ass-kicking…to get a restraining order?
I get that they are “useless” in any number of contexts…but until people have viable alternatives, we may just have to suck it up.
I think they are particularly useful for anyone not yet paralyzed by fear…and not so thoroughly intimidated that they waffle on the “no contact” issue.
I’ve seen RO’s used effectively in situations where the violence has not escalated to life-threatening, and the women involved were utterly determined to get out.
“The biggest misconception is the woman-as-victim/man-as-perp model. Research clearly establishes that women are frequently the aggressors in domestic combat, often employing the element of surprise and weapons to compensate for men’s strength.”
Clearly women are domestic terrorists, guerrillas in the war of the sexes.
This is a case where it’s definitely helpful to click the link and see the context Amanda removed.
The earliest and possibly most egregious example:
Amanda quoted:
To pick one example, the restraining order issue is a nightmare. The father
is booted out of the marital home and pushed to the margins of his children’s lives.
Amanda then went on to suggest that Glenn supports abuse. The rest of the paragraph reads:
The orders are often based on false accusations, and are used as custody maneuvers or as punitive measures by angry soon-to-be-ex-wives.
Some judges simply rubber stamp protection order requests. One example is the David Letterman case from a couple years ago, where a judge granted a lunatic woman a restraining order against Letterman because she said he was sending her harassing messages through his TV broadcasts. District Judge Daniel Sanchez, who issued the order, explained, “If [applicants] make a proper pleading, then I grant it.” As if what matters is not the accused’s guilt or innocence, but instead whether the accuser knows how to fill out a form properly.
If one parent can be kicked out of their kids’ lives because the other parent can fill out a form, lie, and have it rubber-stamped by an apathetic judge, then that’s a serious problem. Why not work to prevent restraining order abuse?
Research clearly establishes that women are frequently the aggressors in domestic combat,
Note the term, “frequently.” Gives the impression of a lot, don’t it? Now note what term he didn’t use:
“Equally.”
You know, that might tell you something about how often men are abused versus women, when Glenn can’t even be bothered to pretend that the incidence of abuse is comparable.
Observer:
In fairness, all this really proves is that Sacks doesn’t have a problem with lying directly out of his asshole in order to justify his (fairly well-documented) support of abuse.
Observer, that’s not exactly the home run quote you seem to think it is.
Why does Glenn start with one topic — restraining orders being used as a divorce maneuver — and then immediately switch to a completely different topic — crazy people get restraining orders against people they don’t even know!
He’s trying to draw an equivalency and he’s managed to throw you off the scent. He never even bothers to show one shred of proof that he’s right that restraining orders are “often” bogus. He just throws in a barely-related topic and hopes that his readers will jump from A to L without noticing he never bothered to show that B is true in the first place. He’s arguing that his magic rock is what keeps tigers away from Cincinnati.
And yet you bought his bullshit maneuver hook, line and sinker and never even stopped to think about it. Good job.
I dont get it. Who is this dickhead, and why should anyone care what he says, especially when he’s spewing such obviously vile and vicious effluvia?
It’s true, Observer, that he weighs down his arguments with euphemism. However, that doesn’t mean that we are unable to see through his bullshit. Clicking through the link is highly encouraged by me, but a warning—it’s much worse than I explain it here, the unbelievable amount of distortion, lying, misogyny, and blaming of women for the plague of male violence on women.
Like mnem said, his follow-up quote was pretty much irrelevant. Allowing abusers back into the home to beat their wives more (aka, a ban on restraining orders) is another issue from their constant bleating about women who lie. Also, I’m not entirely sure that I’ve ever heard an MRA admit that he did actually beat his wife. By their measures all accusations of domestic violence and sexual abuse of children are lies. The pity party that was thrown for that millionaire dude who shot his wife and the judge that ruled against him is one of the sickest things I’ve ever seen. It’s like the Anita Hill thing—”She’s lying” is shorthand for “women shouldn’t have a right to resist rape, violence, and harassment”.
If one time out of a hundred, restraining orders are bogus, we should make it harder for the other 99 to get them.
Riiiiiight.
My friend’s 12-year-old is the one who finally called the cops when his mother was being beaten up by his stepfather. Does Glenn think it was horrible that this child called the cops, thereby preventing the man from continuing to abuse his wife in front of their three boysOf course — he’s twelve, therefore he should be learning by example how to treat one of those uppity bitches.
Also, firefalluk: Because while MRAs are clearly batshit, the fact that they draw on a large constiuency (embittered, abusive men who are furious that they have lost control of their ex-wives) that has a lot of political power (white men), means that they have a lot of ability to shape the laws to fit their agenda (making it harder for women to escape abusive marriages).
The link I put in the update shows one effect of this problem—nowadays, if a woman calls the police because she’s getting battered, if she put up any physical resistance at all, including pushing and shoving to get him off her so she could escape to make the phone call, she is very likely to go to jail. MRAs have found a backdoor way, with this domestic combat stuff, to criminalize being a victim. They’re also looking for a way to criminalize being a rape victim by seeking to pass laws that make it automatic for the DA to prosecute a rape victim if the state couldn’t put together a good enough case to convict her assailant. The end result/hope is to make wife battering and rape technically legal because victims are too afraid to seek help or justice.
So, we have to pay attention. They want to make rape and DV technically legal again and they have the political power to get there.
Of course — he’s twelve, therefore he should be learning by example how to treat one of those uppity bitches.
Unfortunately, he is. My nephew has witnessed many incidents between his parents and had to call 911 more than once and, surprise surprise, the lesson he has learned is that you can get people to do what you want by hitting them. Right now, it’s his grandfather (my father-in-law), but it’s only going to get worse as he gets older, because he has this huge amount of rage inside and no way to express it.
Have I mentioned that his dad is once again out of prison and once again living with his mother while he’s living with his grandfather because his mother doesn’t understand why the kid is so angry all the time? But that’s a whole different story.
That’s funny. My husband had no problem getting joint custody plus his former wife never accused him of anything abusive. Could it be because he is a great involved father who doesn’t ever hit people? Nahh. That’d be too easy. In fact, the two agreed to joint custody with no court order because, drum roll please, they agreed it would be better for the kids to see both parents as much as possible. When two people can’t do this, it is naive to think that any law is going to be able to make things “fair” to everyone when it is nearly impossible sometimes to deal with the he said she said aspect of domestic relations. The system is never going to be “good” at dealing with a parent who provokes the abusive parent to deflect the abuser’s attention away from the children. I can’t think of any judge who wants to deal with those facts, and I’ve seen judges decide between mom living with a convicted child molester and dad living with his new boyfriend (and this was 10 years ago in the deep south before the Will and Grace effect). It’s just not going to work out perfectly because the facts are bad to start wtih. It’s just not the case that men are showing up in emergency rooms with black eyes and knives sticking out of their caws in droves. It’s too bad that anyone is enabling the perpetuation of this myth.
I have learned of an awesome group locally working to do domestic violence education with various faiths so that the victim is not shunned by the faith community for ‘breaking marriage vows’ by leaving the relationship. The program uses relevant scripture from different religions to show that the marriage vow is broken by the violence, not the leaving. This should help provide more victims with a support network. So there is a lot of good to counteract this bad.
When I did volunteer work at the local DV center, we always hung posters up in the stalls of the women’s bathroom - one place in public a woman could go but an abuser typically wouldn’t follow.
Thank Dog for restraining orders. I am here today because I happened to be living in a place where such things were taken seriously.
I feel like I am reading a painfully re-packaged edition of Wignuttery-Logic:
Women can indeed be just as violent and ruthless as any ‘thug’ of a man. Please refrain from these absurd steroetypes of “all men are bad”. It feels like a femme-Rush Limbaugh is writing much of this tripe. Do you want to sound like that?
I know all too well what it is like to live with a cruel, duplicitous, and violent woman. There were no places for me to go, no “DV-Clinics”, no support groups when I finally escaped. I was raised to NEVER hit a woman (nor another man, without a really good reason). Yet she got even angrier when I refused to hit her back… Try to understand the catch-22 of this, ok? Fair is fair.
DV is an Equal Opportunity Nightmare. Quit trying to paint it otherwise.
Please.
I read through most of your blog entry. There are a few things I saw wrong with it. The major one was your chart on deaths by gender. There’s no basis for the measurements. I read the chart very differently than you explained it. It appears to me that more women as inmates are dying due to homicide than men. And as our prisons are primarily segregated, that would mean that women are more violent than men. I’m sure that’s not the intention you had.
Regardless, I feel women need to be held more accountable and by giving them a blanket law to hide behind or to automatically charge the man as the violent party is careless, sexist, and just plain wrong. We are all humans and quite capable of making the same wrong choices in life. The time is come for us to hold responsible the aggressors and the people who are the ones committing the crimes. Regardless of what sex they might be.
For the record, I am a divorced man and in my previous relationship, only one person was ever violent. And that person was not me.
Ironically when I asked about whether or not I should get a restraining order? My lawyers advice was that it would a bad thing and make it even more difficult for me to see my kids. Go figure.
Okay, so you do concede (briefly in the final paragraph) that there are abused men. The question is what percentage of the population of abuse victims are male. You do try to minimize their plight by implying that the majority of men who were assaulted/abused by their wives got what they deserved. But were you there to make that determination, or do you just reflexively believe women over men because that is your ideology?
The research doesn’t support your implication that men are a tiny minority of abuse victims. In fact, a recent study written by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control found that in relationships where the abuse is one-way, over 70 percent of the time it is the woman abusing the man. Do you care?
You might say that you do care about male victims of female abuse, the tiny minority that you think they are. To help them, you advocate a strengthening of the Violence Against Women Act. Fine then, another concession — strengthen it to the point that unilaterally abused men are able to get restraining orders against their abusive wives. This would mean eliminating Primary Aggressor statutes (which are a phenomenon of the states, not the federal government). These statutes require police to discard their better judgment, and instead arrest the man in all cases. How can this be? Because the criteria for what constitutes the “primary aggressor” is designed to describe the man, such as “the one who has the greater physical posture” (a biological trait). When legitimate male victims call for help under your “strengthened VAWA,” would they (should they) receive it in the form of an arrest and restraining order of the female abuser? Because that is not now the case.
Finally, the video you provided is a textbook example of domestic abuse, and at its beginning it’s very obvious that domestic abuse has a psychological component. Even if no objects are thrown, and no physical contact made, there is a psychological form of violence that goes on in which one partner intimidates another into silence and submission. Your constant reference to abused men as batterers is just one such example of the kind of psychological coercion employed by abusers. Please stop it, and come out from under your rock. There is research to be read; do yourself a favor and become acquainted with it. Women are not fragile little flowers, and they can unilaterally abuse (psychologically for sure, and physically as well) in hurtful ways. I know.
“The term “domestic combat” is a deliberate attempt to imply that if a woman tries to save herself from a man, that’s just as bad as instigating domestic violence. It’s true that it surprises a lot of men when women they thought were cowed and broken find some reserve of energy to fight back, and it’s true that women often use weapons to protect themselves. What is not true is that women have no right to protect themselves and must submit to violence.”
I disagree on this point as well. The violence that occurred in my marriage only occurred on the instances when I left the marital property in an attempt to stem the constant verbal attacks I was enduring. It did not matter if I agreed, disagreed, remained silent, or yelled back. The verbal assaults were coming and I knew it. On three occasions I left the house to stop the attacks and on all three occasions things were thrown at me. The divorce followed the third such incident because I moved out. I choose not to tolerate that.
Women are not automatic defenders, they should not have the right to use weapons to defend themselves, just as men do not have the right to attack women. To allow either party the right to do such things causes a breakdown of civil law. Vigilantism is and should always remain illegal.
Things like shelters that a person can go to are one thing. Protection orders based on legitimate evidence are one thing. Bogus protection orders that are used strictly as leverage in an impending court case should be heavily weight against. For the record, there were no protection orders in my divorce.
“The link also indicates that the routine arresting of victims is one reason that the numbers of female batterers seems to have gone up in some places—if you are considered a ‘batterer’ because you kick a man off you as he attempts to rape you, then that would tilt the numbers.”
That is, of course, a complete load of crap. As I’m sure it’s been explained to you several times, only a couple hundred studies demonstrate that women INITIATE domestic abuse (allow me to translate for you: that means NOT SELF-DEFENSE) against their male partners approximately as often as the reverse occurs. That means that an increase of women being arrested indicates that police are finally beginning to treat female violence against men seriously, not that would-be rape victims are being arrested for defending themselves.
You know if everyone would just stand in the middle for a few minutes, instead of trying to side on one side of the fence or other, maybe just maybe you all could see the reality of Glen Sacks. Yes I am a female, once divorced, twice beaten. So what I have to say is real and not just opinion. Glen is right, there are mothers out there, alot of them that push fathers to the brink. I have seen it, even in some of my own friends and if I had any scrupples; I would slap them myself. You can not taunt a man, treat him like garbage and wave his kids in front of him like they were a flag and then expect not to be beaten. This stupid behavior by lots of women, some of whom I know, is Psychologically detremental abuse to the man. If he doesn’t already have to deal with forking over half his money for child support (which I think is stupid, children require care but not to the extent the law this day requires)but then they must also put up with their ex wives keeping, brainwashing or completely hiding the children from them; yet they expect these men to remain psychologically sane? Give me a break. I am a single parent and dont care for a dime from the father of the child that currently lives with me…I got my butt off the sofa, recieved 3 college degrees and work as a professional. I also have a second child who lives with his father (whom I left because he abused me)that I pay child support too. Instead of crying for help, I left him and moved on with my life and contained a relationship with my son. So I know what is on both sides of the fence. Its simple….if your being beaten in a relationship…Get Out!!! if you remain in it; don’t expect people to feel sorry for you, there are shelters for you. If you are the parent recieving child support…get a job! Just because you have a child with someone and they leave you or you leave them and take the kids doesn’t mean you get a free ride to the market, as a parent you are equally responsible. Don’t expect your ex to do everything for you. We women expect women rights, then act like a women and do for yourself!!! The bottom line is this…everyone has a choice to make, and if they could just stop long enough to put there stupid opinions aside and remember this isn’t about mom or dad, but about the children; maybe we wouldn’t all be so quick to judge anyone else!!!
You know if everyone would just stand in the middle for a few minutes, instead of trying to side on one side of the fence or other, maybe just maybe you all could see the reality of Glen Sacks. Yes I am a female, once divorced, twice beaten. So what I have to say is real and not just opinion. Glen is right, there are mothers out there, alot of them that push fathers to the brink. I have seen it, even in some of my own friends and if I had any scrupples; I would slap them myself. You can not taunt a man, treat him like garbage and wave his kids in front of him like they were a flag and then expect not to be beaten. This stupid behavior by lots of women, some of whom I know, is Psychologically detremental abuse to the man. If he doesn’t already have to deal with forking over half his money for child support (which I think is stupid, children require care but not to the extent the law this day requires)but then they must also put up with their ex wives keeping, brainwashing or completely hiding the children from them; yet they expect these men to remain psychologically sane? Give me a break. I am a single parent and dont care for a dime from the father of the child that currently lives with me…I got my butt off the sofa, recieved 3 college degrees and work as a professional. I also have a second child who lives with his father (whom I left because he abused me)that I pay child support too. Instead of crying for help, I left him and moved on with my life and contained a relationship with my son. So I know what is on both sides of the fence. Its simple….if your being beaten in a relationship…Get Out!!! if you remain in it; don’t expect people to feel sorry for you, there are shelters for you. If you are the parent recieving child support…get a job! Just because you have a child with someone and they leave you or you leave them and take the kids doesn’t mean you get a free ride to the market, as a parent you are equally responsible. Don’t expect your ex to do everything for you. We women expect women rights, then act like a women and do for yourself!!! The bottom line is this…everyone has a choice to make, and if they could just stop long enough to put there stupid opinions aside and remember this isn’t about mom or dad, but about the children; maybe we wouldn’t all be so quick to judge anyone else!!!
Is it still not self-defense if she’s been battered for years? What if he’s screaming and breaking things and she knows that she’s next?
Another problem with the studies from what I’ve seen of their methodology is they don’t seem to have a good idea of what abuse is, and count a playful push or whatever as initiating domestic abuse. My husband and I get playful and push each other and kick and wrestle and all sorts of stuff without hurting each other. I’ve seen a lot of young couples do that. You find enough of those, and suddenly you can say that women are equally guilty of domestic violence without actually looking at any real domestic violence situations.
Find me a study that makes sure to eliminate playing and takes into account context of previous abuse and threats that says women abuse nearly as much as men. My guess is you can’t.
“Another problem with the studies from what I’ve seen of their methodology is they don’t seem to have a good idea of what abuse is, and count a playful push or whatever as initiating domestic abuse. My husband and I get playful and push each other and kick and wrestle and all sorts of stuff without hurting each other. I’ve seen a lot of young couples do that. You find enough of those, and suddenly you can say that women are equally guilty of domestic violence without actually looking at any real domestic violence situations.”
We’re not talking about playful sparring; we’re talking about women who physically attack male partners who have never lain an angry hand on them. They do so because they strongly suspect (sometimes accurately so) that their male partners will never fight back — either because they’re simply pacifistic, are afraid of hurting the other person, or figure that they will be the ones to get into trouble. The woman who beats her husband because “she figures she can” is no more deserving of our admiration than the man who beats his wife because he can physically overpower her. Which means we should be moving to arrest, not lionize, women such as this: http://jezebel.com/gossip/domestic-disturbances/have-you-ever-beat-up-a-boyfriend-cause-uh-we-have-294383.php
Amanda,
I agree almost completely with your article, but I fail to see why you have to drag the Duke case into it.
The 3 Duke students who were indicted really were innocent, really were falsely accused of a felony by a DA who was using them for political advantage, and had the charges dropped only after a year of legal proceedings at the cost of several millions of dollars in legal fees. That email you quote was NOT sent by any of the 3 indicted students, it was sent by ANOTHER member of the Lacrosse team.
The research doesn’t support your implication that men are a tiny minority of abuse victims. In fact, a recent study written by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control found that in relationships where the abuse is one-way, over 70 percent of the time it is the woman abusing the man.
Link, please, to the article on the actual CDC website, not a summary on another website. Otherwise, I call bullshit.
Did you page all the way down to the bottom, Mnemosyne?
http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/5/941
No sane person can understand why the regulars here refer to anyone who wants more help for male victims as a batterer who wishes women were never granted suffrage.
I could laugh, but this is not a funny matter.
I have seen domestic violence at work, I was a victim of parental abuse by both natural parents. One did so while intoxicated, the other while sober. You could also say, they were abusive to each other in the same process. While my father never laid a hand on my mother, even while intoxicated. Even though everything else was fair game, . . . walls, doors, windows, cabinents, tables . . . me. While my mother had no inhibition, though she drank, she didn’t need alcohol to motivate her to violence. Numerous times I have seen my mother go after my father, verbally and physically. Often throwing items at him, especially when he was intoxicated. At times, when she is upset with me, for various reasons . . . (her favorite reason was that I was a child of sin . . . they weren’t married when I was conceived), she used my father to abuse me, other times she verbally and physically demean me. I was taken to the doctor once because I was mauled by a neighbor’s dog. The dog was put the sleep. But what was never told was that she threw me over the fence where that dog was located.
A couple things I learned from my father, 1) no matter how violent a woman is, never hit a woman and 2) take it like a man. My mother . . . I don’t know, but she is one of the main reasons why I don’t believe in God. Overall, I have a slight phobia of alcohol . . . I don’t drink, because I don’t want to be my father.
Some of you are thinking, that is fucked up. I’m sorry, man. Look I am not looking for any sympathy. I am tired of both Feminists and MRAs, but instead of trying every victim and to find the truth in things. I have seen propoganda spread through the ends of the universe because they just want to hear the sound of their voices.
This is not the end of it, because I sought to escape all this, but it continues. I was a teenage runaway, and I don’t even remember running on that day. The only thing I remember was trying to get away from my mother and getting grabbed by my father and thrown across the table into the china cabinent. I don’t even know how many days I lost, and honestly I don’t really want to remember. But when I came to, I was being attended to by a complete stranger in a motel room, not a hospital. Thing is she was an abuse victim herself, she left her boyfriend with her daughter, because he was abusive.
And Amanda, I take offense with the stripper remark you made (but it looked like you removed it after you made your Update) . . . since the person who took me off the street was an entertainer. For a period of time, so was I. And you have no class, of course, I never knew any woman who actually had class. An entertainer . . . entertains, a stripper usually does whatever to make an extra buck. No one deserves to be raped, even when she is a prostitute, or have a history of it. Why? Because the lady, the angel who took me in, was raped and murdered in our motel room while her daughter and I (I had false papers) was at school. Plus, I have a feeling, just a feeling, when I was out on the streets . . . I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. But, from what I understood of the Duke case, there was no DNA evidence proving their guilt, instead it proved their innocence. Other entertainers who was there refuted her claim, and some of the description she made.
Thing is, I used my career as an entertainer as a stepping stone, to get into college, pay for my tuition and books. And while I was in school, I was contacted by the state. How they found me, I am not 100% sure, but they did. The state was taking custody of my siblings away from my parents. A little over 10 years since I vanish, the state decides to do something. I got a lawyer and fought for custody. After some consideration, I was granted custody of my three siblings, the youngest was barely four years old. I did the best I could, though I knew I was not the perfect parent. Actually, I think I failed because of my brother. My youngest, just finished High School and has just started College.
Thing is, I had many relationship, and many of them was abusive one way or another. I will be honest, I was abusive once through out all those relationships. Not physically, verbally. In most of the other cases, my girlfriends where abusive, mentally, verbally, and physically (especially when they think I was cheating on them), which I deny all but twice. Everyone of them knew I was not monogamous, especially at the beginning of any relationship. (Amanda, before you get on my back for this. At least I give them enough the respect to tell them the truth before getting firmly into a relationship/possible relationship. Many won’t.) Basically, here is what I normally say . . . “This is not a monogamous relationship. It may be later on, but right now, we are still getting to know each other and I am not tying myself down to just one person. I won’t tell you who, when, where, how, or how many times. But I will promise you this, if there is a health concern you should know about, I will tell you. And I expect the same from her.”
Okay, back to the subject, I have many friends, both male and female. Fellow commuters on the train, personal friends, acquaintences, family who have gone through abusive relationship. All in all, from my conversations with them, women are the predominate agressor, especially when it comes to verbal and physical confrontation. If it is just a verbal confrontation, men will usually get physical first about 52%. This is from my friends and family, when they have those episodes, which are rare.
Me, I have respect for Glenn Sacks, I enjoy his columns. Especially when he provides statistical data with it. You, are a great writer and a motivator, but the thing is, you get a little overemotional about things. The DOJ study you mentioned in this entry, has 6 loopholes regarding the male victim. One being . . . if there is no suspect, and he didn’t die of natural causes it is obmitted. True no studies are perfect, even the study in which VAWA was formed, the authors even admitted that not all details were disclosed. Those gaps hurt people.
Glenn have always gone into stating, in many of his domestic violence columns or blog entries: “[Note: If you or someone you love is being abused, the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women (http://dahmw.org/) provides crisis intervention and support services to victims of domestic violence and their families.]”
Glenn knows there a female victims of domestic violence, and it is not like he doesn’t want them to get help. But when the charge is a legal manuever, then those cases need to be corrected. If the system does a proper investigation, issue a temporary order first, then investigate. If the charges are false, the order should be abdicated. Glenn want charges to be placed on the false accuser, I don’t blame him. If someone had you arrested on a charge you didn’t commit, and you were exonerated, wouldn’t want to press charges against them. I believe so.
(15 more comments were added since I first started writting this)
Good lord it’s getting crowded under the bridge!
Not sure whether we should ask for bunnies for “Robert-a” or just point and laugh at all the stupid that can be packed into a single sentence!
Results. Almost 24% of all relationships had some violence, and half (49.7%) of those were reciprocally violent. In nonreciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases. Reciprocity was associated with more frequent violence among women (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=2.3; 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.9, 2.8), but not men (AOR=1.26; 95% CI=0.9, 1.7). Regarding injury, men were more likely to inflict injury than were women (AOR=1.3; 95% CI=1.1, 1.5), and reciprocal intimate partner violence was associated with greater injury than was nonreciprocal intimate partner violence regardless of the gender of the perpetrator (AOR=4.4; 95% CI=3.6, 5.5).
Anyone wanna parse this?
bmmg39,
Random anecdotes on Jezebel aside, the article and abstract to the study they cite doesn’t say what they determined to be domestic violence, so we don’t know if they did or did not count playful sparring. It also doesn’t specify if it took into consideration context such as threats or violence against inanimate objects. Would the Jezebel anecdote about the boyfriend who ripped his girlfriend’s laptop out of her hands and threw it and then she hit him count as violence initiated by her or by him? Reciprocal or nonreciprocal? Another problem is that it didn’t interview both members of each couple, and we don’t know what the gender balance of the people they did interview is. Could the male respondents have downplayed their violence? Could the women have counted things as violent that their partners would have counted as playful? We don’t know. Try finding something online that has those details about a study, and try linking directly to that instead of a Jezebel post about an article about the study.
Snore. The misogynists have shown up to whine about poor, beleaguered batterers. Can’t a wife-beater get a break?
Just last week Michigan had two rallies at the state capital, one asking for more attention of DV, and one asking for clemency for all women convicted of killing their husbands (because they were victims of abuse).
Every one of these women had a shelter she could turn to, and abuse shelters to call on.
Why shouldn’t we, using that logic, grant clemency to the men convicted of murdering their wives?
Obviously they had been emotionally abused by their wives for many years (or did they just wake up monday morning and say “I think I want to kill my loving, supportive, spouse”), and they, unlike the women, had no domestic abuse programs to help them (unless they are charged with DV), and absolutely ZERO shelters to go to.
I agree almost completely with your article, but I fail to see why you have to drag the Duke case into it.
I didn’t. Abuse supporters like Dr. Helen did.
Regarding injury, men were more likely to inflict injury than were women (AOR=1.3; 95% CI=1.1, 1.5), and reciprocal intimate partner violence was associated with greater injury than was nonreciprocal intimate partner violence regardless of the gender of the perpetrator (AOR=4.4; 95% CI=3.6, 5.5).
It means that women are more likely to be seriously injured in a domestic violence incident. Which of course means that men have it worse because, um … well, I’m not really sure why it’s worse for men when women are injured more severely.
No sane person can understand why the regulars here refer to anyone who wants more help for male victims as a batterer who wishes women were never granted suffrage.
If you present us with a sane person who wants more help for male victims rather than a crazy man who thinks that all restraining orders are horrible manipulations by punitive spouses, then we’ll listen. Until then, you’re stuck trying to defend the crazy guy who you say represents your views.
My sister-in-law is deaf in one ear because of one of the beatings from her boyfriend and the father of her children. But I guess she made him do it, huh? She must have deserved it if he was forced to hit her so hard that he knocked her unconscious, which sent their 10-year-old screaming down the hallway for someone to please call 911 because his mom was being murdered.
I guess that’s the price of being an uppity bitch these days: permanent deafness. She should have just done what he wanted and shut up so he didn’t have to hit her, right?
Amanda: again, we’re not misogynists, but rather equal-rights activists — legitimate ones, who wish to see all people benefit. (Please take notes.)
Furthermore, we wish to see tough sentences levied upon all actual batterers. The people we are defending are male victims of violence, just as we defend female victims of violence. If you could just remove your pink-colored glasses long enough to stop playing one gender against the other, you might see that.
Why, Amanda, are you so quick to defend batterers and husband-beaters? Hmmmm?
Ian Mitchell said:
That chart is for women as intimates. Not inmates. Nothing to do with prison.
“I guess that’s the price of being an uppity bitch these days: permanent deafness. She should have just done what he wanted and shut up so he didn’t have to hit her, right?”
Your argument is pure straw. NO ONE is denying that your sister-in-law is a true victim of abuse. But if your brother-in-law were the one abused by HIS partner, there would be people here calling HIM the batterer, simply because he happens to be male.
“well, I’m not really sure why it’s worse for men when women are injured more severely.”
When you focus on the person more likely to be injured in a physical fight, you almost always focus on the woman. But no one, regardless of physical strength, has the right to hurt another person. I’m not a large person, either, but that doesn’t give me free rein to assault people larger than I, and then use my smaller size as a get-out-of-jail-free card.
“Would the Jezebel anecdote about the boyfriend who ripped his girlfriend’s laptop out of her hands and threw it and then she hit him count as violence initiated by her or by him? Reciprocal or nonreciprocal?”
Damaging someone’s property is, indeed, considered a form of domestic violence, although if he threw it in the opposite direction, she’s not acting in self-defense when she punches him. If he DOES throw it attempting to hit her with it, then she WOULD be acting in self-defense.
Interesting that you cherry-pick until you find a case that indicates the male was out of control first. I notice that you didn’t select all of the cases in which the woman popped the boyfriend or the ex because she saw him with another woman or he said something she didn’t particularly like. I guess the man in all of those cases “made her hit him.” Where have we heard that argument before?
Ah, yes, poor abused Tyler Peterson. His ex-girlfriend called him a “worthless pig,” so what other choice did he have than to kill four people and then himself?
And, yes, that was domestic violence. If you go to your ex’s house or workplace and kill him/her, that’s a domestic violence incident. And the last time you heard about a female abuser going on a shooting rampage against her ex was …. when, again?
NO ONE is denying that your sister-in-law is a true victim of abuse. But if your brother-in-law were the one abused by HIS partner, there would be people here calling HIM the batterer, simply because he happens to be male.
Ah, but I didn’t tell you the one detail — when he first hit her during their argument, she hit him back, which was what prompted him to knock her out. So, therefore, according to what you want, she should have been taken to jail first and booked rather than being taken to the hospital for medical treatment, and he should have been released immediately since he was a poor innocent lamb who was just defending himself when his girlfriend hit him after he hit her.
And, again, since in your eyes she’s equally guilty since she has no right to self-defense, you’re saying she deserved it.
More parsing. Along with failing to interview both parties in the relationship…there is no mention of “adjusting” statistics for the rarely acknowleged but well established dynamic of women “covering” for their men by taking the blame for initiation on themselves.
Nor is there any adjustment for the “male denial” factor. (Incidentally, David Spade once did an acid riff on this dynamic, noting that every “Cops” program featured the shirtless, drunk guy claiming he “never touched her” while the bleeding woman is refusing to press charges.)
Quite simply…studies that rely solely on self-reporting of bad behaviors are notorious for their inaccuracies.
“Ah, yes, poor abused Tyler Peterson.”
I don’t remember bringing up Tyler Peterson. Why do you think that cases of abusive men somehow prove that cases of abusive women don’t exist?
“And the last time you heard about a female abuser going on a shooting rampage against her ex was …. when, again?”
Have you heard of Clara Harris? She didn’t go on a shooting rampage; her car sufficed just fine for killing her husband for his infidelity. She went to jail — and then CBS produced a sympathetic Sunday-night movie about her plight. Does that count?
“Ah, but I didn’t tell you the one detail — when he first hit her during their argument, she hit him back, which was what prompted him to knock her out.”
He struck her first? Then he is the aggressor.
“And, again, since in your eyes she’s equally guilty since she has no right to self-defense, you’re saying she deserved it.”
Are you intoxicated right now? My position is that all people — big or small, male or female — have the right to self-defense. It is the view of this blog, however, that men who engage in self-defense are batterers.
More parsing. Along with failing to interview both parties in the relationship…there is no mention of “adjusting” statistics for the rarely acknowleged but well established dynamic of women “covering” for their men by taking the blame for initiation on themselves.
Nor is there any adjustment for the “male denial” factor. (Incidentally, David Spade once did an acid riff on this dynamic, noting that every “Cops” program featured the shirtless, drunk guy claiming he “never touched her” while the bleeding woman is refusing to press charges.)
Quite simply…studies that rely solely on self-reporting of bad behaviors are notorious for their inaccuracies.
We’re going to flood your comments blah blah blah throw up red herrings and lies blah blah blah, all in service of making it harder for women to escape abusive marriages.
God, you people make me ill. Wanting to throw women in jail for getting beaten. Fucking sick.
Amanda: again, we’re not misogynists, but rather equal-rights activists — legitimate ones, who wish to see all people benefit. (Please take notes.)
Note to self: These sick fucks will lie their asses off to make it harder for women to get away from men who beat them. Noted!
Okay, I don’t know how the double post happened. Apologies.
This is what I wrote.
But what if he didn’t strike her. What if he simply uses his physical bulk to prevent her from leaving, blocking the door? What if he quickly wrests her car keys from her hand and refuses to return them, all the while blocking her exit. She hauls off and slaps his face.
Who is the aggressor here?
You’re the one who wants to arrest people (namely men) for being victimized by domestic violence. I belong to two national organizations devoted to protecting both men AND women from abuse. Can you say the same?
I do indeed want men to be arrested when they are “victimized” by the pain of their knuckles smashing someone’s face in. If they don’t want to suffer the nights in jail, the divorces, the loss of custody, they need to start by not hitting women.
Your overwhelming pity for wife beaters is not shared by me. Sorry. You can all rot in hell, honestly.
My question, bmmg39…is whether you believe that a man who uses his physical bulk to control the actions and choices of a woman without ever striking her is the aggressor?
Because this is invariably the scenario of the DV that I’ve been privvy to…woman wants to leave, and the man isn’t willing to let her go.
That chart is for women as intimates. Not inmates. Nothing to do with prison.
This correction is the funniest thing I have read all day.
Arguing with these fuckers in honestly a waste of time. It’s impossible to talk to someone who won’t speak in good faith. You have to judge them by their actions. If people are genuinely interested in helping male victims of DV, they would support measures like the VAWA that help all victims, they would admit that many and probably most male victims are gay, and they would build shelters for men. They wouldn’t attack the system that helps women, they would beef up help for men.
Instead, they attack protections that benefit ALL victims of DV. They try to ban restraining orders. They try to criminalize self-defense. They try to make it harder for women to divorce and escape abusers. They want to deprive women’s shelters of funding.
These are actions consistent not with helping men but hurting women, just as anti-choice actions are consistent not with helping children but hurting women. Judge them by their actions, not their lies. Genuine interest in helping people takes the form of extending help to the needy, not seeking ways to deprive people of help.
Of course, to be fair, depriving women of escape routes, threatening them with jail time for calling the police on abusers, automatic joint custody even for abusers, banning restraining orders, and shutting down shelters are all “help” if you are trying to help batterers. Which is why I call the MRAs who support these measures pro-abuse, because that’s what their actions say.
My sister-in-law is deaf in one ear because of one of the beatings from her boyfriend and the father of her children. But I guess she made him do it, huh?
Yes, she made him do it… exactly as much as Mr. Winkler made Mary shoot him in the back while he was sleeping.
Kinda funny that when a woman hits a man, she has some excuse based on what the man said or did months ago… or her general lack of control over her own actions, but when a man hits a woman, there is no excuse because he’s actually responsible for his actions.
There is no excuse in either direction other than self-defense from an immediate threat to one’s safety.
“Your overwhelming pity for wife beaters is not shared by me. Sorry. You can all rot in hell, honestly.”
I have no pity for wife-beaters, you idiot. How many times need I write that? How poor are your comprehension skills, exactly? You obviously believe that the 50% of domestic violence victims who happen to be male should be incarcerated for their biology. Sorry if I don’t share your sexism, Amanda. Actually — I’m not.
“Because this is invariably the scenario of the DV that I’ve been privvy to…woman wants to leave, and the man isn’t willing to let her go.”
Preventing someone from leaving a room is usually a fault. Of course, if it’s to prevent an intoxicated person from getting behind the wheel, or preventing a person who’s just committed a crime (such as a woman who’s just assaulted someone), then we might have a different story, altogether.
“Instead, they attack protections that benefit ALL victims of DV.”
No, Amanda, we’re opposed to “protections” that merely protect one gender of victims while vilifying the other. We’ll swiftly get behind a Violence Against Persons Act that devotes equal attention to all victims, regardless of race, gender, or creed.
Which were not sent by any of the three indicted Lacrosse players
More than a year later is “immediately”?
I agree with you that it is unfortunate that the misogynist wingnuts can use the Lacrosse case to their advantage, but three innocent men were in fact charged with crimes which they didn’t commit. If their families hadn’t been able to mortgage their homes to raise the millions (literally) of dollars that it took to fight the case, they would be doing hard time. Mike Nifong’s disbarment is thus a great service to justice, because if he tried to do it to these three, you know he has railroaded poor and nonwhite defendants before and gotten away with it, and that he would have done it again and again if he hadn’t gotten caught.
Sick fucks. Control issues—trying to tell women how they’re “allowed” to save themselves from violence. Well, really, by the standards laid out my MRAs, women just aren’t allowed to defend themselves.
How do you get so broken you join up with a pro-wife-beating movement?
bmmg-
My ex used to like to pin me to the wall when we were having an argument. He would hold me there until I gave in. I was always amazed at how long he could hold me there. And when i gave in, the same thing always happened- painful “make-up” sex (though it was more like rape- he only got off if it hurt me).
One day, near the end I had enough. When he went to pin me to the wall I pushed him hard enough to crack his ribs.
Tell me- who was the abuser in that situation? Was he restraining me to prevent me from committing some crime all those times? I was breastfeeding and not allowed to drive our car at the time- so he wasn’t restraining me so that I wouldn’t drive drunk. I had never hit him before that, but I still regularly got pinned to the wall when i disagreed with him.
Your idea of abuse is twisted and your continuing to ignore reality is insulting to those of us who have lived through it.
Yeah, Amanda…I get your frustration. But let us argue so we have it on the record. Apparently, you have no idea how valuable a resource Pandagon is…I’ve archived so much from the site.
I’m twitching here, because the basic debate on DV can never account for what I believe to be the greatest instigator of female retaliation…masculine physical bulk:
My eyes were opened to this common dynamic with a decade old incident in my own family…an argument between my teenaged son and my future DIL erupted when our son simply refused to allow her to leave. (Long story over at TT…with good discussion, and please know our son long since gets it.)
Very quickly, I understood that DV is about more than the violent strike…it is also about physical bulk asserting physical position and dominance, and just refusing to move. (Put this one out there, and just watch what happens…every woman you know will tell you the story of either submitting to the man who wouldn’t move, or picking up a chair and escalating.)
This is such an important element to DV, but few men want to acknowlege that greater physical presence, the determination to control, and a thick hide figures into why a woman will slap a man’s face.
Generally speaking, men do not need to hit women. All they have to do is insert themselves between women and the door…women might well then throw the first strike.
I want to make it clear that I agree with you 100% on each of these issues. I just think you are totally wrong about the Duke case and have been from Day 1.
Yeah, Amanda…I get your frustration. But let us argue so we have it on the record. Apparently, you have no idea how valuable a resource Pandagon is…I’ve archived so much from the site.
I’m twitching here, because the basic debate on DV can never account for what I believe to be the greatest instigator of female retaliation…masculine physical bulk:
My eyes were opened to this common dynamic with a decade old incident in my own family…an argument between my teenaged son and my future DIL erupted when our son simply refused to allow her to leave. (Long story over at TT…with good discussion, and please know our son long since gets it.)
Very quickly, I understood that DV is about more than the violent strike…it is also about physical bulk asserting physical position and dominance, and just refusing to move. (Put this one out there, and just watch what happens…every woman you know will tell you the story of either submitting to the man who wouldn’t move, or picking up a chair and escalating.)
This is such an important element to DV, but few men want to acknowlege that greater physical presence, the determination to control, and a thick hide figures into why a woman will slap a man’s face.
Generally speaking, men do not need to hit women. All they have to do is insert themselves between women and the door…women might well then throw the first strike.
No worries, ahunt. I appreciate you arguing with them. I think a lot of people are suckered in by the “WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ” storyline, just as a lot of people are suckered into “THEY’RE KILLING BAYBEEZ”, and so it’s useful to show how their storylines are full of shit. I’m just adding in that you have to judge people by their actions, especially since right wingers have such a strong, hefty disregard for the truth or the good faith argument.
Really, these dribbling assholes are the more pleasant ones. You should see the real nasty misogynists in the moderation queue. I had one accusing me of violence against him and his ilk because I use “aggressive” language. Tells you a lot about how he justified beating his wife, I’m guessing.
Dr., I think the prosecutor fumbled the case, sure. But no, I’m not interested in persecuting the victim or calling her a liar.
Dr., if you actually do agree with Amanda on the issues, then please focus on them. As she pointed out, Dr. Helen is the one who brought up the Duke Rape Case. Dr. Helen did that because “Duke Rape Case” is the patriarchalist’s current shorthand for “all women who claim to be raped are lying bitches”. In that context, harping on the Duke Rape Case is a troll tactic for arguing the opposite side of the “issues” that you supposedly agree with Amanda on.
Rape almost certainly took place that night. The wrong lacrosse players were charged with it. They got off. The DA responsible has been punished. There are no martyrs here.
People are found innocent of crimes (or, as is the case here, charges are dropped) all the time. Generally, that doesn’t translate into “The victim wasn’t actually victimized” or “the victim is lying”. Unless it’s rape or domestic abuse. Funny, that.
What do you suggest is done about this?
Seriously. These guys have found a loophole. I don’t think the issue’s even self defence - I think you miss the point there - Glen’s talking about agressors. If a women agresses and slaps or pushes or throws a plate at her husband, and then gets beaten to a pulp, so far as I can see the law sees them both as perpetrators of DV. She committed as crime by assaulting him, and then he committed one by assaulting her. It looks to me like this script is followed in a reasonable chunk of DV cases.
He deserves to be arrested and not her. But the victim is technically on the wrong side of the law as well as the perpetrator. I can see where the anger’s coming from because DV law is being used against victims. But is there a solution?
Amanda. Please be kind and remove the double posts. I get passionate from to time to time…but not this much. Please fix it. Then remove this post too.
Re-read my posts here: I never called her a liar, and never suggested she be “persecuted” in any way. (In their recently-filed civil suit, the Duke 3 sued the prosecutor, the police, the City and a lot of other people, but not the accuser.) But I’m not sure I’d call her a “victim,” either. The male DNA that was found in and on her did not match any of the members of the Lacrosse team. So either she was not victimized at all, or is seriously confused as to when and where it happened. The North Carolina Attorney General’s investigation, which concluded that the 3 defendants were “innocent,” recommended that she not be prosecuted for making a false police report, because she appeared to be delusional, not lying.
In any event, my interest in the Duke case has nothing to do with bashing women who make accusations of rape; I am sure most such accusers are truthful. As a lawyer, I have been interested in the case from the beginning because it is rare that we get such clear-cut proof of the way many prosecutors bring bogus charges (rigged lineups, failures to disclose exculpatory lab reports, etc., etc.) These things happen a lot, in all kinds of cases, but rarely get exposed.
If a rape took place, it was not that night and not at the Lacrosse house. The DA took DNA from every member of the Lacrosse team (except the one African-American player), and none of them was a match for any of the male DNA found in and on the accuser.
Yes, Dr. Helen is wrong to use this case to support the “all women lie” meme. As a defense lawyer, I prefer to use the case to support the “many police and prosecutors lie” meme.
On the off chance that’s true, be aware that right now you are helping people whose interest is in bashing women who make accusations of rape. What you’re doing right now is the whole reason Dr. Helen brought the issue up. If you continue, you reveal yourself as just another troll.
That’s what she’s using it for. You’re helping her. Stop.
Interesting. You know, we have quite a few posts on that meme on this site, but I don’t know if I recall you commenting before. Is it because you’re new to the site, or because you’re a troll who just wants to keep the shit flying about Duke?
So, we go from bmmg’s MRA derailment to YET ANOTHER Duke Lacrosse derailment.
Thanks. I hope I live long enough to see a day when no one knows (or cares) anything about this…
You’re right, Mike. Sorry. Will stop feeding the troll now.
Not cross with you, Seraph.
(Sometimes I like to feed them too…)
I’m just tired of the endless stream of people (men) who think every single thread about DV or rape should be turned into a MRA/Lacrosse-fest…
Kinda funny that when a woman hits a man, she has some excuse based on what the man said or did months ago… or her general lack of control over her own actions, but when a man hits a woman, there is no excuse because he’s actually responsible for his actions.
I suppose if you’re really desperate to find excuses for an abuser, you can say that my sister-in-law’s boyfriend saw no reason for her to hit him just because he’d hit her five minutes before. Why would she still be upset about something that had happened five whole minutes ago and why wasn’t she getting him a beer yet? So, clearly, she deserved to be knocked out cold and have her eardrum ruptured because she was holding a grudge for, like, a whole five minutes! Geez, can’t women get over things?
If bmmg hasn’t been banned yet, I’m starting to get curious: why does he think that restraining orders can only be issued by a woman against a man, so therefore they need to be banned? A man can get a restraining order against his abusive wife, too. The issuance of the order is not dependent on your genitalia.
And I would like to mention that a female abuser killing her husband was so unusual that they made a TV movie about it. Tyler Peterson is just another ho-hum domestic abuser. If he’d only killed his girlfriend and not the other people in the house, the story never would have made it out of Wisconsin.
How come women who kill their partners (in self defense or not) rarely kill their children too?
How come men kill their kids and “their” women with such frightening frequency if “men are most victimized”?
I can remember at least two incinerations of women and children this year alone within a 15 mile radius of my home. That’s just the burnings, not the shootings and beating deaths of women AND the children too.
I can’t remember the last time a woman dragged her estranged husband/lover into an elevator and immolated both of them at his workplace. Or burned herself and her kids to death in the parking lot of his workplace.
The extreme differential in the murder of the children along with their mothers is telling, very telling.
Oh lord. Equal rights activists? For batterers presumably. I smell a hell of a lot of bullshit on this thread’s comments. More than the usual number of trolls most definitely.
You know, I keep asking myself what would drive a whole passel of men (and I’m counting the mythical “Roberta”) to come over to a blog thread on domestic violence and insist, against, all known evidence, that men are being oppressed by anti-violence laws in huge numbers and kept away from assistance for their own domestic abuse.
Then I remember, oh yeah; people who abuse others are super-manipulative and like to try to define reality and set the terms of the debate. The psychotic need to control even the *discussion* of domestic violence on a blog fuels their panicked, hostile, and largely nonsensical posts. It must always, always be about them.
Pathetic.
Very interesting debate so far. I read glenn’s site quite often as well as a number of feminist blogs. The reaction to this interview scares me in a way. It seems some of you can only look at things in a men vs. women way and fail to see the issue as a whole.
No reasonable person would deny an abused man or woman any option out there. What Glenn was getting at is that some parts of the system we have put in place are being abused and this must stop. Using restraining orders when there isnt a real need is simply wrong and I see it happen all the time.
I recently separated from the military and in my 9.5 years in I must have seen at least a thousand divorces and had intimate knowledge of about 40. Restraining orders and claims of abuse were used constantly, often brought up when the military spouse was deployed and couldn’t fight it. This has to stop.
As far as reporting of abuse and the statistics some of you have mentioned…..well you also question the validity of these stats. I must say, again based upon personal experience and what I’ve had the chance to research, the person least likely to report abuse is a man. Whether it be rape or domestic abuse in one of the many forms it can be defined as now, the odds a man will report it are much lower and even the chance that he will know it qualifies as abuse will be low.
Educate all people, give options to all people, shelters for men, gay and straight, resources and so on. Put everyone on an even footing and do all that is possible to stop anyone, male or female, from gaming the system. Some of the new laws and ordinances I’ve read (my home state is Maine but I’m now in Georgia) are clearly gender-biased. Yes I’ve seen abused wives but also a huge amount of abused husbands with absolutely no recourse, they dont eventually hurt their wives, they just live as broken men who eventually end up sending 40% of their pay and their kids to the mom’s new house.
Forgive my writing style as this is my first post and I’m not nearly as well-spoken as most of you.
She’s also using the David Letterman case. No one responded by attacking Letterman, and claiming that he is really an abuser. Amanda, quite correctly, pointed out that the fact that one brain-dead judge once granted a restraining order in response to a complaint by a delusional woman doesn’t discredit the very real complaints of women who are really abused. Yet when Helen uses the Duke Lacrosse case in the same bad-faith way, everyone has to pile on to three innocent men with long-discredited claims that they did something wrong. They didn’t. Give it a rest.
The three former Duke lacrosse players should be locked up for rape.
As for DV, when you have people like Glenn Sacks attacking the system (much in the same way other neocons attacked the judges in the Schiavo case), then that makes it 100,000,000 times harder for women who are being abused by men and men who are being abused by women to get the services they need.
Here are the real facts: 23 out of every 25 women (92%) are abused by men — and just 2 out of every 25 men (8%) are abused by women. One stat I find factually incorrect: more men are abused by other men. In fact, men are abused by other men in no more than 1 in every 25 DV cases (only 4%) — meaning that there are more women who are victims domestic violence across the board (regardless of relationship type) than men. And that includes same-sex relationships. There are many more instances of woman-on-woman violence than man-on-man violence.
The 2003 law South Carolina passed is gender-neutral — and for good reason. Spousal murders in SC increased by five for both genders in 2006 from 2005. Forty women were killed by men and ten men were killed by women in 2006, up from 35 women and five men in 2005. These numbers DO NOT include killings in self-defense, as South Carolina stopped including those number in 2004, when the current DV law went into effect. The current law says that the state will prosecute DV case, regardless of what the victim says. What that means is this: a man who is being beaten up constantly by his wife/girlfriend (he never hits her back) all of a sudden call the police — she is going to jail even if he doesn’t want her to get arrested. Of course, this was posted on the Times and Democrat’s blotter back in 2004. The police will do the same thing if a woman who calls the police on her husband/boyfriend and she doesn’t want charges filed — take him to jail even if she doesn’t want to press charges. Of course, this happened to one of Sanford’s former aides when the aide’s wife said that she didn’t to press charges against her husband. Columbia police arrested him anyway. That is why I love the current DV law in SC — wish other states would adopt it.
Here is more on abused men from Dennie Hughes’s January 9, 2005 column.
At least Amanda did acknowledge the no one is immune to DV.
And bmmg is d-u-m-b. He twists the facts instead of giving the reasons behing a lot of the real reasons why people abuse the ones they love. And his absurd remarks about banning restraining orders should make everyone, regardless of gender shudder. I hope that when I here next tiem, bmmg is b-a-n-n-e-d.
It’s not that men aren’t abused, but about 85% of victims of spousal/intimate partner violence are female. Also, men are more likely to do damage because of the disparity in size and strength. Men are the victims of DV, but I wouldn’t call it an “equal opportunity nightmare.”
I have no sympathy for men who abuse women. However, I do have sympathy for men who are wrongfully accused of abusing women. I also have no sympathy for women who abuse men.
It’s interesting that this post came up when it did because we are studying lethal self-defense in domestic violence cases in our Criminal law class today. Self-defense statutes were written by mostly male legislatures and interpreted by mostly male judges from a male perspective and they were designed to keep men from killing other men in male combat situations. The deck is stacked against women because the laws were not written with women’s situations in mind.
For example, the shooting someone while they are sleeping is never self-defense. In a conflict between two males, this is understandable. If one is sleeping, the other can leave. In a domestic violence context, it’s not so simple. Leaving is often the most dangerous time for the woman. When the final assault happens, she is at a disadvantage when it comes to defending herself. Perhaps the only chance she has to defend herself is to kill her abuser when she has the opportunity.
With recent events such as the Duke rape case and the Mary Winkler case, I expect a backlash against women in the courts and in the legislature. The Duke rape case shows that there are serious flaws in our criminal justice system, specifically in that these boys were prosecuted even after it was obvious that neither they nor any of their teammates raped the victim. Unfortunately, what is likely to happen is that the legitimate concerns about the system is rigged to favor the state in all criminal cases will be swept under the rug, and the whole thing will be blamed on a “lying bitch” and a bad apple prosecutor.
It’s not that men aren’t abused, but about 85% of victims of spousal/intimate partner violence are female.
According to the pro-abuse faction, that’s not true, because most to all of those women started it. If they didn’t talk back, did as they were told, etc. then the necessary beatings wouldn’t happen. And by automatically charging and prosecuting victims of DV for putting up any self-defense, we can spin the numbers to make it look like standing up for yourself or, if the activism is successful, talking back will be considered abuse as bad or worse than chronic wife-beating.
You can read the comments here between the lines and see how they speak to women—the passive aggression, the unsubtle shifting of blame for their behavior, and you see what’s going on. Not that all MRAs are wife beaters, but man, this movement has got to be appealing to them. They tell you that she was at fault, that women are the “aggressors” with their backtalk and self-defensive gestures, that it’s unfair of the courts to tell you that you can’t go back into YOUR home to put YOUR wife back in line after she betrayed you by going to the police, that women who seek help should be punished by the law so they see, they SEE how it’s their fault, that they’re the ones who are broken, that they don’t act right. To be told that your sense that you’re justified in wife-beating is right has got to be tonic for them.
I’m not sure that it was obvious that they didn’t rape the victim. I think what’s obvious at best is that the prosecution couldn’t make a case. But what’s distressing to me is that even if they didn’t actually rape her—and I’m not convinced she’s lying—they did harass and abuse her, and their defenders slipped quickly into defending rape threats, racist jokes, and all the male bonding over how fun rape and murder would be.
“One day, near the end I had enough. When he went to pin me to the wall I pushed him hard enough to crack his ribs.”
Then, that can qualify as self-defense. Not sure what that has to do with a woman actually ATTACKING a man, which is what I’M talking about.
“So, we go from bmmg’s MRA derailment to YET ANOTHER Duke Lacrosse derailment.”
How are any of my posts a derailment? This thread was a derailment from the onset. A well-known equal-rights activist named Glenn Sacks said in an interview that the Violence Against Women Act has led to several innocent men being arrested for violence they did not, in fact, commit, and that too many men victimized by violence aren’t receiving the protection they need. Amanda, as she is wont to do, accused Sacks and all who agree with him of being misogynists who beat their wives. (I’m just waiting for one to bring forth the libel suit.) Wanting equal rights for all = “hating women” as far as she and others here are concerned.
“If bmmg hasn’t been banned yet, I’m starting to get curious: why does he think that restraining orders can only be issued by a woman against a man, so therefore they need to be banned?”
I never argued that restraining orders should be banned. Please pay attention.
“And his absurd remarks about banning restraining orders should make everyone, regardless of gender shudder.”
I don’t know whether to be angry or to laugh at you. Please demonstrate when, exactly, I ever said that restraining orders ought to be banned. If not, then you owe me an apology. (Yeah…I’m kinda sorta not holding my breath on that one…)
Is this what occurs in this echo chamber every day? You can’t refute what equal-rights activists actually say, and so you make things up and refute THAT, instead? Really, now. Calling everyone who wants to HELP victims of abuse and abuser himself or herself? Wow.
bmmg, now that Amanda was kind enough to let your latest thread derailments through, can you now just find a blog more suited to your “tastes” and leave us poor, ignorant Pandagonians alone?
Thanks…
Dr. Caligari -
I have to ask you something. Are you new to this site? Because I honestly can’t remember you posting on any threads that were actually about abuse of police or prosecutorial power. I checked the “spilled cake, broken wrist” thread. Nothing. If so, how did you find your way here, and will you be this vehement when such a topic is posted again? It shouldn’t be more than a few days, the way this country is right now.
I only ask because I need to know whether you’re a complete troll and can thus be safely ignored, or if you (like certain regular posters on this site) are nice enough most of the time, but have a few specific issues that set you off.
Meanwhile, how about we change the subject to…you know…the actual topic of the post? The one you claim you agree with us about? You know, the one you’re distracting all attention from with your continuous harping on Duke?
i can’t undertand why intelligent people can not see that these violence issues are so much compiclated than evil men beating up helpless women.
i’m not here to argue, what about the poor menz. and women beat up on them and their vicitims.
i’m here to say that men and women resort to violence for a whole host of reasons that are not just motivated by hating and keeping the other gender in line. women in a stressfull situation who suffer from some post traumatic stress from a variety of sources, yell and scream and throw things and hit and slap, and use belts on their kids, etc. etc. they resort to violence for the same reasons that men resort to violence. it’s not angel vs. demon. it’s sick person v. sick person. you can see why a battered woman might resort to violence but just completely wash aside why a man might be violent and brush them as woman hater. well they’re sick too. they suffer from post traumatic stress too. and they hit and smash things for ugly reasons too.
you put two people with mental health issues in a boiling situation and under extreme stress, they are going to be violent. there are cultural reasons why they exact that violence on certain victims. but the root of that violence comes from an illness that needs to be addressed.
i wd venture to guess that most of the people here wd have arguments to defend and justify the violence comitted by aileen wournos. i wd agree. in my opinion, had she not been violently raped and suffered from severe post traumatic stress and a schizoaffective personality disorder, she would not have killed her johns that she believed were also trying to rape her.
men who commit this kind of violence suffer from the same issues. the brain has a funny way of developing when it develops in an environment of danger and instability. it produces scary people who do scary things. and this line in the sand where it becomes demon v. angel doesn’t stop violence. i’m not an abuse supporter, i want to stop the violence and the i frustrates me to end. we have to deal with the poverty, the danger, the boys be beaten in juvenile detention centers and gang raped. there are 30 year old men who are getting diagnosed with mental retardation and schizophrenia, substance abuse, for the first time in their lives and they are facing habitual offender mandatory minimums. and when they finally get a diagnosis, treatment, a judge willing to give them a downward departure, they go to a treatment facitlity, where in all frankness they will need to be institutionalized for the rest of their lives in some fashion. but they function. they have jobs. they see their kids. their families love them.
this frustrates me to no end. b/c it’s either the MRA’s or the victim advocate crowd that gets heard the loudest and dominate the conversation. meanwhile, millions of men are being bred at this moment to be violent offenders. they are kids and we cry about how horrible it is that their lives are so dysfunctional and abusive. but as soon as they turn 25 and turn out to be the monsters they are literally being bred to become, it’s lock them up, throw away the key, and pat ourselves on the back for being so righteous.
I never argued that restraining orders should be banned. Please pay attention.
That’s what your hero Glenn Sacks is arguing for. Why do you think he brought up the fact that crazy people can get restraining orders, too?
If we’re not going to take legal action because crazy people might misuse it, we’d better stop investigating child murders. After all, a crazy man claimed that he’d murdered Jon-Benet Ramsey, and that means that the legal system can be abused by crazy people, so there’s no need to investigate child murders anymore.
“That’s what your hero Glenn Sacks is arguing for.”
Mr. Sacks is criticizing the abuse of restraining orders issue purely as custody maneuvers. If you actually had read what people write instead of concocting your own words for them, you would have seen that he has written:
“I certainly don’t advocate giving abusers full access–or any access–to victims, and I don’t advocate banning restraining orders.”
So, now, since I’m not against ROs in general, and Sacks, isn’t, WHOM exactly are you accusing?
Is that apology forthcoming?
Mr. Sacks is criticizing the abuse of restraining orders issue purely as custody maneuvers.
Since you don’t seem to think that judges are competent to issue restraining orders — after all, they issued one to a crazy woman who said David Letterman was harassing her through her TV set! — then who gets to decide which orders are legitimate and which ones are not?
That’s the sticking point here. Since you’re both claiming that restraining orders are frequently issued “purely as custody maneuvers,” and that judges are being too free in issuing those orders, what remedy are you proposing? Does the accused get to decide for him/herself if the order is legitimate since the judge is incompetent to decide?
i’m here to say that men and women resort to violence for a whole host of reasons that are not just motivated by hating and keeping the other gender in line.
I think you’ve completely misunderstood the argument.
The argument is not that individual men are motivated specifically by hatred of women and that they’re only reacting out of that hatred.
The argument is that in this society, men are taught that (a) violence is the solution to all of their problems and (b) they need to be in control of “their women” and if they’re not, they’re not real men.
Combine those two things with a person who, because of his own personal history, is desperate to control the people around him to prevent them from hurting him the way that the people who controlled him as a child/teenager abused him, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for an abusive situation.
Add in another person who learned from their own abusive situation as a child/teenager that it’s their job to fix everything that’s wrong in the relationship and that everything that goes wrong is their fault, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
Surely there is some middle ground here. One can in fact issue restraining orders quickly and on testimony alone.
I think that what Mr Sacks is arguing for is at least some scrutiny in the issuance. If it turns out on further examination that the sole purpose is as a custody maneuver, then that should have some consequences.
I haven’t seen an argument yet from Glenn’s side that says get rid of TRO’s.
But maybe at least a good place to start is to have an ounce of empathy for someone who loses his children to a false accuser.
Ok, bmmg. There you go again:
Now, how can you say that you (and Mr. Sacks) are not trying to ban restraining orders?
But maybe at least a good place to start is to have an ounce of empathy for someone who loses his children to a false accuser.
I do have sympathy for someone in that situation. Sometimes in a divorce you end up dealing with an irrational person.
However, the advice that people like Glenn Sacks give in that situation is actually counterproductive and only manages to raise the level of discord between the parents. Leading men to believe that they can get custody of their kids back by following Sacks’ advice is either ignorant or actively cruel.
RE the Duke Lacrosse case:
“I’m not sure that it was obvious that they didn’t rape the victim.”
Yes it is very obvious – there was no DNA from any of the accused.
“. . . even if they didn’t actually rape her—they did harass and abuse her . . .”
Amanda, I find it kind of worrying that you are willing to rail against the facts – at this late date it’s kind of embarrassing. Your (presumably) heart-felt convictions that these guys should be punished for “something” seems to be too little, too late.
I guess I feel so strongly about this because I have been raped and I find it insulting that you try to compare rape with harassment. There is a big difference between rape and “harassment” (whatever you believe the latter to be). The former is a serious crime, which is reflected in the severity of its punishment - as it should be. False accusers make it harder for real rape victims to get justice– don’t support them, in any way!
In regard to the Duke students, I note that we have laws not just to punish the guilty but more importantly to protect the innocent – you should rejoice in this and not whinge because you believe that some males “got off” – they didn’t get off, they didn’t do it. You should be pleased that a self-serving miscreant of a prosecutor got caught in a vicious and socially dangerous act. When YOU end up on the wrong end of this type of behavior you might be a little less strident on this issue.
The whole point of this thread should be about using the law fairly and reasonably to protect us – all of us, why not stick to it?
Jovan 1984:
You state:”
“Mr. Sacks is criticizing the abuse of restraining orders issue purely as custody maneuvers
Now, how can you say that you (and Mr. Sacks) are not trying to ban restraining orders?”
Making the connection between stating a grievance of abuse of restraining orders and stating you want a ban is
inaccurate.
All Glenn has a problem with is FALSE accusations of domestic violence. It would be equal to me saying I think abuses of insurance claims need to stop. And you say:”you want a ban on insurance claims!? What will people do when they lose their homes!?”
I don’t think it would be a huge mis-justice if judges went ahead and signed restraining orders, but the husband was entitled to a swift hearing (within 5 days or so) to rebut. If there is no FINDING of domestic violence then the restraining order should be rescinded and the initial restraining order shouldn’t count against the man for child custody, or having an EQUAL shot at the family residence.
I remember recently a bill was signed in West Virginia stating that a woman could not accuse a man of DV and have him kicked out of a home that SHE (the alleging woman) HAS NO FINANCIAL STAKE IN.
This seems reasonable. The fact of the matter is many laws are written now which give women (and only women) against incredible witch-hunt powers against men (and only men i.e. these laws don’t work between lesbian couples) to kick a man out of his house (she is not paying for) and other actions BASED SOLELY ON A SINGLE-PERSON ALLEGATION.
How you can advocate for a system like this is beyond me.
It is 10,000 times harder for a man to get a restraining order against a woman. He CAN’T get a restraining order just because he “feels frightened” or “I claim she threatened me.” Almost uniformly she actually has to TAKE ACTION of some kind, or be recorded in the act of threatening.
So.. these are gender-biased laws in place simply to get men out of the house, and to disadvantage men.
The rate of women killing men plummeted more than men killing women for a simple reason: Women who used to have to kill in self-defense have other options. They can call the police.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That logic is not correct. I am sure there are a myriad of reasons for this gap including men now have less recourse to attend to there partners bad behavior driving up frustrated desperate crimes of passion.
Furthermore, logic dictates that due to the response time of police no matter how good they are does not dramatically give woman an advantage in not becoming a homicide victim. The bottom line is if people can assassinate a president with all his protection, it certainly would be no great feat for a spouse to kill another.
So that my words are NOT twisted, I am not advocating this type of behavior I am just stating the plain and simple facts.
The rate of women killing men plummeted more than men killing women for a simple reason: Women who used to have to kill in self-defense have other options. They can call the police.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That logic is not correct. I am sure there are a myriad of reasons for this gap including men now have less recourse to attend to there partners bad behavior driving up frustrated desperate crimes of passion.
Furthermore, logic dictates that due to the response time of police no matter how good they are does not dramatically give woman an advantage in not becoming a homicide victim. The bottom line is if people can assassinate a president with all his protection, it certainly would be no great feat for a spouse to kill another.
So that my words are NOT twisted, I am not advocating this type of behavior I am just stating the plain and simple facts.
sorry for the studder on the enter key
And they keep going—between the people making excuses for and defending the practice of wife-beating and the assholes who went after the Frost family for having the nerve to testify about their health care issues, humanity is making me fucking ill today. The world is full of small, mean bullies like these men on here making excuses for wife-beating, trying to minimize it, a lot of them no doubt because they wish to avoid the fact that there’s no fucking excuse for beating your wife down.
Yes, even if she fights back to escape you.
Celia, whatever. I’ve been raped and I see the connection between men who threaten to rape you , men who engage in low-level harassment, and actual rape. If you don’t see the connections, sorry. But they do exist. Rape threats and harassment work so well often because they are followed through with actual rape, as you know.
I’ll add that it’s domestic violence awareness month, and it’s probably not a coincidence that Dr. Helen used this month to issue an apologia for wife-beating and demand that batterers be returned some of the control they’ve lost over their victims.
“between the people making excuses for and defending the practice of wife-beating and the assholes who went after the Frost family for having the nerve to testify about their health care issues, humanity is making me fucking ill today.”
You got that right. I don’t know what the hell happened, but will somebody start putting SSRI’s in the water or something?
This country is seriously out of control, and if we don’t get some counseling and get our medications adjusted, the rest of the world is going to need to lock us up for their protection…
The rate of women killing men plummeted more than men killing women for a simple reason: Women who used to have to kill in self-defense have other options. They can call the police.
There’s an even simpler reason why the number of woman killers have gone down.
Why do you kill your partner? Because you want them gone and absolutely out of your life with no ability for them to come back.
Calling the cops and making an allegation of DV is the quick, simple, easy way to do that without the possibility of being found guilty of murder…. an option that is more easily enjoyed by women than men.
Uh-huh, Demon. I bet the cops believed that she fell down the stairs when she called the cops on you, huh? Which is part of the problem and why VAWA training is so critical. And why you and yours are against it—the world was easier when the cops overlooked your wife’s bruises and considered it a “spat”.
My mother doesn’t have a financial stake in the house that she and my father live in — he paid for it after selling his business. I suppose that if my father starts drinking again and becomes abusive as he tends to do when he’s drunk, she’s the one who needs to get the hell out, because she has no financial stake in the home that they’ve lived in together for 15 years.
In other words, a man can be prosecuted just because a woman says that he raped her. How unfair! Apparently we need to switch to a system like they have in Pakistan, where a woman has to have four eyewitnesses to prove rape, or else she’s publicly flogged for being unchaste.
Furthermore, logic dictates that due to the response time of police no matter how good they are does not dramatically give woman an advantage in not becoming a homicide victim.
Er, Bernie, she’s not talking about “response times,” as in how long it takes the cops to get there. She’s talking about “response,” as in the fact that the cops are now willing to actually arrest a guy for beating his wife instead of just walking him around the block to “cool off” and then bringing him home.
Uh-huh, Demon. I bet the cops believed that she fell down the stairs when she called the cops on you, huh? Which is part of the problem and why VAWA training is so critical. And why you and yours are against it—the world was easier when the cops overlooked your wife’s bruises and considered it a “spat”.
Cute reply.
So how do you feel about the fact that you actually consented to the guy who ‘raped’ you and then got him charged after the fact because he didn’t make enough money to satisfy your gold-digging desires?
The only reply to your non-sequitur that makes sense is one of my own.
Definitely Bunny Time…
Demonspawn, at least you chose the correct name for yourself.
I’d call you an asshole - but assholes actually have legitimate uses…
Beware of people who use self-hating screen names, I always say… they may know something about themselves that you don’t.
Is this Amanda person a Lesbian, I am just curious.
There are several people that needs to be bunnied.
bmmg, Demon, Jackal1994.
“Is this Amanda person a Lesbian, I am just curious.”
What in the hell does that question have to do with Domestic Violence?…
What in the hell does that question have to do with Domestic Violence?
I’d have to dig it up, I haven’t used the report in a long time during a debate, but I do remember one where they studied domestic violence rates vs living arrangement.
~24% of heterosexual couples had experience violence coming from one party or both.
I don’t remember gay men, other than it was around heterosexual’s numbers.. slightly lower if I remember correctly.
Want to take a guess about Lesbians? 54%
Definitely Bunny Time…
Demonspawn, at least you chose the correct name for yourself.
Banned why, because I made off the wall remarks with no basis in reality insulting someone else? I just followed the example of your fearless leader.
Bunnied ≠ Banned…
(At least not necessarily)
And considering how big the intertubes are, why must you continue to bless us with your awesome presence, Demonspawn?…
Because, for now, this amuses me.
I’m interested to see if Amanda can make a reply based on facts and what is said, rather than her own widely distorted vision of it.
It’s kinda funny. Us “MRA” types are insane because we hate women and want to keep them all down. (we don’t)
What you fail to recognize is your own insanity that is just the opposite of what you claim us to be. You think a woman is never wrong. If she killed him, it HAD to be self-defense…. if it wasn’t then we’ll just expand the definition of self-defense to include her actions!
And what is bunnied, btw?
Responding to Mnemosyne:
Actually Mnemosyne when I state no financial stake simple deduction would stipulate that this is a dating type situation. I should have known in advance that you would twist it to mean something different.
In a marriage marital assets are 50/50, so your mother does have a financial stake in the house. But of course you knew I meant that didn’t you?
Your task at hand is to obfuscate, misdirect and twist my meaning to the most horrible possible picture (against women).
The meaning of the can’t-throw-the-man out of the house is that a woman who had been dating a man for a month can’t get him thrown out of a house he’s been paying on for 20 years. Of course you absolutely would be FOR THAT! Woman wins A FREE $200 HOME by lying at the expense of a (shitty) man? KACHING!
Of course we all know poor helpless little pristine pure as the snow women would never-ever-(sniffle)-ever lie for gain (Tonya Harding). Right?
What don’t you understand when I say one person shouldn’t be able to place another person in jail based SOLELY upon an allegation? In your rape example, if their is NO EVIDENCE other than her claim, there is no reason to hold him in jail.
Since I can (now more wizened assume that you will twist my meaning) by no evidence I mean no evidence, he has witnesses to show he was never alone in the same room, the rape kit comes back negative (even to consensual sex), no bruising, no particles or hair or skin of his on her clothes,and there is no other physical evidence then there is no reason to hold him in jail? If you believe in a system in which the above example the woman SHOULD have the right to throw the man in jail, then I have a suggestion for you.
Just wear your bigotry in the open. Just come right out and say I hate men, and I want all of their nuts ground into ooze under high-heels. Stop cloaking your bigoted view in “protecting women and children” BS.
Should have been $200K home lol.
Mnemosyne, I’d like to see how you react someday if your spouse uses a restraining order against you falsely, and this also causes your children to be taken away from you.
“men are taught that (a) violence is the solution to all of their problems”
No, WOMEN are taught this. Boys are taught never to hit a girl; girls are taught to start swinging at a boy if it will make them feel better.
“All Glenn has a problem with is FALSE accusations of domestic violence. It would be equal to me saying I think abuses of insurance claims need to stop. And you say: ‘you want a ban on insurance claims!? What will people do when they lose their homes!?’”
Great analogy, Jackal. If Jovan really can’t tell the difference between wanting to do away with something entirely and merely trying to ensure that the system works for everyone, there’s not much I can do for him/her.
“between the people making excuses for and defending the practice of wife-beating…”
Amanda, again: provide exactly one instance on this thread of someone “defending…wife-beating.” If it’s so prevalent, you should have no problem coming up with ONE. We’ll wait.
“I bet the cops believed that she fell down the stairs when she called the cops on you, huh?”
Now you’re directly accusing someone of abuse. You do understand the concept of libel, do you not?
Jovan: “There are several people that needs to be bunnied.”
There are, apparently, several people who need to be tutored in English.
Hmmmm I wonder what Amanda’s retort will be? These assholes make me ill? Or some other such tripe?
You’re a wife-beater! (Not). You hate when beaten wifes fight back! (never said that). blah blah balh
The meaning of the can’t-throw-the-man out of the house is that a woman who had been dating a man for a month can’t get him thrown out of a house he’s been paying on for 20 years. Of course you absolutely would be FOR THAT! Woman wins A FREE $200 HOME by lying at the expense of a (shitty) man? KACHING!
Yes, I’m sure that happens every day. Tell you what — you find a link to the newspaper article showing a case where a male homeowner who’d lived in that house for 20 years was kicked out in favor of a woman he’d been dating for a month. I assume he’d allowed her to move in during that month, of course? I have a hard time believing that the police would allow someone to move into their ex-boyfriend’s house while said boyfriend was in jail, but clearly you are so much more wise than I when it comes to the legal system.
Just one case where this happened. That’s all I ask. Since you say it’s a common occurrence, it should be a quick Google search, right?
Just wear your bigotry in the open. Just come right out and say I hate men, and I want all of their nuts ground into ooze under high-heels. Stop cloaking your bigoted view in “protecting women and children” BS.
Yep, that’s me. In fact, I’m typing this from my lesbian separatist commune while wearing a necklace made from the testicles of my male victims. Gosh, you’re so smart to have figured that out. Can’t fool you for a minute, can I?
When do you think we were taught that — when they separated us to show us the films about menstruation? Because I never, not once, was told it was okay to hit people, male or female, unless they tried to hurt me first.
And that’s the sticking-point, isn’t it? I was taught that if a man attacked me, it was okay for me to fight back. You seem to think that means that I was taught “to start swinging … if it will make (you) feel better.” In other words, you see self-defense by a woman as an unprovoked attack.
I’m sure my sister-in-law’s boyfriend was taught never to hit a woman, but the lesson sure didn’t take, did it? There seem to be a lot of men out there who were taught never to hit a woman, and yet some percentage of them do it anyway. You’d almost think that another cultural message was getting through instead, wouldn’t you?
Upthread, someone commented on the mistrust we have for studies claiming that women initiate the majority of DV incidences.
Here’s why…every single methodologically sound study ever undertaken on the DV issue has solidly established that men overestimate the violence of their partners and underestimate their own…while women do precisely the opposite. Hence…studies relying solely on self-reporting are notoriously suspect.
Moreover, these same methodologically sound studies suggest that female violence is far more likely to be a response to extreme controlling, dominating behaviors of men.
Not only do MRA’s tout highly questionable research in their effort to promote the myth that women perpetrate the majority of DV…they refuse to examine the context of female violence….and continually deny the hard evidence of the retaliatory context.
Michael Flood debunks much of the MRA misrepresentations of female violence, and I recommend folks google him.
There’s nothing like a well supplied troll colony.
Mnemosyne, not quite what you are looking for, but pretty darn close:
Her word rules, and he goes to jail
Some women swindle with domestic violence law
By Garland M. Baker
Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Women are kicking their mates out of the house in record numbers in Costa Rica. Some of them are enjoying it and using the law designed to protect women against domestic violence to swindle expats. Many expats come to Costa Rica in search of a relationship and end up shooting themselves in the foot by making bad choices.
Police in Heredia say women are abusing Law 8589 Article 7. The article states, In order to protect the victims, they will be able to request, from the start of the complaint, the protective measures contemplated in the law against domestic violence, as well as the necessary precautionary measures foreseen in the penal code of procedure.
Yes, an expat male or any male in Costa Rica for that matter can be tossed out of his own home by his wife or girlfriend by merely having a complaint filed against him by the woman if she says he was being abusive. Abusive, as it stands today, can mean anything, including just raising one’s voice.
Two weeks ago a woman put her expat boyfriend in jail all night when he raised his voice to her adult son he is over 18 years of age for popping bubble pack and painting satanic symbols on the wall. The son, who has tested positive for drugs in the past, became vocally abusive, so the expat called 911. When the police arrived, the girlfriend and her son asked the police to take the expat to jail. Officers did so without question. The woman also said that he struggled with the son and bumped into her.
The man who was jailed is the legal owner of the home.
The girlfriend took a coat to the expat that night because it was very cold in Heredia. Either she had a guilty conscience or she was looking for information. While at the jail, she spoke with the police, and they gave her pointers on what she should file with the judge the next morning in court.
In the morning, the police escorted the tired man from his jail cell to the court. He was lucky, he had a cell phone, and the police let him use it in the patrol car. He called an attorney who met him at court.
The judge told the man that the police would take him to his own house where he could pack two suitcases of essentials but that he had to vacate his home immediately.
A police officer escorted the expat and his attorney into the house. While the retired man gathered his belongings, the police officer told the attorney that throwing men mostly foreign men out of their homes in Heredia was their daily routine. He said they use to chase robbers and other bad people, but now they were bored because mostly they just deal with domestic violence cases. The police officer further said: Women in Costa Rica are taking advantage of this new law. They throw out their boyfriend and then steal their things and leave.
Other women do not leave. They start court cases against expats for damages or palimony to wear them down to get a payoff. The lucky ones get off with the women taking a few TV sets and thehome computers. At least in these cases the expat can move back into his house.
When the girlfriend does not leave the home, expats have a serious problem. They have to file other court cases to get the unwanted tenant out of their house. These processes can take months to years. Usually, domestic violence injunctions called medidas here are for six months. Normally, a judge will not rescind a medida, and the frustrating part is that no one takes an accused man seriously. In most cases, the medidas expire before a judge ever makes a decision.
In this case, that of the expat put in jail and thrown out of his house, the man is staying in a hotel. The girlfriend and her son used the words, my husband and my stepdad in their court complaint. But, in fact, they have no legal relationship with the man. This case looks like it is going to be a long one. The expat feels frustrated and helpless. He may just pack up and leave Costa Rica.
Women taking advantage of the law for their personal gain overshadows the reason the laws were passed in the first place. Many women and some men have died because of domestic violence situations. Some 25 to 30 women die a year on average. There are around 30,000 domestic violence complaints filed a year. A University of Costa Rica study said 58 percent of women interviewed in a survey experienced some kind of physical or sexual violence in the past 16 years.
However, there are no firm statistics on how often women use the new laws to end a relationship and take the possessions a man must leave behind. The law, of course, only protects women. A man cannot use this law to get an abusive woman from the home.
“In other words, you see self-defense by a woman as an unprovoked attack.”
It’s the other way around, actually: you see an unprovoked attack as self-defense. I have stated already in this thread — and more than once — that I support the right of any man, woman, boy, or girl to use force in self-defense (or in defense of another innocent human being). I’d encourage any woman (or man) in a domestic violence situation to begin fighting back, and to do so as soon as possible.
When we speak of female violence against men, we aren’t including cases in which a woman merely fights back against an assailant, whether it’s been thirty seconds of abuse, or fifteen years. In fact, we applaud her. But too many women — if you’re not in this group, then great — feel that their gender grants them the license to assault others, especially men. (When they do it, they will tell you, it’s “just different.”) Are there men who also feel as though they have such a right to abuse others (especially women)? Of course there are, and I hold them equally in contempt. If someone knows how I can make that point plainer to the people here, I’d love it to be passed on to me.
Amanda, whatever. Don’t pretend that your proffered notion of vicarious rape has any ligitimacy - it has none. Stop defending the lying asshole to save face – it’s bad karma. False accusers make it harder for real rape victims to get justice – don’t support them, in any way! I mean, are you trying to hurt us or what? Just like false accusers in rape cases, misuse of restraining orders by those jockeying for position in divorce settlements will almost certainly ultimately hurt those who REALLY need them – fucking great! Get some new glasses, this sort of unreasonable behavior is damaging to those genuinely in need of protection and surprise, surprise, plays right into the hands of your detractors. WTF?
MikeESS~What in the hell does that question have to do with Domestic Violence?…
Basically, female homosexuals have cornered the market on DV and abuse, while on the face, they appear benign. You neglect the psycopathy, they are sexual males, many even fully male brained but wrongly equiped by a fate of nature. Whether many of these females are wandering undiagnosed lesbians, dysfunctional rejects of serial male rejection or just professional hoaxters for public largesse is up for debate.
This does not obviate the small percentile of genuine cases of DV, washed out and exploited in the Lesbotic political minutia. The issue is simply the mental dynamics. Any sex with a male would be absolute mental and or psychological hell, and lord forbid they get impregnated. Think about it ! As a selfish creature they project a personal experience as universal, many never understanding why. Better yet, what a great political disguise and con, I am thinking here an inherent but dangerous oiedipus type complex, that kills a culture from within. The legal system is just along for the free ride to wonderland not really understanding what it is dealing with except the psycophantic endowment, then again perhaps they do, with their own agenda.
The clue for me was when either steinem, dworkin or whatever stated ‘ they would have no compunction in roasting a baby on a spit’.
As for amanda and rape experience, if she is a lesbian, the last thing she would want near her would be a pee pee, whether voluntary or not. Oh yuk !
Wow. It’s like a bar of Dr. Bronner’s soap crossed with an MRA on acid.
bmg’s constant need to redefine kicking off a rapist, throwing things at someone to escape him while he beats you, and shoving past someone to escape being kidnapped and beaten as “unprovoked” tells you a lot about the wife beater mentality.
One book I read described wife beaters as men who swear they love women generally, just theirs is broken—disobedient, unruly, doesn’t take her medicine beatings like a good girl. Bmg=good example of how that works. If you simply redefine normal human self-defense actions with words indicating that they are unavailable to women, that women owe men our submission, than it’s easy. Most reasonable people see a woman shoving past a man and running away as he beats her as saving herself. But the wife beater sees that as an “unprovoked” attack, because a good wife would see that he has to hit her, since she’s a bad girl who started this no doubt by saying something smart or nagging or just not doing as she was told.
Amanda, whatever. Don’t pretend that your proffered notion of vicarious rape has any ligitimacy - it has none. Stop defending the lying asshole to save face – it’s bad karma. False accusers make it harder for real rape victims to get justice – don’t support them, in any way!
I don’t support the prosecutor’s actions in pressuring the victim to finger out someone when she was unsure of who raped her, no. But I’m not interested in furthering someone’s trauma by accusing her of lying to satisfy a bunch of misogynists and their enablers. If it makes you feel better to bash other rape victims or harass other victims of harassment—who are your sisters, who know your pain—then I suspect you should probably work through a therapist about these feelings. Victimization is not a competition. You don’t need someone else to not really be suffering for your suffering to be real.
Andrew_S, you go right on thinking Amanda is a lesbian. I’m sure you’re right that the “last thing she would want near her would be a pee pee”. That’s just how Amanda rolls.
On the other hand, Pam Spaulding, Amanda’s co-blogger here, is as hetero as they come. As is her wife Kate…
(Can we request a troll upgrade from the RNC? This is getting boring…)
Amanda, what you should know is many of Glenn Sacks supporters are liberal and progressive, myself included. If you spend any time reading Glenn’s blog it would become obvious he is NOT conservative. You should also realize your blog and message, with it’s sycophants actually HURTS the Democratic party. Your style and views are just as abhorrent as the right wing’s to this progressive. Are you incapable of making a rational argument ?
Fascinating, Demonspawn. I have no doubt that you believe that if feminists wanted to help abuse victims, we would patiently explain to them that it’s their fault that they get hit and that if they just act right, their poor, put-upon husbands wouldn’t have to beat them nearly as much. I mean, there would be maintenance beatings, of course, but if you act right and quit fighting back, it will go so much smoother for you.
Typical fucking evil bullies. I’m only letting your asses in here to show how sick and evil your thinking is. Reading all these excuses and protectionism for WIFE BEATERS makes me want to boil my computer. At least the subset of MRAs who make excuses for child molesters is staying away.
Not new, but only a sporadic poster– I mostly lurk.
I must have missed that thread.
I never heard of this site until the John Edwards controversy broke. I came here to check out what all the huffing was about and found myself agreeing with lots and lots of threads (gay rights, abortion, etc.) and disagreeing with some (I prefer John Coltrane to Nirvana, sorry).
I will confess that the Duke issue sets me off. If there is a way to search for all my posts, you will find that most of the time, I am a pretty nice guy, even if my screen name comes from a silent horror movie.
It is simply not true that Glenn Sacks is “on your side if you’re angry that your stupid, broken wife resists your abuse”. In point of fact, it is a bold face lie, as you well know.
Glen’s point is that women use the easy access to restraining orders as a way of keeping dad’s from their children. They can do it without consequence and no cost.
As one of your own supportive bloggers points out, men can only combat the frivolous restraining orders by hiring a lawyer and taking the woman to court. All this is expensive and time consuming whereas the woman can get the restraining order with little effort and no expense.
“But I’m not interested in furthering someone’s trauma by accusing her of lying to satisfy a bunch of misogynists and their enablers”.
Amanda, I am NOT suggesting that you should accuse her of lying (or hurt her in any way) – but it seems to me that it is only reasonable in light of the facts that you simply stop your well-meaning but damaging (and very public) de facto support of someone who has actually hurt her sisters by making false accusations – because, ultimately, that is what she has done. Actions like hers set the clock back AGAIN.
“If it makes you feel better to bash other rape victims or harass other victims of harassment—who are your sisters, who know your pain . . .”
Get real, no pleasure here – I will always bash those who hurt my sisters. Come on Amanda, show some interest in the pain that actions like hers ultimately inflict on real rape victims trying to get justice. Or are you going to return to the harassment is equivalent to rape diatribe.
Look, I know you supporters of wife beating will never admit that you actually think that—well, in public. Between friends and certainly to intimates is a different story. We are well aware of this tactic. The anti-choicer claims to love babies in public while acting as if he’s mainly interested in punishing women for sex. The racist swears up and down that he’s not a racist even while privately believing that black people are stupid and using the word “nigger” behind closed doors. And the battering advocates claim to oppose wife-beating while organizing to make sure that battered wives get thrown in jail or are deprived of escape routes.
I judge you by your policy ideas. You want to throw women in jail for saving themselves. You want to deprive women of basic safety measures to escape wife beaters. You used coded language that reflects the “bitch had it coming” mentality. Others might not see through you, especially if you say, “But I’m a liberal”, as if self-proclaimed liberals can’t have blind spots. But by focusing steel-like on your actual ideas instead of your bullshit justifications, I can see right through you.
Amanda, why are you so angry that you are hideously unattractive? What? Nothing to say about the innocence of the Duke athletes? Well, being a cunt and misinformed suits you well. Edwards was right to fire you. At least now I can support him. You boyfriend is quite a pathetic man, if you can call him a man. What do you do, cuckhold him? Beat him while he is tied up with a rubber ball in his mouth? Or do you like ass to mouth sex? Just checking.
As a practicing litigator (albeit not in divorce cases), I can tell you that that is true of all legal proceedings– it is easy for any plaintiff to file a bogus claim, and a defendant always has to spend a lot of time and money defending even frivolous claims. In many kinds of cases, I support tort reforms that make it harder to file potentially-frivolous suits.
Nonetheless, DV cases are different. Let’s balance the risks here: one the one hand, if it’s too easy to file for a restraining order, the defendant will run up a big lawyer’s bill; on the other hand, if it’s too hard to get one, somebody might get killed. So, where I come out, it should be easy for a victim of abuse to file for a restraining order. The dangers to women of making it too easy far outweigh the dangers to men of making it too hard.
I garbled that last sentence– I meant to say “The dangers to women of making it too hard far outweigh the dangers to men of making it too easy”
Fascinating, Demonspawn.
I’m glad you think so.
Now, are you willing to debate in ‘good faith’ and show all my posts, or will this mockery continue?
Wow. Until now, I was wondering why Amanda hadn’t gotten around to bunnying people yet. Now I understand: your own words make you look worse than anything we could ever say about you. For every lurker sitting at their computer saying “Yeah! That’ll teach the bitch a lesson!” There are probably ten saying “My God, is this what MRA’s are really about?”
Dear Lord, you people are vile.
I judge you by your policy ideas.
That sounds reasonable. But then, in the name of intellectual honesty, you may wish to accurately assess what our policy ideas are.
I think it’s clear from your over the top statements that you are not representing Glenn Sacks’ ideas in any manner that accurately describes his beliefs.
Nor have you addressed his rebuttals that he has addressed to you.
Looking at Glenn’s speech and yours, judging both of you by your policies AS well as your behaviors, and you come off to me as libeling Glenn. Purposefully misrepresenting both his policy ideas as well as his actual behavior.
http://glennsacks.com
Wow. Until now, I was wondering why Amanda hadn’t gotten around to bunnying people yet. Now I understand: your own words make you look worse than anything we could ever say about you.
Our words, or Amanda’s warped interpretation of our words? Have we said anything that she’s said we said? No…. it’s all the delusion she has. Of course it’s easy for her to ‘debate’ us when she can make up what we say rather than actually discussing what we do say.
She claims we’re not debating in ‘good faith’ because we won’t type what she claims we think. Well I’m glad that she’s such a great mind-reader that she knows what I think better than I do.
She’s delusional, trapped in her own fantasy-land. She needs professional help.
I’ve yet to see an MRA idea that wasn’t an attack on women’s gains. There’s been a couple weak attempts at building shelters for men that fold for lack of interest. If you really want to help men, you would support feminist anti-violence organizations. If you pity men who lose their wives, their children, and their homes because they beat their wives, you’d find ways to educate men about not beating and raping before they do it and blow their chances.
I don’t see that help coming. Just attacks on women’s rights.
Jackal1994 said:
THAT’S EXACTLY HOW IT WORKS. TROs are issued pretty much automatically based only on the word of the person seeking it, and for very good reason — the potential harm of denying a TRO when one was needed is much greater than the harm of granting a TRO when one was not needed. In one case, a woman could end up dead, in the other, the man was falsely accused and the TRO expires. The David Letterman example is particularly ridiculous — how the hell was he harmed by the judge granting a restraining order against him based on some delusional person’s word? He wasn’t!
Also, whoever wrote the thing about West Virginia passing a law that women who have no financial stake in the residence can’t keep an abuser from entering the residence is wrong. There’s no such law.
Your “ideas” are not only backed by poor/misinterpreted/incomplete data but the arguments used to express them are littered with anecdotes peripherally related to the actual issue. Like with the David Letterman case - are you serious?! If somebody is actually going to equate a lone celebrity obsession case (where the people never even met) to domestic violence then that - compounded with the gross misuse of DV statistics - just makes it more and more obvious that you people have no idea what you’re fucking talking about. Not to mention that it is also just simple dishonesty (I’m sure many of you KNOW better). Dishonest arguments based on ideas with little to no substantiation. Especially considering the attack on the efforts of women and feminism. Like somebody mentioned up thread - Glenn Sacks-of-Hot-Air doesn’t make an argument so much as he goes from A to L and tells you you’ve ended up in Hell and does so with poor data, appeals to emotion, and throwing stones at efforts taken by women and feminists. So logic-minded people are trying to draw straight lines from the “points” Sacks makes to the “conclusions” he draws. So he says a lot while actually say very little and after we’ve been strung along and conclude something that is very easy to conclude, we get, “noooo, no. Come oooon. That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is…” and then the whole thing starts over again.
The only thing one can do is deduce, or even sometimes blatantly see, that the strategies used here are ultimately pro-abuser. Then you wonder why? Pah…
You want to show that men are not only beaten by women (which yes, they are sometimes but not as often as the other way around) but that it’s on a macro level and a social problem? Then DO it. You want there to be more shelters for men (gay men have shown this is possible)? Build them. You want to prove that retsraining orders are abused to the point where its a social problem? PROVE it. BUT misrepresenting statistics and neglecting to consider other data thus failing to see THE FOREST FOR THE TREES is NOT the way to do it. It actually says something else about you and your motives. Attacking the motives of DV laws advocates, attacking shelters that barely survive and have a hard time dealing with safety issues regarding children and exes as it is, and not really following through on making them as women had to for YEARS says something else about you and your motives. Laughably using the David Letterman stalker case and in general the FACT that like all things it will be abused by people (men AND women) SOMETIMES when in the other breath you were claiming to care about abused men too says something ELSE about you and your motives.
Don’t ask anybody to properly represent Sacks’ beliefs when even HE fucking can’t.
BUT misrepresenting statistics and neglecting to consider other data
Bears repeating.
The majority of MRAs continue to spin their wheels because all the whitewashing in the world cannot disguise the true agenda.
From Michael Flood:
The fathers’ rights movement focuses on trying to re-establish fathers’ authority and control over their children’s and ex-partners’ lives, on gaining an equality concerned with fathers’ ‘rights’ and status rather than the actual care of children, and on winding back legal and cultural changes which have lessened gender inequalities.
There is not a feminist out here who wants to deprive children their fathers…nor one who believes that violent women should not be held accountable for their behaviors.
We are seeing far greater involvement of men in the lives of their children, joint custody is the norm. Annnnd….shared parenting is rapidly becoming SOP…in those situations where the arrangements can work to the wellbeing of offspring. Feminists applaud these changes.
What feminists reject is the MRA rhetoric of distortion, misrepresentation, and gross exaggeration to advance the agenda of rolling back public policy to the days when men ruled the family. Those days are gone and they are not coming back…
Cursory research has not turned up credible evidence to establish that women routinely use RO’s to “deprive men of home and children.” I’d like some evidence, other than the anecdotal, that this is a social problem so serious that the use of RO’s should be limited or suspended.
Credible research only please.
Joint custody is not the norm. Even now, NOW is lobbying AGAINST joint custody in Michigan and is lobbying for sole custody laws.
http://www.dadsofmichigan.org/shared_parenting.html
What fathers want is for a rebuttable presumption of shared parenting. This is what research and experience shows is best for the kids and respects the desires and rights of both parents.
That is not an attack on women’s rights, that is supporting the rights of all parents, unless they are unfit, to have access to and to parent their children.
Amanda, you are passionate about your issues, and that is probably a good thing. But you are misrepresenting Sacks and Fathers and doing Sacks, Fathers, men, women, and children a huge disservice.
Click the link and talk to him about your issues and concerns.
http://glennsacks.com
It doesn’t have to be a zero sum game. You can make it a positive sum game.
“…to advance the agenda of rolling back public policy to the days when men ruled the family.”
Lie. That is not an MRA agenda. I consider myself a men’s rights activist, as well as a women’s rights activist. Maybe someday you will see that they’re not mutually exclusive.
And if Michael Flood holds that much antipathy for men and fathers, then his studies are obviously not to be trusted.
Hmmm…
So take me to an MRA organization/site that clearly spells out the goals of the men’s movement, and also does not ultimately descend into feminist/woman-bashing. Haven’t run across one yet.
Here’s one I found: http://www.ncfmla.org/
There is not a feminist out here who wants to deprive children their fathers…nor one who believes that violent women should not be held accountable for their behaviors.
To debunk that, we need look no further than NOWs opposition of shared parenting and all the feminists who supported a woman who shot a sleeping man in the back.
Next round of BS?
You cannot be serious. (Poorly designed site, BTW)
But I did manage to get this from the teensy weensy PDF info flyer.
“The female institution that subordinates the needs and nature of men to those of women, while promoting special entitlements, privileges and protections for women…is feminism. (Though feminists deny this)
But men have their own institution…chivalry is the male institution that subordinates the needs and nature of men, while promoting special entitlements, privileges and protections for women.”
Pradeep Ramanithian
Former Vice President of NCFMLA
Misogyny, feminist bashing, male entitlement in just a coupla short paragraphs.
Look, is there other comment site you favor? One where we can discuss the topic in depth w/o irritating the shit out of Pandagonians?
I don’t see what the issue is with legal positioning using restraining orders. We women have put up with oppression for centuries.
Men should be presumed guilty in ALL cases of rape, sexual assault, harassment, DV, etc. THAT is justice. These men should have to prove their innocence - it is traumatic enough for the victim to be dragged through court proceedings. Why put them through more?
For the Duke rapists, they should be in jail anyway. They need to be made into examples. This whole DNA stuff is crap. DNA testing should never be used to prove a man’s innocence - they shouldn’t have the right. They give false negatives way too often anyway.
If 100 men have to go to jail to catch one rapist, on wife beater, one molester, then so be it.
Amanda, this page is fucking talking to me. (Ads with sound defaulted on.)
ahunt, I see the feminist bashing and the disagreement with feminism, but to be honest, I really don’t see the misogyny or the male entitlement.
May I ask you to expand on your point and clarify that please?
Masculine entitlement…as in the implicit assumption that masculine “needs and nature” define our basic human rights, and that chivalrous men are actually doing women a favor by NOT overindulging in masculine “needs and nature.” Thanks ever so much. No really.
Add in the misogynistic pov that basic human rights constitute “special entitlements, privileges and protections for women”…and Voila…you have both misogyny and masculine entitlement.
I don’t support wife beaters and I have never hit a women in my life, although I have been struck more than once. Your smear tactics and outright lies are despicable. Any credibility you once had will be lost by any neutral reader of this thread. Throughout this thread you have never once made any kind of comprehensible argument of why men should not be allowed due process with accusations of domestic violence and restraining orders. Your tactics are Rovian. You suck.
as in the implicit assumption that masculine “needs and nature” define our basic human rights
Basic human rights? And those are?
I’m sorry pal, but basic fact of life #1: There are no such things as “basic” or “inalienable” rights.
If you honestly think that there are, go visit Bosnia back in the late 90’s or Dafur or Iraq back when the Kurds were being gassed. The ONLY rights you have are those you are willing to fight for or that others will fight for on your behalf.
Chilvary, in notions such as “women and children first” are about special privileges and protections for women. They get of the boat first (along with the children, who do deserve to get off first) while the men get to sacrifice their lives, or at least put theirs in increased risk. What if it was “men and children” first? Would you not rail about how that would be disadvantageous to women? But somehow it’s ok with it’s men being put down?
“Men should be presumed guilty in ALL cases of rape, sexual assault, harassment, DV, etc. THAT is justice.”
“For the Duke rapists, they should be in jail anyway. They need to be made into examples”.
What MRA sent you here Lilith? No wonder we get shit heaped upon us - with intellects like yours we’re guaranteed to back slide. Fucking wonderful!
I note with more than a little amusement that, anywhere else, I would assume that the comment above from Lillith was a complete troll. On this site, given what the proponents of DV (Amanda, et al) have stated before, I have to wonder if it is a serious post.
Amanda, you are certifiable. You have nothing on Karl Rove or Bill Donohue, you are all clowns and demagogues. They are just more successful clowns. When you take indefensible positions, what do you expect the outcome to be? You have made yourself a comic book character and the subject of derision and comedy due specifically to the polarizing positions you take. Kerry was right to fire you. Try logic and reason. It will get you farther. You ever listen to yourself and how absurd you sound and act? Like I said, a comic book character who fabricates statistics and studies that either don’t exist or that have no scientific or empirical merit. Keep drinking the Jim Jones Kook-aid.
Lillith is exactly the attitude of most you assclowns who are militant and believe the crap you spew from your pieholes.
When is somebody going to empty this litterbox for trolls?…
“Amanda, you are certifiable”, types Benjamin, at the keyboard of the single Intertube-connected PC in the common room of the psych hospital where he resides…
“Keep drinking the Jim Jones Kook-aid.”
Ben, by the time it came around here you and your troll friends already finished it…
MikeEss, it’s sad you are so desperate to get laid that you are willing to suck up to extraordinarily unattractive, fat militant feminists. Sick is staring at Amanda’s (and her ilk’s) portly, hairy ass, choking back vomit while trying to imagine a better place to be before sticking an appendage into the landfill she calls a vagina.
Benjamin -
Amanda worked for Edwards. Apparently, your version of “logic and reason” doesn’t need to be based on facts.
THE STUPID! IT BURNS!
Any bets that “Lilith” is an MRA?
“MikeEss, it’s sad you are so desperate to get laid that you are willing to suck up to extraordinarily unattractive, fat militant feminists.”
Ben, when you come down from that bad acid-trip you’re on, re-read what you’ve written in this thread.
If you still think you’re a paragon of logic, reasoning, and clarity, then you’ve proven you are a danger to society and your release date needs to be extended another couple of years…
Hey Caligari, even heard of a principle called “justice”? Or how about, protecting basic constitutional rights, like for example due process? The minute we start violating those rights (which we have), we endanger all of society.
Now go on back in your cabinet
Let me correction you: Amanda was fired by the Edwards campaign. End of story. She was talking out of the side of her neck in regards to many issues. Not good to associate yourself with a misandrist unless you don’t want to be taken seriously.
“Not good to associate yourself with a misandrist unless you don’t want to be taken seriously.”
Ben, Ben, Ben…
Dude, you’re supposed to actually SWALLOW the medication the nurse brings you, not hide it and spit it out later. Otherwise you’ll never get any better…
Hey Benjamin, it sounds like MikeEss is speaking from experience, no?
“Correction” me?
IT BURNS! IT BURNS!
I agree. I just fail to see what this has to do with any of my comments above.
Du musst Caligari werden!
The ONLY rights you have are those you are willing to fight for or that others will fight for on your behalf.
Well Good Heavens Demonspawn…who made this rule…hmmmmmmm? And why?
Hey Norm, it sounds like you’re Ben’s sockpuppet, no?
…
“Sick is Norm staring at Ben’s portly, hairy ass, choking back vomit while trying to imagine a better place to be before sticking an appendage into the landfill he calls an ass.”
There, fixed that for you Benny Boy…
Amanda, I have trouble imagining the comments you are not letting through. Dear FSM.
I have extra brain bleach if you need it.
Sorry Caligari (hey, that rhymes!)..if I am not understanding your comment, which I quote here:
“The dangers to women of making it too hard far outweigh the dangers to men of making it too easy”
Doesn’t that mean that it is better to make it “easy” for women to restraining orders, even though that is bad for some men, since making it harder will endanger women and that would be worse (at some level)??
If that is what you mean, then my response is that you cannot view the issue only at the simplistic level of individuals being affected in some way; that outlook isn’t inclusive enough. Larger principles become involved, like the idea of due process (for the man) - the systematic denial of which, with respect to restraining orders and other DV procedures, is wreaking havoc with basic rights, and is thus worse for society as a whole.
Je ne pas parle Deutsch(?), mais….does “werden” mean “watch”, or maybe “fan of”? (I didn’t see the movie, I just know it by name:)
Due process? But do not men have the same rights to file for RO’s? What am I missing here?
It is truly difficult to have a civil debate when the people are attacked and not the issue or the subject matter.
I am curious what you women have to say about this…
“I’ll beat up Blake when I’m drunk…If he says one thing I don’t like then I’ll chin him.” singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse, speaking about her relationship with her new husband
The racist swears up and down that he’s not a racist even while privately believing that black people are stupid and using the word “nigger” behind closed doors.
Amanda, I recognize that this is your blog and that you are the only one who can decide what you will and won’t say here but, would you please consider not using the n-word? I understand the point you are making here and I think it’s valid. However, I think that using an abbreviation (e.g. “n-word”, “n-bomb”, et cetera) would make the same point without adding to the number of times that people of color have to encounter this very nasty word on the intertubes.
P.S. I agree with everything you’ve said on this issue. As a victim of domestic violence (in my past), it makes me shudder to read some of the comments the MRAs are leaving on this post.
…as opposed to the misogyny that characterizes “gangsta rap” and not a few traditional country music songs? Or Todd Rundgren’s: “they may be stupid but they sure are fun?”
I say: ugly shit sells. You?
Ah, yes, the old, “Gee, ladies, a woman did a bad thing, therefore you’re all a bunch of hypocrites because you say you’re against all forms of the bad thing” canard.
Amanda Marcotte…
Do you hate men?
What you are missing I believe, is that you don’t understand the meaning of “due process”. (It doesn’t have anything to do with men getting restraining orders)
Supposedly, under our Constitutional form of government, there is first of all something called “presumption of innocence”. Only in a fascist society, or one headed in that direction, would we jail or otherwise punish someone, say by forcibly removing him from his place of abode on short notice, based on the mere word of someone else, without any physical or other significant evidence.
But due process goes further than that, consisting of everything such as Miranda warnings during arrest, to such things as the right to fair trial before his peers, the right to confront one’s accuser in a court of law, and others (which everyone may recall from watching numerous television law or police shows).
The flagrant violation of many of these rights, which regularly takes place during the issuance of restraining orders, DV arrests, and rape allegations, endangers a free society.
Democracy: “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”.
“Amanda Marcotte…
Do you hate men?”
Bernie Misiura…
Do you hate women?
No? Then why do you ask Amanda such a stupid and nasty question?
Men who are not misogynist assholes who believe they’re entitled to ownership of women, including the right to hit and rape and control every aspect of the female existence, have nothing to fear from Amanda or any other feminist…
No, see now, what you’re missing, I believe, is that you don’t understand the meaning of due process, arrest, and restraining orders.
In other words, you wouldn’t know a due process violation if it jumped up at you out of your Cocoa Puffs.
When a person is arrested and locked up in jail on suspicion of driving while drunk, no one runs around whining about the allegedly drunk person’s due process rights. The drunk person is locked up for several reasons, one of which is to protect the rest of society from the allegedly drunk person’s actions in the immediate future - you know, driving while drunk and possibly killing other people.
This is commonly thought of as protective custody.
Similarly, when a person has a restraining order issued against her or him on suspicion of behaving violently toward a significant other and/or children, the order requires that person to stay away from those alleged targets (in effect, to be arrested without having to be actually in jail awaiting bail/trial), one of the reasons is to protect the significant other and/or children from the allegedly violent person’s actions in the immediate future - you know, returning home and beating or even killing the significant other and/or children.
Really, it’s that simple. A TRO/RO is like being arrested, only without having to go to jail.
A TRO or an RO issued against a suspected DVer is on its face no more a due process violation than is an arrest on suspicion of driving while drunk. Both options exercised by law enforcement are an effort to keep the alleged drunk/violent person away from any potential victims.
Seems pretty reasonable to me.
My only complaint with TROs/ROs is that no flimsy little sheet of paper is actually going to keep someone away from me who is bound and determined to kill me. I’d rather see the fucker locked up IMHO.
Ooo, I forgot to address this: “Democracy: ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’.”
Well yeah, that’s why drunk drivers, you know, the few, are arrested to that they don’t slay 2 or 4 or 10 (a.k.a. “the many”) other drivers while they’re drunk.
Similarly, society has an interest in protecting people (the many) from violent assholes (that would be, yes, the few). Consequently, when an allegation of DV is made against somene, society wants to try to back up its interst with action - issuing a TRO/RO.
MikeEss
October 13, 2007 at 10:20 pm
“Amanda Marcotte…
Do you hate men?”
Bernie Misiura…
Do you hate women?
No? Then why do you ask Amanda such a stupid and nasty question?
Men who are not misogynist assholes who believe they’re entitled to ownership of women, including the right to hit and rape and control every aspect of the female existence, have nothing to fear from Amanda or any other feminist…
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The question was to provoke thought and to show that her statement;
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
October 11, 2007 at 1:15 pm
The racist swears up and down that he’s not a racist even while privately believing that black people are stupid and using the word “nigger” behind closed doors.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Is loaded and tends to lead to a circular logic or reasoning… such as “Are you an alcoholic?” Saying yes means you are and saying no means you are because that is the first sign that you are an alcoholic. The fear the decent and honest men need to have of Amanda is that she puts her own spin on what others have said, dishes out misinformation, and has no respect for debate etiquette.
As I said before and will say it again it is truly difficult to have a civil debate when people are attacked and not the issue or the subject matter as you have aptly demonstrated. Thank you for proving my point.
Norm
teac is right, but did not need to demonstrate that with such venom.
You are only presumed innocent in a court of law, how you get there is another question and another problem. There is however, no presumed innocent because someone has actually accused you of something so action has to be taken. This is why the accuser has to sign a complaint/affidavit accepting full responsibility for false accusations. This is where we seem to have a problem, these affidavits are not enforced when an impropriety is discovered.
“The fear the decent and honest men need to have of Amanda…”
All of the decent and honest men who comment and read here do not fear Amanda.
One might posit that if a man fears Amanda for how she might say what she says, then one is not a decent and honest man.
As for her debate etiquette, it’s her blog. Don’t like her how she runs it? Then don’t let the door hit ya in the ass on your way out.
“As I said before and will say it again it is truly difficult to have a civil debate when people are attacked and not the issue or the subject matter as you have aptly demonstrated.”
Bernie, when you phrase a question as “Do you hate men?”, instead of saying something like “Amanda, have you had problems with men in the past?” (which is still offensive, but not as blatantly nasty), what do you expect?
You and “Norm”, and “Benjamin” come onto Amanda’s blog, created and paid for by Amanda Marcotte, without knowing her, her opinions, her point of view, or any of us regular commentors, etc., make asses of yourselves and are then shocked, SHOCKED!!! when people treat you like the plague.
“Thank you for proving my point.”
Whatever…
Shocked SHOCKED S.H.O.C.K.E.D. are they!
Teac, for your edification, your comparator of DUI is probably not a good one since more than mere suspicion or even probable cause is required by law to take a drunk driver off the road. Probable cause is required to stop and test the suspected DUI driver in the first instance. There have to be sufficient objective and articulable facts upon which to warrant detaining the driver beyond a temporary stop, let alone extended detention. In other words, simply saying so or a suspicion is insufficient. So, probable cause to detain an individual, other than for a field investigation (field sobriety tests and questioning), is not all that is required - a considerably greater amount of EVIDENCE of intoxication must exist to warrant an arrest. The key word here is evidence (ie of wrong doing) not a suspicion nor an accusation – even by a police officer – is sufficient. Fortunately, however, definitive evidence is readily obtained in DUI cases!
Celia,
I was speaking in easily-understood terms, analogizing if you will, for the simple-minded. I saw no need to bring in CrimPro, the FRE, etc., since the fellahs wouldn’t get it anyway.
No need to edify me.
And please, feel free to provide a more applicable analogy if you think it would be helpful.
I’ve been trying to think of one but haven’t so far!
Cool. It seemed the most readily accessible at the moment. You an attorney? Law prof? Student?
PhD, LLD.
Aww, man! Now don’t I feel foolish!
FYI, if anyone is still reading this thread after all those trolls:
there was a request for a MRA-type site that wasn’t against feminism — try the following:
http://www.xyonline.net/index.shtml
? maybe it’s not MRA? I’m new to this.
Ladies (I also mean the fellows are ladies also here), when you are prepared to discuss intelligently, support your positions with empirical data from studies following scientific protocals on data collection and to use unbiased sources, please feel free to stop being crazy and articulate your positions. The simple fact is that you can’t do so.
OMFG!
Benny called everybody here “Ladies”, even/especially the guys! What a burn on us!
I really feel put in my place! How could any of us have labored under the naive belief that we had a hope in hell of going toe-to-toe with the likes of an intellectual giant like Ben The Magnificent!
***
Now that you’ve put us in our place, come on, you can admit it - you’re really still in high school, right?…
Dear Mrs. MikeEss,
Please go back in the kitchen.
Love,
teac
Ms Benjamin said:
Shall we provide Ms Benjamin’s words the opportunity to speak intelligently for themselves? Hmm?
In Comment #180, Benjamin said this
and this
There is nothing wrong with taking polarizing positions. Heck, you’re doing it even now.
and this
1. She worked for Edwards not Kerry. 2. She wasn’t fired, rather she resigned - as a direct result of threats of physical harm from dolts like you as well as all the ridiculous rhetorical flak dolts like you prattled on about and which she decided she did not want floating around distracting people from Edwards’ message.
Oh, wait, you “correctioned” us. Thanks, Beave!
Then in comment #181 Benjamin said this
Followed in comment #184 we read this intelligent gem
This … genius … this paragon of debate decorum then exhorts posters here to
Anyone read anything from Ms Benjamin citing any studies or other scientific sources? Anyone see where Ms Benjamin articulates a position? Anyone?
Bueller?
One last note:
Lilith said:
“If 100 men have to go to jail to catch one rapist, on wife beater, one molester, then so be it.”
Here, we have this concept that women’s suffering JUST COUNTS MORE!
What if I were to say:”If 100 woman have to be raped to keep one innocent man out of jail, then so be it!”
Done gasping yet?
It seems to me that Lilith is exposing the gender hatred of men that many feminists carry in their heart. This is the kind of hatred that Amanda keeps accusing MRA’s of.
Hilarious.
At
least
she’s
honest.
Feminism might have stood for something great long ago. Now it is a hate movement (and a supremacist movement too).
Jackal, did some feminist cut you off on the freeway recently? Did a feminist spit in your burger? Did a feminist mock the size of your pee pee?
Why all the anger, sweetcakes?…
Feminism and romance go hand in hand.
teac
October 14, 2007 at 12:00 am
“The fear the decent and honest men need to have of Amanda…”
All of the decent and honest men who comment and read here do not fear Amanda.
One might posit that if a man fears Amanda for how she might say what she says, then one is not a decent and honest man.
As for her debate etiquette, it’s her blog. Don’t like her how she runs it? Then don’t let the door hit ya in the ass on your way out.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I am decent and honest in part because I have left my name not just a moniker to hide behind. Thanks for acknowledging that her debate etiquette is in question.
Furthermore, I have the courage to do the right thing and that is to speak out on a site where it is not popular to do so… doing the popular thing is not always right and doing the right ting is not always popular. I will always choose to do the right thing.
It seems to me that your definition of decent and honest is in direct proportion to whether or not the “men” agree with you or not. What a shame and a waste to not have an open mind.
My definition of decent and honest is not in direct proportion to anything you can possibly even imagine.
Further, I do not agree with the assertion that Amanda’s etiquette is in fact in question. I merely stated that if you don’t like it, get out. You’re the one who thinks it’s in question, not me. But whatever.
And seriously, who cares whether you, or any poster, uses a real name or a moniker? Doing so, or not, never goes to the validity of that person’s points. Insisting that is the threshold for making a valid argument merely indicates that you really are not arguing in good faith. [Side note - what the hell are you arguing? OOooo I used a bad word!] Amanda knows who I am, and as far as I’m concerned that’s all that matters vis a vis my identity here.
You want a different moderation and debate style? Try Alas, a Blog. I guarantee you, though, whether you use your name there or not will have no bearing on your being castigated for arguing in bad faith and not supporting your assertions with reason, quotes, and links. Try it.
So anyway, like I said, don’t let the door hit you in the ass.
Amanda, I thought you were at least equal to, if not better, than men! Why are you sponging off your boyfriend to write a book no one will ready? Why aren’t you working and paying your bills? I thought you were “I am womyn, hear me roar!” I thought you were self sufficient. Why do you need a man to take care of you? Whats the problem? You can’t be responsible, liable, accountable for your choices and decisions? You are such a liar and a user. You are delusional. You are worthless.
Benjamin, I thought you were lower than whaleshit, if not worse! Why are you sponging off your mother to write comments no one will read on a popular feminist blog? Why aren’t you working and paying your bills? I thought you were “I am Benjamin, I have a penis, I’m a virgin, hear me roar!” (To be fair, I never really thought you were self sufficient.) Why do you need your mother to take care of you? What’s the problem? You can’t be responsible, liable, accountable for your choices and decisions? You are such a liar and a user. You are delusional. You are worthless.
Benny’s rantings needed a couple of corrections…
Somewhere the underside of a bridge is very cold and lonely. Benny - fulfill your destiny…
“You are such a liar and a user. You are delusional. You are worthless.”
Finally this lovely comment of yours makes (some) sense:
“Sick is staring at
Amanda’s (and her ilk’s)portly, hairy ass, choking back vomit while trying to imagine a better place to be before sticking an appendage into the landfillshe calls avaginasphincter.”Benny, you’re really talking to yourself about what you see in the mirror, aren’t you? Your self-hatred is so huge, you’re starting to make Norman Bates look normal.
None of this is about Amanda Marcotte - it’s all about the “life” you HAVE versus the life you think YOU DESERVE. It’s about the reality of being a loser in life’s lottery versus the winner you think you should have been. It’s about realizing that your peak came and went when you were 11, and it’s all been downhill ever since, and will be until the bitter end.
People who talk to themselves, about themselves, should be locked up for our protection, as well as yours…
MikeEss
October 14, 2007 at 12:01 am
“As I said before and will say it again it is truly difficult to have a civil debate when people are attacked and not the issue or the subject matter as you have aptly demonstrated.”
Bernie, when you phrase a question as “Do you hate men?”, instead of saying something like “Amanda, have you had problems with men in the past?” (which is still offensive, but not as blatantly nasty), what do you expect?
You and “Norm”, and “Benjamin” come onto Amanda’s blog, created and paid for by Amanda Marcotte, without knowing her, her opinions, her point of view, or any of us regular commentors, etc., make asses of yourselves and are then shocked, SHOCKED!!! when people treat you like the plague.
“Thank you for proving my point.”
Whatever…
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I am not shocked. Another fine example of how others here try to insinuate what another here has said. True I do not know Amanda Marcotte probably any better than you do, but I certainly know her opinions and point of view because she has conspicuously posted them here, it does not take a genius to divine from her blogs. So in that respect you are sadly mistaken. I am different from Amanda, Ben and you in the fact that I maintain a level of decorum and etiquette that is fit for general audience consumption. Me offensive and nasty? Look at the language you use to address a person of a differing opinion. This clearly demonstrates a person with a weak argument and one who cannot develop a more appropriate counterpoint. My question again was legitimate, not offensive and necessary to establish a way of getting to know her and better understand where her thoughts. The only stupid question is one not asked.
teac
October 16, 2007 at 1:58 am
My definition of decent and honest is not in direct proportion to anything you can possibly even imagine.
Further, I do not agree with the assertion that Amanda’s etiquette is in fact in question. I merely stated that if you don’t like it, get out. You’re the one who thinks it’s in question, not me. But whatever.
And seriously, who cares whether you, or any poster, uses a real name or a moniker? Doing so, or not, never goes to the validity of that person’s points. Insisting that is the threshold for making a valid argument merely indicates that you really are not arguing in good faith. [Side note - what the hell are you arguing? OOooo I used a bad word!] Amanda knows who I am, and as far as I’m concerned that’s all that matters vis a vis my identity here.
You want a different moderation and debate style? Try Alas, a Blog. I guarantee you, though, whether you use your name there or not will have no bearing on your being castigated for arguing in bad faith and not supporting your assertions with reason, quotes, and links. Try it.
So anyway, like I said, don’t let the door hit you in the ass.
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Teac there is one way and only one way to look at decent and honest. Etiquette is also no negotiable it is what it is no more no less. I personally give more credit to those who do not use a moniker because by nature it adds credibility and states that you have the courage to stand by your position and take the kudos or the heat for those beliefs rather than safely hiding behind a moniker. I always argue in good faith and what I have just stated is testament. I have gone back before post 200 and have yet to find in one of your blogs with an outside citation as in a quote or link. You must practice what you preach if you wish others to follow.
I did leave a citation asking what the women on this blog think about “
Bernie Misiura
October 13, 2007 at 6:54 pm
I am curious what you women have to say about this…
“I’ll beat up Blake when I’m drunk…If he says one thing I don’t like then I’ll chin him.” singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse, speaking about her relationship with her new husband “
Folks here will not respond to quotes or links because they know that they have already lost, so when I stop using quotes or links because no one answers them then you respond and ask me to use them…go figure. That my dear is fact and an argument in good faith.
I have even defended at least one of your positions again not that it was popular but it was the right thing to do. That should tell you something about the credibility of my character.
Bernie, I’ve been a regular reader of Amanda’s for the last 3-4 years. You come in and ask questions as if you just heard of Amanda Marcotte last week.
Every blog has its own culture, and it’s just good “etiquette” to learn (well) the culture of a blog you want to comment on before commenting…
MikeEss, at least you have proven you are skilled at giving yourself, along with other men, fellatio. Keep up the good work.
Benny, I’ll say this for you. You’ve managed to make me greatly appreciate the depth and insights most other trolls bring to Pandagon.
You’ve got a gift, Benster, and it would be a shame to waste it on us poor, dumb Pandagon readers.
Please take your awesome talents and share them with the world! (as long as it’s somewhere else)…
MikeEss~Thanks for the hubric test earlier, as I naievly took my shell of a brain on a sojourn through trolldom. I now believe I have an understanding of the unpallatable but ever present political eugenics program. It seems as a cursory conclusion I can safeley assign aMANda the title ‘dysfunctional accolyte of political social engineering.’