Bias against government and violence against women
“ The Violence Against Women Act, a hand-me-down from the Clinton administration based on gender myths, anti-male bias and an infatuation with Big Government, expires this year.
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Anew appropriation request for over $360 million will soon hit Congress, but a chance for gender sanity is coming. The answer to renewing VAWA should be a thundering "NO!" ”
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Men and women are equally at risk of domestic violence. "VAWA institutionalized the political belief that women, as a class, must receive special protection from men and privileges from government. "Domestic violence was a specific focus. When male victims protested their exclusion, VAWA advocates dismissed them as statistically insignificant. Today, an impressive body of research shows that men constitute anywhere from 36 to 50 percent of domestic violence victims." |
While incidents of "battered men" are no laughing matter and they should be addressed, there's simply no comparison to the scale of men abusing women and the culture that condones it. Her "impressive body" of research is a link to a bibliography of surveys under a wide variety of controls ("initiating" violence? slaps? college dating?) with an aggregate conclusion of nil. According to the Department of Justice -- hardly a "liberal" group -- women are six times as likely to be the victim of violence by an intimate as men. In 92% of domestic violence incidents, crimes are committed by men against women. |
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Rape in prison should be included in social statistics. "The situation is similar with rape. Women are the victims only if you exclude prisons where male rape is prevalent." |
Prison rape is inexcusable, and the fault indeed lies with the government, which is supposed to control inmates' violent acts while they are incarcerated. Our prison system is in dire need of reform. But this is completely unrelated to social policy in the rest of the nation, which has a separete set of laws and protections. Nor does it support her argument. Imagine if the men and women inmates were held together -- who do you think would be the rape victims? |
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Domestic violence and sexual assault education programs are a waste of money and they are "ideologically biased." "In short, to change society’s attitudes on gender through education, research and training programs. The underlying ideological bias is illustrated by the fact that, after spending millions of dollars on domestic violence research, VAWA advocates couldn’t seem to find male victims. Or, if they did, the data did not induce them to rename the Violence Against Women Act. "VAWA’s attempt to educate society into adopting new attitudes on gender contributed to what some call 'the domestic violence industry.'" |
This is typical of the "head in the sand" approach to solving problems -- let's go back to the days when we didn't talk about it. At a time when people like Jerry Falwell and "men's Christian groups" like the Promise Keepers cult are actively promoting the suberviant-wife model of male behavior, and when popular culture is still rushing to blame the victim in rape cases and often celebrates abuse, it seems obvious to me we have an obligation to make sure the message is out there that it's not OK to beat your wife. Is that ideological bias? If you think it is, exactly what planet are you from? |
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Including protections for male victims is not enough; VAWA should simply be eliminated. "VAWA advocates trumpet the Act’s funding of domestic violence shelters, and it is difficult to argue against helping a battered woman. It is not clear, however, that the bureaucratic and "industrialized" approach to domestic violence is an effective form of help." "... VAWA is a fundamentally flawed piece of social engineering. The proper response is not "Me Too!" It is a flat "no," followed by an insistence on rethinking our entire approach to issues like domestic violence." |
Quoth the libertarian: government can do no right. Yet even this libertarian feminist admits "it is difficult to argue against helping a battered woman." It is only a pathological adherence to ideology that would put an extremist and childish political stance ("all government bad!") above any effort to solve a real problem. If Ms. McElroy thinks the Violence Against Women Act should be improved, she should speak up -- but a proposal to give up the whole positive effort is ethically derelict. |
"Libertarian feminist" Wendy McElroy says the Violence Against Women Act is "ideologically biased" and should be dropped -- even if it helps hundreds of law enforcement offices and tens of thousands of abused women. Who's ideologically biased now?
How can you possibly oppose a program that comes to the aid of battered women? Well, first you can deny the facts by claiming women aren't abused. You can try to smear the program by claiming it is "biased" and motivated by greed. And if that doesn't work, just cry "big government!"
For someone who advocates equal rights for men and women, Ms. McElroy certainly has strange bedfellows here -- sketchy neo-traditionalists like Phyllis Schlafly (calls VAWA a "mischievous" agency) and the "Promise Keepers." ("Don't you understand, mister, you are royalty and God has chosen you to be priest of your home?" they screech in their men-only stadium rallies.) In other words, the barefoot-and-pregnant crowd who would rather women keep to themselves about such matters.
Ms. McElroy does offer an interesting solution for domestic violence and sexual assault on her website: guns! "Many women (as well as men) have successfully used firearms to ward off attacks against themselves and others." Of course, in 2000, for every woman who used a gun to defend herself from an intimate attacker (husband, boyfriend, etc.), 443 were gunned down by them. But what's a few hundred tragic deaths when an ideological agenda is at stake?
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