Conference quark::mennotes-v1

    
    
    What I will do:
    
    	*I* will not "abuse" another person.
        If I witness "abuse" of a person by another person, I will
    	do everything *in my power* to stop that abuse.
    
    What I will not do:
    
    	I will not allow myself to be abused without defending myself.
        I will not support any blanket statements atainst another group.
    	I will not support any group that makes statements that translate
        into "I *demand* you help me fix *my* problems, but you and your 
        problems can go to &&&&&" (that is not equality, that is 
        Hypocrisy).
    	I will not support *any* group that uses *any* issue to conduct
    	a hate campaign against another group.
        	
        fred();

    .1 sounds great on the personal level (although I hope that "defending
    myself" against slurs doesn't mean I have to shoot the guy responsible)
    but seems to be against any kind of organizational work.  I'm pretty
    much the same way myself, except that I don't mind other people doing
    it.
    
    I mean, a hate campaign against Nazis sounds pretty good to me, and if
    I'm not a victim of violence (which I'm not right now, knock gently on
    wood) any organization working against violence is, by definition, not
    working on *my* problem.
    
    An entered-then-deleted reply had a good idea:  Make sure the police
    respond to calls for help whether they come from husbands, wives,
    children, boys they think are gay (as in the Dahmer case), or WHOEVER.
    It can take a lot to make people ask for help; all too often they're
    ignored and never try again.

    Ray

    .2 Thanks. I didn't know if I was in the right vain of things with what
    I was writing. Sometimes you can get carried away. 
    
    Making people resopnsible with their actions and prosocuting them to
    the fullest is the best to change things. As in if a woman takes the
    stand and is lieing her head off, have the judge, because she might be
    a CP, or even a Temp Custodial Parent. Have her do community work vs
    time in the big house for pergerory. I have seen lots of this crappie.
    
    And if some shoots, hits, kills, another no getting off cause of their
    gender, color, or sexual preff. You are who you are and you are adults
    out there. And we all must act like adults. Be responsible for our acts
    and not place blame upon others.
    
    Police responce has been for men, terrible at best. Esp when I read of
    a local man from N.H. who took his life because his wife was a martial
    arts expert and the police wouldn't do anything about the beatings he
    took. You hear of the violent acts agianst women. Not much against men.
    Guess its the sterio typing, they are a bunch of woooosies. Right? 

    
    well its a tough call to get involved in a domestic dispute
    even for cops.. 
    
    i'd certainly call the police if i were to witness such a scene,
    amd would wade in if it were obvious that serious injury were 
    happening or about to happen. 
    
    even luberjacks can be reasoned with given a long enough 2x4..
    

    Yeah, one of the BIG problems when it comes to stopping domestic
    violence against men is that men are supposed to be able to "take it",
    so it's not taken seriously. (Which I think is very different from the
    big problem with domestic violence against women or children, which is
    "they were asking for it" in the opinion of "the natural head of the
    family".)
    
    This may also be one reason why street violence is directed so much
    more against men than against women:  You're supposed to be able to
    take it, and if you can't, you deserve to be punished for not being
    enough of a man. 
    
    Ray

    RE: .5  Ditto

    Someone said an awareness campaign about violence was a load of BS
    in 684.   I couldn't disagree more.

    The problem with trying to stop domestic violence against men is
    that no one believes it can really happen.  Honestly, how many "average
    guys" are going to believe a *man* can get beat up by his wife?
    How many male victims would be willing to face another man and admit to 
    it?

    When we talk about violence against women, we say women should do
    more to get out of abusive situations.  That they should take control
    of their own lives.  I agree women have to be encouraged to do this.
    (though it isn't an answer to the whole problem)
    
    Conversely, men have to be made aware that they can't ALWAYS
    be in control of everything and that it doesn't make them less of
    a man if they have been the victim of assault.  They need to be
    supported and encouraged to come forward so the women who abuse them
    can be stopped.

    (FWIW, the two different approaches are an example of why I don't
     think a generic "People against violence against people" campaign
     would be very effective.)

    /Greg

    .6 Nice! I like that!

    For my part, I will encourage everyone I know to do their best to avoid
    ever being economically dependent on anyone else. Some of the worst abuse
    arises when the abuser knows that the abused cannot leave because of
    money.
    
    About twenty years ago, the federal government was experimenting with a
    Milton Friedman idea called the negative income tax. Friedman held that
    economics makes it extremely difficult to get off welfare, because the
    goverment subsidy is cut off the instant income rises above a certain
    figure. At that point, if the person makes one more dollar, total
    income falls by hundreds of dollars... so the person never exceeds that
    threshold and never gets off welfare. The NIT attempted to counter this
    by reducing the goverment subsidy _gradually_, so the worker-on-welfare
    would retain most of each extra dollar of income. The effect was a much
    more generous welfare program: NIT participants had a lot more money
    than previously.
    
    The NIT was killed by Nixon's Gang because it had an unexpected
    side-effect: the divorce rate sky-rocketed. Families broke up at
    amazing new rates BECAUSE THEY COULD AFFORD TO. They didn't have to put
    up with the crap anymore.
    
    Shelters are an important avenue for the abused. At least they and
    their children will be fed and housed, even if they don't have money.

    .8 is great, but it often seems to be EMOTIONAL dependency more than
    FINANCIAL dependency which is the problem. Men (or women) who become
    isolated after marriage are afraid of leaving the abusive relationship
    only to find themselves completely alone.
    
    Ray

I have a good friend.  Her name is Ruth Prather.  Ruth is a State Police
Officer for the State of California.  She heads a department that licences
Child Care facilities.  She also investigates hundreds of child abuse cases
and is considered an expert on the subject.

Ruth tells me that in the state of California the most unreported crime is
violence by single women against their SONS!  She explains that because
there are now so many divorced women who are head of households the stress
level for these women has gone off the meter.  Typically these women
(especially those recently divorced) have very strong anti-men feelings.
The young males in the household, some of course may strongly resemble
their fathers, are often the target of abuse.  Ruth feels it goes
unreported because schools are often told that the little boy hurt himself
playing "You KNOW how little boys are."  Schools and other agencies are
more accepting of these explanations for males than females.  They report
the female cases at a much higher frequency than the males.  They also
report the female single parent cases much less because many of the school
officials feel that since there is no adult male in the house there will
not be any abuse.

I am 41 years old.  I was taught NEVER to hit a female.  (The word 'NEVER'
almost cost me my life but that's another story).  Young males today are
still being taught NEVER to hit back.  If you are a young male and your
mother is a single parent with an attitude toward males you may be in deep
trouble.  I have heard single mothers make broad statements about males in
the presence of their young sons (All men are ***holes!)and then turn to
the young man to try and rephrase (Not YOU honey, you'll never be like your
father!)  This can be very confusing to a young boy.  In order to be loved
by his mother he must hate his father and ALL males and instead he should
be like his mother who could very well be consistenly abusive to him.  AND
he is taught never to hit back.  I think there are a lot of little Ted
Bundys out there.  FYI I got custody of my son recently and while I'm not
ready to go into details, let me just say that he is struggling with his
identity more than an 11 year old boy should have to struggle.

My points:

	1.  Women as well as men are victims of violence.

	2.  Women as well as men are perpetrators of violence.

3.  If some little boy grows up to be a mal-adjusted Sociopathic Misogynist
there is a good possibility that a woman had a hand in it.

	4.  If we lay ALL blame of violence on men we will never solve the
problem.  It is not politically correct now days to even hint that women
may be responsible in part for violence against them; we need to recognize
the female role in violence against them and BY them.  We have to be able
to talk about this and then educate.

patrick

           <<< Note 685.11 by AIMHI::RAUH "Home of The Cruel Spa" >>>
                           -< .10 Very well said!!  >-

    George,

I didn't mean to end all discussion of this note with my reply!!

patrick

    I think this topic died down so that everyone could watch the big fight
    down at BEELER_JE's. 
    
    It's great that we men are breaking silence to end women's violence,
    but, speaking as someone whose only personal experience with violence
    from women is a few overenthusiastic handshakes, I'm pretty sure that
    there are EVEN OTHER THINGS we might be able to do about the general
    problem...
    
    Anyway, I agree that when it comes to child abuse, both mothers and
    fathers indulge and, given the preponderence of mother-only families,
    one would expect a similar slant to the abuse figures (though spouse
    abuse is much more husband-to-wife and outside-the-family abuse is much
    more men-against-everybody). So what's your definition of "the
    problem"? 
    
    Ray

    Spouse abuse is only overwhelmingly male_on_female if one restricts
    'abuse' to physically abuse.
    As I said earlier, if one includes emotional abuse, my hunch is the
    scales are much closer to balance at least within families (which after
    all are the paradigms for most other interactions, I think)

>    As I said earlier, if one includes emotional abuse, my hunch is the
>    scales are much closer to balance at least within families (which after
    
    And my hunch is they aren't. For starters "phyical abusers" are almost
    always also "emotional abusers". It's a continuum.
    
    Of course, "emotional abuse" can be pretty hard to define; just about
    everybody seems to think they're mistreated (if only by being talked
    back to), so in that sense the scales are balanced. But in that sense
    there's nothing much that can be done about it.
    
    Ray

Ray,

The 'problem' as I see it is that we want to break abuse problems along
gender lines.  This is easy to do since statistically men are in violent
situations more often than  women.  What we don't see from the stats
is the role of women other than victims.  Women get what they want in other
ways than men traditionally.  Women I grew up with were told that all they
needed to do was find a good provider and their problems would be over.
Today many of those same women are single parents and are angry that they
were lied to.  They blame men because the man didn't hold up his side of
the myth.

I am a single parent.  I have one daughter from my first marriage and my
son from a second marriage.  Lisa is 16, David is 11.  From observing my 16
year old I see that very little has changed in the teen dating arena.  Boys
still pay for almost everything.  They also expect the same things I did
when I was 16.  When these same boys go out with their male friends they
usually split the bill evenly.  Each male is viewed as equal.  When they go
out with a girl they pay for everything.  The female is not viewed as an
equal.  I am teaching my daughter to pay her own way.

Our norms need to change.  The problem is we've held on to the old norms
and along with them the old myths.  Mix into this the feminist movement
which says that women should get an even shot at jobs etc. and you have a
problem.  In the 50's Ward and June Cleaver portrayed a sucessful marriage
where Ward brought home the bacon and June cooked it.  They had two kids.
This type of family now represents 7% of American families but we still
teach our little girls to be beautiful so that they can marry a successful
man.  Successful being $$$$.  In order for a man to be ultra-successful he
needs to be very married to his career thus alienated from his wife and
kids.  This is the ideal type of man that we teach our little girls to look
for.  We teach our young men to be this kind of man.

The feminist movement was inevitable.  It needed to happen but now many
adults don't know who they are.  When people get scared they go back to
what they were taught as children.  They play the tapes.  The tapes don't
match reality and they try to force them to.  When they still don't work
the situation becomes volatile.

Let's acknowledge the new realities.

patrick

    .18 is really well put.  Thanks for writing it.
    
    Ray

    re .15
    I'm sorry, when I replied to your .15 yesterday, I missed the last sentence.
    My definition of "the problem" is child abuse.
    
    

    And my definition of the second biggest problem -and perhaps the more
    dangerous one- is urban poverty and single-parent families coupled with
    child-abuse.