Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    re:
       Why can't women successfully fight back?
    
       Size 
       Socialization 
       Hormones (or should I say lack of male hormone)
    
    

    .2 > Was there more than usual?
    
    .2 > Male to female violence happens to be in the media limelight
    .2 > right now, the increased press coverage could explain why, lately,
    .2 > it seems more frequent.
    
    .2 > -mike z
    
    That's more depressing, not less. The idea that this level of violence
    is commonplace, but just not reported is no comfort at all...
    
    	-- Charles

   I tend to agree with Mike.

   Especially since it has been proven statistically that the people most 
likely to suffer violent attacks and murder are Black males.

   It has been that way for a very long time, but despite the fact that 
Blacks are shot and/or  killed almost every day (this includes, incidently, two 
members of my own family) assaults and murders of Blacks almost never make 
the news.

                                                        -Robert Brown III

    and after reading the headlines in .0, it is insufferable to me to see
    YET ANOTHER film, movie, book, ANYTHING where women are routinely
    raped, tortured, beaten, etc.  
    
    I want to open a science fiction publishing house with the iron-clad
    rule: "no sex if the woman doesn't thinks it's a FANTASTIC idea, and no
    mental, emotional, or physical abuse of women, even by other women,
    even if written by a woman." 
    
    I'm tired of that cockamamie whoo-ha...

	What can women do?!

	Women can fight back! My firm conviction is that women should receive
quality self defense training probably beginning in the early teen years.

	A good rape and self defense course should:

	. Be structured against the most common forms of assault against women
	. Be based on the reaction time model
	. Have as much content about avoidance/awareness as physical response
	. Be structured around simple, proven effective, physical responses
	. Avoid reliance on 'flashy martial arts techniques which take too much
	  practice to be really effective...(if ever)
	. Show how to use everyday objects as weapons (keys,newspapers..ect)

	Such courses have been (and still are being) taught.I myself taught 
these type of courses for years in the westboro area...and know from those
experiences that women can defend themselves as well as men do.

	I also remember that a great number of my male peers felt that the 
wisest course for a woman was to submit and avoid enraging an assailant. This
is, in my mind, a dangerous bias and assumes that submission somehow leads
to a more merciful assault. From my research and the stories that were related
to me during my teaching time; I would say such an assumption is pure bull-
pucky!

	My oldest daughter is fifteen years old. Shes's sensitive, very loving
towards her friends, family and animals. She has developed a very keen sense
of justice and whats right and wrong. She hates violence.

	She can spasm a mans quadracep with a muay-thai leg extension kick in
the blink of an eye. She's very well versed in groin grabbing when attacked from
the rear...she can eye gouge when choked from the front. She can dislocate a
knee cap if anyone tries to drag her where she doesn't want to go.

	Christina understands well that any self defense used by a woman is
best applied by extending the reaction time of an assailant...and shortening
her own. Extending by feigning enjoyment on non-dangerous (harassment) assaults,
or feigning unconsciousness or faintness on the more dangerous. Shortening her
own by using simple techniques applied in the opportune moment and practicing in
graduated phases of mock assaults coming as close to the reality as possible.

	Having these resources does nothing to diminish Christina's personal
beauty...shes a wonderful person living in an increasingly dangerous age.
Especially dangerous for women.

	Self defense, as proven by my daughter and others like her, isn't all
physical. It's also based on speed, mental composure and intelligence; all
qualities that women possess and can be trained to draw on in times of extreme
stress (such as rape assault). I have no trouble backing up this argument,
there is sufficient documentation of women successfully defending themselves
using such methods.


			Don

    I'd have to agree with .1 (I think) that socialization plays a BIGGGGGG
    part of why women can't/don't fight back.  I think in this day and
    age of modern weaponry and general enlightenment that size and the
    amount of testosterone don't quite play the role they might if say,
    we were fighting in the Plains of Ancient Man.  Most women, it seems,
    don't have the *mental* capacity to fight back--that's not because
    they are sheep, but because we've been taught that isn't a womanly
    thing to do.
    
    Unfortunately, it takes a hell of a lot of violence to make people
    think it's time to do something about it.  A sad statement.
    
    ---kim

	Can we get one thing clear?   Most of the events mentioned in
	.0 were done by men (people) know to the one attacked.  The
	thought of having to gouage out the eyes of someone I care about
	even though they are threatening me is replusive.

	Yes, young women should be taught to fight for themselves, but
	not just in the physical sense.  Women need to learn that it is
	okay to take care of themselves and to care for themselves.  That
	they are total human beings. period.

	All the self-defence in the world is not going to help if it is
	one's father attacking you or even worse if you are too young to
	understand what is an attack.

	Let's get real.  The problem is not with women it is with men.
	Why don't we have class to teach boys that girls are human beings
	the same as they are and that they should respect ALL life.

	_peggy
		(-)
		 |
			To treat ALL life with respect and to 
			value ALL beings is to be only human.

	I admit eye gouging and such are extreme responses. A rape assault
against a woman is extreme and often will require an extreme response on the
part of the physically smaller woman if she is to save herself.

	As to getting real about this issue....I wish that these assaults 
weren't so real both in their frequency and devastating effect. Womans
self defense has proven itself to be a REAL response over the years in
numerous instances. I wouldn't be too quick to write off womans self defense
as unreal in these situations.

	Some of the best courses taught to women are put on by women 
representing various groups. This is not a male domain.

	The issue that you raise of inter-family assault is very valid indeed.
Part of the avoidance strategies mentioned in .7 attempted to address this
troublesome issue. The physical responses taught were considered last ditch 
efforts to be used within the context of ones own value system; a variety of
responses to common assaults were provided including simple escapes...however
it was recognized that they were often less effective than the more extreme
measures. The responsibly for conveying this lay with the instructor...the
responsibility for using them lay with the student; that was always made clear.

	I think in reviewing my note I provided too little info and in reviewing
yours you judged too quickly. I did not mean to suggest that self-defense
training was the whole answer to this complex problem..only one component.
The avoidance strategies included the issue you raised that the assailant
was probably going to be a family member...and beyond that we layered the
role that alcohol usually played in these scenarios.

	I responded mainly to the idea that women are incapable of defending
themselves. It isn't so.

	I apologize for the gruesome descriptions; I probably over did the
examples of a womans capabilities in self-defense...while being a little real
as to the gruesomeness involved if she opts not to be the victim in these
desperate situations.


			Don

   I agree that when  considering the problem of male violene towards
women, that the primary focus should be on the male problem that
leads to such violence.

   I also agree that teaching people to respect members of both sexes,
from an early age, will HELP reduce the possibility of such violence. I ought
to know; it worked for me.

   However, the reality is that the problems that men have exist, today. Unless
our society changes fundamentally and suddenly (unlikely), they will 
continue to exist for some time.

   If women have no other recourse than to defend themselves by physical
means, is there something wrong with them doing so?

   To put it in another way: repulsive as it is, if the only way to prevent
someone you love from stabbing and mutilating you is to gouge his eyes out, 
wouldn't you do so?

                                                        -Robert Brown III

    A friend of my mothers (going on about 70) has some interesting
    advice for the abused women who call the hot-line she works at.
    The conversation goes something like this...
    "He beat me up real bad.  I don't know what to do." - the abused
    
    "WHat's he doing now?" - my friend
    
    "He's sleeping." - the abused woman
    
    "You got a large frying pan?" - my friend
    
    "Yes."  - the abused woman
    
    "Hit him as hard as you can over the head with it. I bet he doesn't
    hit you again... or sleep well in your house. In any case you won't
    have this problem again."
    
    This is a true story.  My friend iis an ex-abused wife who finally
    had enough of the whole situation.  And her solution makes sense!
    
    'cept the hotline won't let her do phones anymore 'cause she makes
    too many women retaliate against their abusers.
    
    Could someone please explain why we're not supposed to retaliate?
    
    -maureen
    

  Referencing 78.12:

   I am uncertain that it is a question of whether women are "supposed"
to retaliate.

   I think it is a question of whether they will or not.

An explanation:

   My mother went through a similar scenario to what you describe. My father,
who was alcoholic, would come home drunk regularly and under some pretext
or another would beat her up.

   My grandmother, who had only been struck by her husband once in their entire
time together ( I guess they had an argument and he lost control. When she
finished "convincing" him how unproductive such behavior was, it never 
happened again), suggested to my mother that by waiting until he slept, boiling
a pot of water, and then pouring the water on him would tend to help discourage 
attacks.

   My mother agreed that it was a good suggestion, but she refused to do it.

   Well, it so happens that I have a brother who is retarded, who my father 
disliked only slightly more than he disliked me (and my father sort of HATED
me!). One evening, he raised his hand to my brother, threatening to beat him
for some reason I forgot.

   My mother didn't wait until he was aleep. She had been cooking spagetti that
evening. In fact, she was just about to remove the hot water from it.

   I like spagetti. Especially when it is just cooked. I wasn't too happy to
see my father wearing it.

   Of course, he never did hit my brother again.

   But he never did stop beating my mother until the day he finally deserted 
us.

                                                     -Robert Brown III

     
    re:.9
    i agree with ms. leedberg
    

    
    	RE: .17  Mike Z.
    
    	Joe's statement did not imply "all men on the planet" to me,
    	nor did Peggy's statement imply "unique to men (and not one
    	woman on the planet") either.
    
    	If either of them had meant to say "all" or "none," I'm sure
    	they would have used those specific words.
    

    
    	RE: .19  Mike Z.
    
    	This is a serious misconception on your part, but we can discuss 
    	it some other time.
    

	I picked up an interesting booklet from the health office here in
AK01 this morning. It was entitled "What Every Woman Should Know About Self
Protection".

	The first half or so of it was packed with avoidance tip's concerning
the various environments and situations women would find themselves in. The
latter pages deal very generally with physical responses to assault. In one
graphic a woman is shown being strangled from the front...Responses highlighted
are Scream, Scratch, Bite, and Kick toward targets such as eyes, shins and
whatever comes in range of the mouth. Included was a strong reccomendation
to take a self defense course.

	If interested I'm sure its available in all Digital Health Offices
or wherever EAP booklets are available.

			Don

    Re .5, I think it is terrible that black males, as a group, are
    more likely to suffer violent attacks and murder than any other
    group in the U.S., because this indicates that severe racial problems
    and racism still exist in this country.   However, this does not
    make domestic violence and random rape and violence committed against
    women seem any more palatable to me.
    
    Are the majority of black males who are violently attacked and killed,
    killed by their wives and girlfriends, or even by women?  I don't
    think so.  I think most of them are killed by other men.  (whether
    the majority are killed by white men or black men, I don't know)
    
    Re .13, you mention that your grandmother was *only* hit once by
    her husband.  In my opinion once is enough.  I don't think any man
    deserves a second chance (at the relationship) after hitting his
    wife.  One of the problems
    with solving domestic violence is that women are willing to put
    up with so much abuse before they finally give up on the man.
    (Although, of course I think it's good that he never hit her again
    since she did stay with him.)  
    
    Re  retaliation:  If I were going to retaliate I'd want to make
    sure I killed him, so he wouldn't come back and kill me later. 
    
    Lorna
    

    Mike_Z's comment on what might happen next if a person retaliated
    made me think of something:
    
    
    Why in the world would a person retaliate and then go to sleep
    afterwards??  Why even hang around at all????  If a situation is
    that extreme to cause one to retaliate--what in God's name makes
    them want to stay in that situation???  (I know, I know, lots of
    psychology involved there, but logically, it makes no sense at all).
    
    ---kim

    Re .23, even she leaves and goes somewhere else, he can come after
    her and find her.  That's what usually seems to have happened in
    the news stories anyway.  You know, man tracks down estranged wife
    at sister's house and stabs her to death, etc.
    
    Lorna
    

    An appropriate bumper sticker that is small, green background with
    white lettering states:

    		To end
    		male
    		violence
    		men
    		must 
    		take the
    		initiative
    		----------


    I happen to think that this sums up things.  Responsibility needs to
    be placed in the proper area.  Women have been carrying that task
    for something that rightly belongs to men.  The responsibility that
    we, as women, have is not to accept what we don't want to receive
    WITHOUT FEELING GUILTY!

    justme....jacqui

    

    Re:  Being hit ONLY once...
    
    Once is not enough. It is too much!  It should not happen at all.
    
    
    Re: Retaliation...
    
    Just exactly what is a woman SUPPOSED to do when her man is beating
    on her?  Legal actions obviously don't help.  Sitting there and
    putting up with it just lets the man know it's ok to continue. Outside
    of a little attitude adjustment what other alternative are there.
    
    Retaliation does not affect whether or not a man will track down
    the object of his abuse.  If anything it just might make him think
    twice about it.
    
    Here's a little true story.,,
    
    From as early as I can remember my father beat my mother - badly
    and about every other day. I remember her never fighting back for
    fear of making him madder.  And I remember her waiting for him with
    a butcher knife some nights because she feared for her life.  She
    never used it - and he knew she wouldn't. Sometimes we'd leave and
    he'd find us, and that made things much worse.
    
    Dear old Dad beat her because he could. It made him feel like a
    big powerful person.  Of course he was always sorry the next day
    -and would never do it again if she'd only behave.  It makes me
    sick to remember those words.  
    
    One day I got old enough to deserve the same treatment as mom. Dad
    laid exactly one indecent hand on me, and I broke his jaw with a
    pipe.  You know what happened next?  Absolutely nothing.  I was
    determined that I would not be treated like my mother, and one of
    would die in the process if he persued abusing me.  Daddy saw the
    error of his ways and NEVER laid a hand on me again.
    
    You want to know what mom said about this?  She said I shouldn't
    have hit him because he didn't mean to be abusive. 
    
    Can you say "horse manure"?  I knew you could.
    
    -maureen
    
    

In reference to 78.22, Lorna
And 78.26, Maureen:

   Since both 78.5 and 78.13 are my entries, I feel the need to make
certain clarifications:

Point 1:

   78.5 was intended as a point of information, and was in no way
intended to lessen the importance of dealing with violence against women.

   The fact is that part of the reason for the high statistics about violence
against Black males has to do with Black- on- Black crime as well as gang 
warfare. And it so happens that black women are almost as likely to shoot
members of opposing gangs as black men are. This is partly because some gangs
have female members who are expected to "pull their own weight". And when I 
was young, there were a number of viscious gangs in my Old Neighborhood which
were composed entirely of females.

   
   The point I was trying to make in 78.5 was that I agreed with Mike Z's
point (stated in 78.2) that the reason why we happen to be hearing more about 
violence against women because it happens to be in the media limelight. My
only reason for mentioning Blacks was to show an even worse problem, that 
has been around for a long time, that you DON'T hear too much about because
it is NOT in the media limelight right now.

   I reiterate: I was not attempting to make male- on female violence 
"palatable". I was using part of my own people's experience (and my own, since
as I mentioned in 78.5, two members of my family were victims), to point
out how unpalatable both problems  are (for Blacks and women), since the only
time people pay attention to them is when they are in the "media limelight".

Point 2:

   Your opinion, my  opinion, and my Grandmother's opinion are in accord. For
my Grandmother, once *was* more than enough. I mentioned the incident when she
was hit because I wanted to convey some idea of the kind of person my
Grandmother was; which was somebody who would NOT TOLERATE a man who used
physical violence against her for any reason. This was intended to give some
background and insight into her character.

   I did not go into detail as to how she "convinced" my Grandfather of the
"improfitability" of using violence against her. I won't do so here unless 
you wish to know. But you can be rest assured that before she was through
with him there was no way that he would ever raise his hand to her again.

   In other words, I was not saying that it was somehow "good" that she was
"only" hit once. I was, to be honest, bragging about how tough my Grandmother 
is.


   I hope this clarifies my earlier entries.

                                                   -Robert Brown III

	Some delusions can be dangerous. Human violence isn't purely a male
domain. Women as well as men given the conditioning, cultural sanctioning
and opportunity may be as likely as males to indulge.

	My own personal experience growing up in cities like San Francisco
and Los Angles taught me that females can be pretty violent. I once took a
pretty good beating from one young lady after being cornered by a group of
her cohorts (mostly male) in San Francisco. My only transgression was being
in the wrong area...it was an assault for the fun of it. Just for reference
we were young children at the time (10 - 12 years old).

	I had a close, intimate relationship with a woman who often would
haul off and smack me one when angered. She grew up in a large family and
felt this experience added to her 'physical tendencies. When we were 'going
together I often saw her and her sister beating the heck out of each other
over borrowed clothes and such (they were both in their late teens).This lady
would stand toe to toe with her brothers if they were so foolish as to raise
her ire.

	I'm reacting to the tone of this being a problem owned by males alone.
I believe that given the same 'incentives for violence as males women will
choose the same thorny paths. I read some of the previous notes where women
once gaining support and sanction for using frying pans and boiling water on 
violent mates had no problem taking those courses of action. This is not to say 
I criticize them...they were in very extreme circumstances and I couldn't 
justify being too judgmental.

	Female violence is on the rise as more and more cultural restraints
are erased which discourage such behavior. Male violence, which has always had
some incentives, seems to be on the rise also.  Are we just in general becoming
more violent?

	If its true that somehow violence overall is increasing it wouldn't
help to delude ourselves in thinking that this is just a 'male' rather than
a human/cultural problem. That delusion would too narrowly focus the problem 
definition and probably sabatoge any meaningful solution.

			Don

Interesting subject...

I just read a good book on this subject called "Intimate Violence"
available at New Words.

Anyways, the authors have done a number of scientific studies and do
have some hard data (at least in the sociological sense).  As I
recall, they found that retaliation, in general, was not an effective
strategy for stopping the violence.  The found passive resistance to
be most affective in the immediate sense and I think they found that
setting firm limits was effective in the longer term.  That means,
leaving if the violence continues (realizing that this is may be
difficult since there are large number of women economically dependant
on men).  They also found that mandatory arrest policies in the case
of domestic violence had a positive effect as well as shelters.

Their more basic thesis is that:

People hit because they can...

   They can because many times police do nothing and courts dismiss
   the cases.

   They can because our soceity says that violence is an acceptable
   means to solve problems.

   They can because their are a lot of weapons around.


It was a good book I thought.  I don't have any first hand knowledge
to speak of so I learned a lot...

john

    re .29 >people hit...because there are a lot more weapons around
    
    Seems to me that weapons would discourage hitting unless 
    the assailant is reasonably sure his victims are *unarmed*.
    Most 'hitters', especially the ones who hit the weaker, are
    fundamentally cowards who won't hit unless they feel sure
    of winning. 
    
    I prefer Heinlein's theory that "an armed society is a _polite_
    society".

    
    re:.25
    exactly!
    

    I appreciate Robert Brown's clarification in 78.27.  Actually I *would*
    like to know what his grandmother did to put a permanent stop to her
    husband's abuse.
    
    [Please excuse probable rathole to main topic.]
    
    Several weeks ago I saw a program, probably on 60 minutes, about a
    black psychiatrist who has started an organization, in Chicago, called
    "Stop Black on Black Violence."  He was a very strong, clear person--
    probably a Muslim, although this was not mentioned.  He was shown
    testifying before Congress, and apologizing for the emotion of his
    testimony.  There, he said something about how mental breakdowns, in
    women, often followed a second rape or attack, following a childhood
    rape or attack.  And he had data about how many of his patients--
    something like 80%--had been abused.
    
    Briana Walker
    who now "owns" this account
    

    Just my humble opinion, of course, but I think there's a difference
    between black violence and the violence directed at women by men.
    Spouse abuse is a very personal crime.  You know your attacker very
    well, you live with him, and you know exactly what's going to happen
    in advance.  Can you imagine knowing that the person you LOVE is
    going to come home and kick the living daylights out of you? 
    
    And living it is a whole lot different that reading about it. I
    suspect the studies that promote passivity have important flaws.
    There's a lot of women who don't make it to the end of the study.
    They either don't survive, or are not allowed to participate once
    their man finds out, or they are too ashamed to admit  putting up with
    this crap for so long so they say things are better.
 
    
    In my copious free time, I work as an EMT with various rescue units
    and women's shelters. I've run into an awful lot of men who think it's 
    acceptable to beat their wives/girlfriends.  They just plain don't
    know it's not ok.  Somehow these women are less than equal human
    beings. And we're talking about basically nice guys who wouldn't
    kick their dogs- but the wife's another story. 
    
    Even in my own relationships (with reasonably well educated professional
    men), this behaviour is more common than I ever figured it was.
    In my relationships with women, the issue has never come up.  Funny
    how that works.
    
    To stop male violence, somehow we have got to find a way to convince
    men that it is not kosher to beat on women.  I do not accept the
    theory that women should just passively take the beatings until
    the man suddenly has an out-of-body experience (or whatever) and
    comes to his senses.
    
-maureen
    

    re .34
    
    Mike Z... we finally agree on something.  Mark this day on your
    calendar!  And you're right regarding being prepared for an
    escalation of the violence.
    
    'Course, my karate teacher used to say that you shouldn't hit someone
    unless you were prepared to finish the battle - completely.  I've
    always followed that advice. And I actually live a very peaceful
    life because of it.
    
    -maureen
    

    
    
    I think we may be talking about short term and long term things
    at the same time.  I think in the long run, men who meet no resistance
    and suffer no consequences for their violent behavior will most
    certainly continue it.  In the short term, I think that if a woman is
    being hit RIGHT NOW, unless she is equipped emotionally and physically
    to defend herself in a fight to the death if necessary, not-resisting
    may save her life.  I've certainly read accounts and heard from women
    that when they fought back (but usually the fighting back was
    ineffective), the beating they got that time was worse.  
    
    I understand that many (if not most) of the woman who are serving time
    in jail for murder are there because they killed an abusive
    male partner.  They were unable to convince a jury that they killed
    in self-defense, because they didn't do it while the beating was
    happening, but later while he was sleeping, or after he came home
    drunk.  I think that if a woman plots to kill her abusive husband,
    that's still self-defense, but I guess that can be hard to prove.
    
    Justine

Referencing 78.33, Maureen:

   I never said, and never had any intention to imply, that there
was any similarity between Black violence and violence against women.

   What I was attempting to say in my previous entry was that the two 
shared one thing in common: that no one pays attention to them unless
they are in the "media spotlight". In my entry before that I was trying
to say the same thing, and to convey that I did not *like* it.

   I sincerely hope that this clears up all misunderstandings. It
appears that my attempt to share in this Topic has caused misinterpretations
which may lead to a rathole.

                                                   -Robert Brown III

    Relax, Robert.  I understand what you're trying to say.  And I haven't
    bitten anybody for not agreeing with me... Yet :>)
    
    This country is a land controlled by media.  Nobody cares one whit
    for anything that hasn't been on the evening news lately.  I believe
    that media has robbed the majority of our populace of the ability
    to think for themselves.  Goddess  help up if NBC/ABC/CBS and Ted
    Turner decide to force feed us a morality in the style of, say,
    Charles Manson.  We'd all become mass murders before we even realized
    it.
    
    -maureen
    

    
    Eric, that sounds like a new topic to me.
    
    CQ

          re: 78.28 (Don MacMillan)
          
          >   -< Do males have a monopoly on violence? >-
          >    Some delusions can be dangerous.
          
          Yea, right.  This is just a delusion.  Or one of "some"
          delusions.
          
          As the national statistics below clearly indicate, we have been
          imagining this all along.
          
          In the "Statistics that shape our [women's] delusions" dept:
          
          Given ANY year's FBI Uniform Crime Reports and victimisation
          studies, and we see the delusive picture where men are only
          committing (for example) 7 times as many murders as women, almost
          all of the rapes, 14 times the number of robberies, and 6.6 times
          the number of assaults as women do.
          ( _Crime in the United States_   (Uniform Crime Reports;)
          ( Washington, D.C.:U.S. Government Printing Office, 19xx)
          
          Ellen Goodman was deluded also.  In her January 7, 1990, Boston
          Globe column   "For Women, A New Danger"  she wrote:
          
               "...violent assaults against women have increased 20% over
               the last decade, and 91% of that violence was carried out by
               their [husband, boyfriend, live-in, etc.]"
          
               "...over the course of the last decade, the violence against
                women had risen 20%.
          
                Nevertheless, only 9% of the known murderers of these women
                were strangers."
          
               "...Add wives, ex-wives, girlfriends and common-law wives
                together and nearly a third of the female victims were
                known to be killed by the men in  their lives."
          
          
               In yet another related study, the numbers look worse :
          
          ( _Patterns in Criminal Homicide_ by Marvin E. Wolfgang )
          ( (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press       )
          
               "41% of all women who were homicide victims were wives
          killed by their husbands...  Another 21% of women homicide
          victims were killed by men with whom they had a nonmarital sexual
          relationship."
          
                A review of the study states:
          
               "His work is the most thorough study available of homicide
                in the Unites States and one of the few that carefully and
                consistently analyze data by sex and relationship of perp-
                etrators and victims.  A number of subsequent studies of
                individual cities have replicated parts of Wolfgang's work
                and have generally supported his results."
          
          The book, "Guns, Murders, and the Constitution - A Realistic
          Assessment of Gun Control" (written by attorney and criminologist
          Don B. Kates) *also* quotes that 91% of all criminal violence
          between spouses are perpetrated by the MAN.
          
          
          Some delusion.
          
          

          
          re: 78.40 (--edp)
          
           -< Female violence:  the rape of our liberty >-
          
          Good try, --edp.
          
          Your title indicates a general statement of fact that is not
          substantiated by your note containing a description of one female
          to male assault.
          
          Hope it didn't take too much of your time to track down that
          description.  I bet you could find other female to male crimes to
          report - after all, since 91% of all criminal violence between
          spouses is perpetrated by the MAN, that means a full 9% of the
          perps are _women_.  Why don't you research individual cases that
          make up that 9% and report on each of them here.  Yea, maybe that
          would better validate your title.
          
          But hey, furthering the derailment about female violence would
          definitely shift the focus away from male violence, the
          prevalence of male violence, and the ugly reality of male
          violence.  Of course, you're not stupid.  Putting women on the
          defensive in a topic like this is a great strategy!
          

    While it's clear to me that no single group of people has a lock
    on violent behavior - and I think that no one here is "deluded"
    that only men can be violent - I nonetheless give a strong second
    to Christine's suggestion (.41) that "Female violence" would be
    better discussed in a separate topic.
    
    Steve

    
    PLEASE start a new note on female to male violence, if you wish to
    discuss it, discuss it in a separate topic.
    
    thank you
    
    -Jody
    

	
	As you request I won't raise the issue that perhaps a better perspective
or problem definition would be that violence is perhaps a human/social problem
rather than a 'male problem'. Beyond my reply here...I'll not mention it again.
This I'm sure will make a number of people in this discussion feel more 
comfortable.

	I didn't mean to diminish the fact that most violence currently is
male driven; rather I had hoped to broaden the discussion to indicate that
some disturbing trends (female violence) reported by numerous agencies including
the FBI might suggest that violence has some social underpinnings rather than
sexual ones. I felt that perhaps identifying these social influences which now
may be catalyzing women as well as men to violence might be of some use.

	So many men (like myself) are gentle natured and non-violent and I guess
feel some resentment over being stero-typed by various 'ism's which seem to
require one dimensional stero-types to blame all their problems on. I guess
this is why I personally identify myself as a humanist rather than any other
label; it does seem the one ism which isn't trapped by this form of stereotyping.
When, as a movement, you require this you run the risk of becoming just another
bigotry. That benefits no one.

	I am very concerned with women who are victims of male violence and
for many years took an active role in helping women deal with and prevent
the problem.

	In the eagerness to keep this discussion focused, at least in the
blame mode, on males...please don't overlook the millions of males who are
not violent toward women and who even try to become part of the solution.

	I'm not going to start another note, as suggested, on females commiting
violence against men. It wasn't my intention to refocus..just broaden.

				Don

    Why "broaden" this topic?  Why does there always seem to be someone 
    who suggests that there is or must be something else to it "rather than 
    [it be] a male problem"?  Why discuss instead the "social underpinnings" 
    that make violence more acceptable for everyone in a topic created to 
    discuss male violence specifically?
    
    It is my firm belief that there will always be an excuse, always be a
    reason why a given situation should not be looked at as a "male
    problem".  Anyone else noticed it?  In newspapers, newscasts, 'in vivo'
    and in notes, discrimination is always discussed in terms of the dis-
    criminatee, not the discriminator, and the words and advice and "help" 
    are always directed at the victim not the perpetrator.  Violence is 
    always discussed in terms of the victim or the "broader social picture" 
    and the words and advice and "help" are always aimed at the victim, never
    the perpetrator.  
    
    So who is doing all this discriminating?  Who is responsible for all this 
    violence?  Why isn't the problem ever approached from that perspective?
    Because it lands smack in the middle of (sanctified) white maledom?  I 
    think so.  Discrimination is seen as a "minority's problem".  Domestic
    violence is seen as a "woman's problem".  While I agree that in the
    short term, who sees the pain is the one who is motivated to do
    something about it and should, in the long term, the problem needs to
    be addressed not in terms of "what to do when it happens" as is our
    culture's generally accepted approach, but "how to prevent it in the
    first place".  Our culture seems to prefere to treat the disease rather
    than prevent it because to prevent it means first identifying the 
    perpetrators as a group and then examining the common themes and psyches 
    that exist - in short, treating it as a MALE problem, first and foremost. 
    
    If it is true that 97% of violent incidents are committed by males, it
    is only prudent to look at what might be in "maleness", (either
    inherent or socialized), that may contribute to this.  Perpetrators of
    violence should be examined as a group with common "underpinnings" of 
    their own.  So she wore a tank top and a short skirt.  But what in HIM
    made him believe that her clothing choice gave him certain rights?  Our
    culture still blindly spends time examining the 'flaws' within the
    victim.  Is this due to an underlying cultural belief that men are just 
    naturally rabid, uncontrollable beasts and women should always be on the 
    lookout for danger such that it is her fault if danger occurs?  I'm
    pretty sure most men in this file wouldn't want women believing this of
    men but how do you feel about your culture believing it?  Failure to
    examine violent men in favor of examining the victims belies just this
    attitude about men.  How, given that cultural atmosphere, can men expect
    that women should believe something different than what our legal system
    seems to believe about men?  I would think that examining violent men as 
    a group would be something non-violent men would welcome in order to 
    highlight the difference between the two.  When non-violent men get antsy
    at this idea, tho, I can't help but wonder why.
    
    John Doe and Jim Doe could have exactly the same negative attitudes 
    toward women but one has a short temper and one does not.  When
    violence occurs, our culture examines the short temper rather than
    the negative attitudes toward women.  But BOTH had to have been there
    for the violence to occur against a woman so BOTH should be examined.  
    Mark Lepine, (of the Montreal massacre), is always discussed in terms of 
    how DIFFERENT he is from other males, (the short temper aspect), but 
    nothing is ever examined about the OTHER part of it, (his attitude toward
    women), which he just might have in common with many men who would NOT 
    gun down 14 women.    
    
    When I worked in insurance, a diabetic woman submitted an accident claim 
    because she had steped on a rusty nail and gangrene resulted.  The in-
    surance company balked saying that if she wasn't a diabetic in the
    first place, gangrene would not have resulted.  Her lawyer said that if 
    she hadn't stepped on the nail, (hadn't had the accident), gangrene would
    not have resulted either.  The point is that there are TWO things to 
    examine because TWO things are at work - the underlying condition, (the 
    diabetes in the policyholder above, cultural misogyny in men), as well 
    as the catalyst, (the rusty nail, the "last straw").  As a culture we 
    always focus on the catalyst - what the woman did/didn't do/wore/didn't 
    wear - at the time of the incident.  The underlying condition, WHICH ALSO 
    MUST BE PRESENT, is always ignored.  I'd like to see this string examine 
    the underlying conditions that predispose men with short tempers into
    violence toward women. 
    
    It is ridiculous in this string, (and, I think in most 
    attempts to study this problem), to focus on the victims, and it's 
    equally ridiculous to focus on the men who are not violent.  If we
    really thought all men were violent, (as -1 has already warned 
    us against), I think most women would have checked out of this scene 
    long ago.  It is obvious that enough men are not violent, and that 
    enough women realize this, such that women continue to have hope and 
    continue to search among men looking for love.  I think it is men who 
    need to 'not forget' about non-violent men as they read this string and 
    become a little uncomfortable as some already have.  Most of the 
    women who discuss male violence here, (myself included), have men or 
    date men so we already know about the possibilities.
    
    I hope this string can survive all the expected deflections and noise 
    and continue bravely on to focus on and examine the group responsible 
    for the lion's share of the violence in this culture - men.        

    
    There is a simple reason why this type of violence occurs.
    
    Becuase it is allowed!!!
    How many of these folks who committed the crimes in the base note
    are being punished for it now?  anyone have any stats?
    
    Mi

re .0 -

          
>          WHY has there been so much male violence against women this week?
>          Are the stars in a strange alignment that somehow is exacerbating
>          men's aberrant behaviors or what?
          
>          How come almost EVERY  article involving a woman was about her
>          murder, stabbing, rape, or torching.   What would a Martian think
>          of women after looking at this week's local coverage?
          

    Re: .48
                                     
    >                             I would think that examining violent men as 
    > a group would be something non-violent men would welcome in order to 
    > highlight the difference between the two.  When non-violent men get antsy
    > at this idea, tho, I can't help but wonder why.
    
    Sandy, I'm sure you're aware that the ways you choose to frame some 
    of your (rhetorical) questions/statements are designed to arouse people's 
    feelings.

    You may prefer to deflect this comment by claiming I'm derailing the
    topic at hand. That's your prerogative. 

    And I'm not saying you should be "nice". 
    
    That you prefer to be rather caustic in many of your notes (a bitch 
    as you've proudly described yourself) has become your hallmark. 
    
    I accept it.

    Yet, if I were to phrase the paragraph above, putting a negative
    connotation on a subgroup of women to read something like:

                                 "I would think that examining whores as 
      a group would be something non-streetwalking women would welcome in 
      order to highlight the difference between the two.  When women who
      do not sell their bodies for sex get antsy at this idea, though, I 
      can't help but wonder why",
                                  
                                 I believe you and other members of
     the major group - all the female non-prostitutes who read
     this file - would somehow feel they were being zinged. I wonder why?

       Alan

    I'd be very interested in a study examining whores as a group, Alan.
    I wouldn't get antsy in the least.  I really don't see that re-write of
    my paragraph as caustic at all.  I wouldn't take exception to any study
    of hookers.  In fact, I'd look forward to reading it.  I'm very
    interested to know how they differ from me - how they could DO that!
    Why should I feel "zinged"?  I'm serious - hookers have nothing to do
    with me so what "zing" should I feel from a man suggesting we study
    them?  Good heavens.  Now you tell me what "zing" you felt from my
    original paragraph.  Do violent men *have* something to do with you?
    I'm not being antagonistic but I answered your question sincerely
    saying I wouldn't feel zinged because it has nothing to do with me.  If
    you feel zinged, then why??
    
> Why is that when someone suggests that something might have a cause other 
> than Y chromosomes, there is a backlash? 

I don't know why it seems to you the above generally happens.  In this 
particular case, however, it seems that the people with the Y chromosomes
are far and away the more violent.  So it just seemed obvious to me that
perhaps there is something about these people, (nature or nurture), that 
makes them more prone to violence than those without the Y.  If you are 
arguing the nature versus nurture theory, saying it isn't the Y chromosome, 
you are too far ahead in the discussion here.  We haven't gotten to the 
'why' yet.  My note is suggesting that we look at the group responsible for 
most of the violence in this culture and see what similarities there are.  
I would assume outright that it isn't merely the presence of a Y chromosome 
since not all owners of such chromosomes are violent.  But nearly all violent
people do have that chromosome!

> Why, when confronted with evidence that something other than Y chromosomes 
> could explain the problem, is there a tendency to discount the evidence? 

First off, what evidence are you talking about?  What evidence is being 
discounted?

But more important, you seem to be looking for ONE reason where I'm saying
there are two - an underlying attitude and a precipitating event.  Without
getting emotional and assuming this is just another good excuse for the
feminists to bash men, just stop and think logically for a minute.

>Is the root question a matter of finding a way to assign blame to men or 
>finding a solution to the problem?

"Blame" has already been assigned.  91%, (and I said 97% in my last reply
which was a typo), of the violent acts are committed by men.  I'm not 
bothering to reinvent the wheel here.  To find a solution, there are 
always different ways to approach the problem.  I'm suggesting that an obvious
approach seems to continually be overlooked and maybe it shouldn't be.

> Yet perhaps the route to finding a way to address the problems of male 
> violence is by finding out what makes women violent and comparing that
> to what makes men violent. 

Do you really think that this is a logical approach??  We're not talking
about an academic exercise we're undertaking for enjoyment, we're talking
about a big problem we'd like to define, disect and solve asap.  Finding
out what makes women violent is nice and maybe you can use the data to
do some comparative studies or to find ways to end female violence but
while you're dickin' around with this, 91% of the problem is still going
on!

My question again is what's the problem with studying men in general to get 
a little understanding of the underlying condition(s) that predisposes
some of them toward violent acts against women?  You've simply offered another
approach but we all know the other approaches.  They've all been used
except the one I'm advocating.  And I think the resistance to this approach
that we are seeing right here in notes mirrors the resistance society-at-
large has to seeing this as a male problem and studying it that way.

>While female violence should not be the major focus of discussion, it should 
>also not be ignored.

You can't focus on every problem at once.  You have to "turn away" from on
to "turn toward" the other.  With this string, we have chosen here to focus 
on the part that is 91% of the problem.  Solving that would solve quite a bit 
of violence in this culture, wouldn't it?  If you want to examine the problem 
of violence caused by women, go right ahead and start a topic.

> There is nothing wrong with broadening a topic to include other relevant 
> data points that might provide insight to the careful observer.

Depends on what you see as "relevant data points".  Or is it that if I don't
see it as relevant you can say I'm just not a careful enough observer?

If I were to discuss the homeless I wouldn't expect someone to "broaden"
the topic to the inflation that has diminished everyone's buying power, brought 
the average person closer to being homeless and put those on the edge over
the edge.  Regardless of the major cultural shift toward poverty and home-
lessness, the homeless as a definable group can and should still be addressed
separate from the larger factors that have lowered everyone's standard of
living.  By the same token, it is counterproductive to water down a discussion 
of male violence by broadening the subject toward general media violence that 
has raised everyone's violence threshold, brought the average person closer to 
violence and put those on the edge over the edge.  Regardless of the major 
cultural shift toward violence, violent people, (who are overwhelmingly male), 
as a definable group can and should still be addressed separate from the 
larger factors that have increased the level of violence in everyone's life.

> Given the fact that female initiated violence is on the increase, perhaps 
> it might make sense to find out why more women are commiting violent acts 
> AS WELL (not instead of).

Yes it does, Mark.  Why don't you start the topic since you're so interested
in it?  Then we can continue to discuss male violence here in this one.  You
probably don't see your argument as a derailer, but it is.
    

    Nancy has cited a study that says that 91% of violence in the U.S.
    is committed by men.  She and other women want to discuss, in
    particular, male violence against women, and the fact that much
    if not most male violence against women is committed by men they
    know, usually husbands, ex-husbands, boyfriends, or ex-boyfriends.
    So what happens?   Several men have reply to the topic demanding 
    to discuss female violence.  
    
    Violence, *in general*, is a problem for the entire human race.
     Male violence directed at women, in particular, is a major problem
    and concern for women.  But, female violence directed at men is
    not one of the major problems facing men in this country today.
     So, give me a break.
    
    Lorna
     

    
>    I would think that examining violent people as a group would be
>    something non-violent people would welcome in order to highlight the
>    difference between the two.       
>    
>    
>    				-- edp
    
    per your suggestion, i have considered every human being i have ever
    met, however briefly, in the past 30-odd years in several cities in
    2 continents, that was violent. ALL of these violent people shared 
    one OBVIOUS characteristic: 
    
    *spoiler warning*
    
    
    they were male!
    
    

    edp,
    
    Would you care to read the title of this note?  What does it
    say?
    
    Yes, it says "Male violence: the rape of our liberty".
    
    Now, why do you think that writing about things which are not
    about violent males should be of such overarching importance
    in THIS note?  Why shouldn't we look at the obvious first?  Most
    crimes are committed by non-subtle people; why shouldn't one or
    two of the causes be non-subtle as well?
    
    Haven't you been exposed to the Quality Control training in this
    company?  Weren't you taught to seek out the causes for the
    biggest, most frequent complaints first?  Didn't you learn that
    that is where the biggest payback is likely to be?
    
    Oh, yeah.  I for one don't feel that my liberty is restricted by
    my fear of female violence; I feel that it is restricted by my fear
    of male violence.  *That* is why I think it would be silly to
    examine female violence in a note about the rape of liberty.
    
    						Ann B.

    Irrespective of the percentages, this file proclaims itself as a forum
    for discussion of things of interest to women.  While female -> male
    violence may well be of interest to women, it is a far less "immediate"
    kind of interest _to_women_ than is * -> female violence, and
    therefore, being qualitatively different, should be discussed in its
    own note, rather than here.

    Re .55 (EDP)
    >    I would think that examining violent people as a group would be
    >    something non-violent people would welcome in order to highlight
    >    the difference between the two.       

    You are free to start a note for such a discussion, although the
    HUMAN_RELATIONS conference might be a better place for it.

    John

    
    edp! you deleted my spoiler warning! now *everyone* will know that
    men are more violent than women!
    

    re .66, I've never been beaten up by a bigger, stronger *woman*!
     (and most women are bigger and stronger than me....)
    
   Lorna
    

.60> I for one don't feel that my liberty is restricted by my fear of 
.60> female violence; I feel that it is restricted by my fear of male 
.60> violence.  

Ann makes an excellent point.

I experienced this in full force a couple of weeks ago.  I leave for
work in the wee hours of the morning at 5:30am.  It's dark then (for
those of you who've never been awake at that hour).  It's very quiet.

A couple of weeks ago I was walking to my car, which is parked on the
street, when a stranger appeared out of nowhere and approached me.  If
this person had been a man, my reflex reaction would've been to high-
tail it back into my house without a second thought.  But it wasn't a
man, it was a woman.  And I felt no fear, not for one millisecond.

Women don't "fear" for trivial reasons.  After I gave this woman the
information she was seeking, I felt anger at those violent men, and,
thanks to our patriarchal society the promotion of violence as a means
to control others, for causing me to instinctively distrust men in the 
dark, and to instinctively TRUST women.  I hardly think female violence 
is a pressing issue.  I hardly think my fear is unjustified, or borne
from an overactive imagination.  My fear is due to being brought up in
a society where males are taught to dominate and to win no matter what.
That overpowering another person, pushing them down a hill, is the only 
way to become King of the Mountain.  And to settle for second best, such 
as Prince of the Mountain, is to lose.  To be a wimp.  A sissy.  A girl.

I've yet to meet a woman who automatically fears a woman approaching 
her on the street.  I've yet to meet a woman who would NOT fear a man 
approaching her on the street.

Carla

    All right, edp.  You are willing to suggest that 98% of violent
    incidents are committed by stronger people.  Are you willing to
    find out if there are any data indicating this?  Do you think
    that data indicating the use of weapons might overwhelm any
    findings about physical strength?  (You see, we must not lose
    sight of the idea that humans are tool-users, and that tools are
    used as a substitute for this greater-strength-stuff you have
    repeatedly put forth.)
    
    						Ann B.

>    NO!  That makes it an fait accompli in this topic that male violence
>    against women is a male problem 

Well that's my suggestion - that it might be better addressed as a male 
problem.  Perhaps you're willing to contribute why you don't think this
is a good approach.

>  it is established and nothing else can be proven because NO OTHER 
>  INFORMATION IS ALLOWED.

Let's not get hysterical here.  When discussing male violence, no information
on dog training is allowed, no information on carwax is allowed, no information
on souffle-making is allowed, and yes, sadly for you, no information on female 
violence is allowed.  Start a new topic on female violence or violence in 
general if you like.  This one is on male violence.

>    > Why "broaden" this topic?
    
>    Because there may be something to learn by looking at more than a
>    single viewpoint.  

Scope and viewpoint are two different things.  Other viewpoints are always
welcome.  Widening the scope of the issue is something else entirely.

>    And if violence IS something inherent in people and society and NOT
>    just men, then your plan to treat it as a male problem will FAIL.

But it isn't inherent in "people" so you're not even at the starting gate
in this discussion.  91% of violent acts are committed by men.

>    It is prudent to look.  It is not prudent to refuse to consider
>    anything else.

Then we completely agree.  My contention is that your "anything else" has
already been looked at and continues to be looked at ad nauseum and that 
if anyone is refusing to consider anything else, it's men refusing to
examine, (and refusing to allow anyone else to examine), the underlying
conditions of maleness that might predispose the more "highstrung" among
them to do violence toward women.  Are you refusing to consider this?

>    It is ridiculous to focus on any PART of the problem

Oh, really?  I can't imagine how you deal with problems in your life if
you don't think you should look at any part of them.  For me, I know it
always helps to break a big task, problem or goal into little, more
manageable tasks, problems or goals.

> including the part you have prejudged to be the sole responsible group.

Blame the statistics, Eric, for pointing out the sole responsible group.
I'm not standing at the podium here "prejudging" to everyone's surprise that 
91%  of the violent acts are committed by men.

Now can we calm down and examine the group that commits the lion's share of
the violence in this culture yet?  Or do we have to go through yet again,
another few thousand replies to first explain our reasons, (to your 
satisfaction), and defend our right to do so?  Nah, we did all that in V2.  
I think the better solution is that anyone who doesn't want to discuss male 
violence, just shouldn't enter any more notes in here.  The rest of the
file remains open for any other topic or approach you're interested in.
    

    Well, I have to say that I am disappointed, but not entirely surprised,
    at the way this string has gone today (and some of yesterday). 
    I've tried to reply to this topic three times so far, and I can't
    seem to express what I want to say well.  So I'll try again....
    
    
    In my personal experience, I have been confronted by violence once,
    and known one man that I consider a potential abuser.  They weren't
    the same person, but they had some traits in common.  More interesting
    to me is that the potential abuser had a trait which I suspect is
    common to abusers, but wasn't part of the makeup of the perpetrator
    of the violent act.
    
    Both men had in common that they were *very physical* people.  They
    played sports on a regular basis *in order to release built-up
    frustration and aggression*.  One of them was self-aware and verbal
    enough to point this out to me.  Both of them were more comfortable
    expressing themselves physically (hugs and kisses rather than "I
    love you's") than verbally.  Neither of them could find alternatives 
    when faced with frustrating circumstances or blocking of their 
    primary desires.  Neither of them was very good at seeking out 
    compromises where circumstances would warrant it.  Both of them were
    very tied in to a particular view of the 'proper' role of men and
    women within a family unit.
    
    The potential abuser was different in that one of his views of the
    'proper' role of women within a relationship was that *her* job
    was to make *him* feel comfortable - regardless of what the
    circumstances were in her own life or what he had done to cause
    her problems or pain.  *That* to me was scary, since I hold very
    strongly that the only person responsible for my 'comfort level'
    (if you will) is me.  I can't control someone else's responses.
    
    One 'solution' which seems to stand-out is that there need to be
    socially acceptable, non-destructive ways for those who are 
    physically-oriented to release aggression and anger.  Possibly a
    punching bag, or a rock pile to crush, or a wall to break (with
    visions of sledge-hammers attacking the Berlin Wall).
    
    Alison  

	Lets talk about males and violence. 
	
	I distinctly remember that it was a minority of my male peers who
were the school-yard bully types. They certainly caused a lot of grief
disproportionate to their numbers though.

	Most of my male peers were typically agressive within the context
of games and even some schoolyard roughhousing and fights with eachother.
For the most part though only a minority of them were inclined to beat up
on weaker boys. AT THAT TIME AND IN THAT PLACE (San Francisco) hitting a
'girl' was the worst thing you could do. It was something you'd have real
trouble living down.

	I know from what my daughters tell me that this has changed. Girls
are assaulted in schools by boys. Interestingly enough my oldest daughter
has had more problems lately from a couple of larger girls than boys.
(I'm sorry I know I shouldn't have related that...the whole truth is a bad
habit I guess and tough to break).

	What happened to the 'social constraint' that boys like me grew up
with around striking females?

	Are there any mothers of young males out there who have some advice
about raising their violently inclined males? (some sarcasm here but I am
interested in a mothers point of view on male violence..sincerely)

	What are the observations about male agression that parents might
have? Are there some pointers there toward future violence against women?

			Don

    Don -
    
    I pointed my young son towards sports.....which helped, a lot. 
    Still does, probably always will.  So I included some sports he
    can do *alone*, for the rest of his life (skiing, weight lifting,
    running, swimming).
    
    I refused, after about age 4, to use violence towards him, particularly
    in punishment.  When I was lividly angry, we *both* got sent to
    our rooms until we had cooled off enough to talk about it.  He learned
    that when *he* was lividly angry, he could take *himself* off to
    his room - with no consequences.
    
    And I encouraged, begged, pleaded, cajoled, used every listening
    technique I ever heard of to get him to *talk* about what bothered
    him, rather than lashing out.  To think things through, and come
    up with his *own*, better alternatives.  To use outside authorities
    appropriately, and not become a vigilante (he had a tendency to
    jump in and smash someone who was teasing those weaker yet -- not
    a bad motive, but a bad result).
    
    Any 'beating up on' others resulted in *long* periods of grounding,
    regardless of who the instigator was.  Grounding basically meant
    no contact with anyone - no phone, no TV, in the house except when
    at school, no practice, no games, nada.  He's a bright kid, he only
    got this punishment twice that I remember. 
    
    Hope that's what you were looking for.
    
    Alison

    Yeah thats what I was looking for. You sound like one heck of a mom!
    there are a number of things you mentioned which would serve as
    excellent models for re-directing and educating male agression (or any
    for that matter). I'm especially interested in your own disciplined
    non-violent raising/nuturing techniques; I've learned from Allison,
    my wife, that these are extremely effective in preventing violence
    over-all.
    
    	After so much heat a little light ( your insights ) are much
    appreciated!
    
       By the way my mom got me started in sports and even encouraged my
    learning Judo at age ten. In those days this was unique. I credit her
    as your son will probably credit you some day, with sensitizing me to
    the differences between mal-directed and well-directed agression.
    
    		Thanks,
    		Don

    Common sense is something we are all supposed to have.  Why would
    you need to have it written down?
    
    						Ann B.

    We all get one message - love one another, turn the other cheek,
    Do unto others...(At least those of us raised in the Judeo-Christian 
    ethic)
    
    Males get a second message - "Winning isn't everything, it's
    the only thing", "Them that has the gold makes the rules", 
    "Strength and athletic prowess are the ticket", "We don't
    need good losers, we need tough SOB's who can win"  etc....
    
    Is it any wonder that we operate under a different set of
    assumptions ? 
    
    Proposal: let us teach *all* people that *initiation of force is wrong.
    Period.* Winning in violation of this principle is an illusion.
    
    
    

	Its sure helps me to have common sense written down. I guess I'm
a little slower study than most about common sense. Seems I get a little
different common sense from different people. Especially true on child 
rearing; everybodies got ideas on how best to do it...and you can be sure
they all fell 'common sense' supports them. Aren't we humans a chuckle!

	Judging from what I've seen around raising young males there's
more variance then commonality in the approaches used. Too many I feel
may actually encourage mis directed agression. Lots of folks, men and women,
believe it common-sensical to apply the 'rod in raising young males...I've
heard it said and seen it written.

	I think that what Alison had to say about handling the raising of
a young man was well said...and I'm not ashamed to say was insightful in
some ways to me.

	If its so apparent and common sense to you! Well than good for you..
..share it! Directing male agression in positive directions starts early if
its to start best.



			Don

    Sorry, edp.
    
    There have been studies on women-only interactions.
    
    They don't involve violence.
    
    Try another assumption.
    
    						Ann B.

    RE: Alan Ross's note (.52?)
    
    Alan, I did feel 'zinged' by your note, but not because of your
    statement about comparing prostitutes with other non-prostitute
    women. That doesn't bother me at all. But somhow it seemed like
    you were comparing whores to violent men and that really bothered
    me. I think that violence is a much worse crime than selling your
    own body. 
    
    That may not have been your intent. I'm just stating my initial
    reaction.
    
    manisha

    edp,
    
    What do you know about the cultures of Catal H�y�k and Hacilar?
    
    						Ann B.

Perhaps the direction this note string has taken is a demonstration
of what can lead to violence against women by men. Even
so-called non-violent men seem to need to define every blasted thing,
including the way women will or will not discuss something.  

Kathy

    
    
    re .80
    >>Suppose that a community of a societal cross-section of women were
    >>formed.  Now there are no men.  But some of the people in this
    >>community are stronger than others.  Can you say it is impossible that
    >>the stronger people in this community will not commit violence against
    >>others?  And can you say that it is impossible that the stronger people
    >>in this community will not commit 91% of the violent acts?
    
    Gee, maybe we ought to give it a try.  What do you say, women, shall
    we create a woman-only space and see if 91% of the strongest of us
    commit all the violent acts?  It certainly seems a worthy experiment.
    
    Justine
    definitely not speaking as a comod now.
    

    Maybe we should create an FWO string parallel to this and test it out
    there?  See if any "violence" occurs in that note?
    
    -Jody
    

    OK, to the guys!!!

    WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO RAISE YOUR CHILDREN NON-VIOLENTLY???  Are 
    you teaching them good methods of interacting within the society
    to settle problems constructively, not destructively???

    ARE YOU AWARE THAT YOUR ROLE AS A PARENT IS JUST AS RESPONSIBLE 
    IN RAISING A NON-VIOLENT PERSON THAT YOU GAVE LIFE TO????  A mother
    does not operate in a vacuum.  It is a shared task, or needs to be.

    TAKE ON *YOUR* RESPONSIBILITY IN THIS IMPORTANT ISSUE!!!

    justme....jacqui

    "This conference"? edp
    
    Haven't you overgeneralized beyond the bounds of the acceptable?
    
    							Ann B.

    
    
    I think the discussion of conference rules and what discussion belongs
    where should go to the Processing topic.  Other folks have returned
    to the discussion of violent behavior in males, and I think we should
    give them the space to do that.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Justine

    
    re:.85
    profound observation!
    

No, edp, it's not "proven, by rigorous rules of logic that
woman is good and man is bad." But it's been pretty well substantiated
that, once again, you have managed to derail a discussion.

Congratulations.

Kathy

    
    re:.88
    except to glory in how wonderful women are and to try to learn to
    be less bad.
    

    	Someone asked about how women help to raise non-violent males?

    	When my son was a little boy in pre-school, he learned (from other
    	boys, I would presume) that wrassling endlessly was one of the most
    	fun things he could do.  So he started wrassling with me at home.

    	Once Ryan started wrassling, he was tireless and persistent.  He 
    	wrassled to win!  The only way to stop Ryan (ultimately) was to 
    	overpower him, which was frustrating enough for him to yell mean 
    	things and throw wild temper tantrums.  (Eventually, he would cry.)  

    	Losing was rough.  It wasn't how he was taught by other boys to end
    	the game, evidently.

    	Soon, Ryan began trying to wrassle every adult friend of mine who
    	walked into our house (with the same end results each time.)  An
    	adult would have to overpower him (to keep anyone from getting hurt,) 
    	and Ryan would yell, have a tantrum, then cry.

    	Routine stuff for a 4 year old, true, but I started worrying about
    	the day that he would grow bigger than I am (overpowering ME instead,
    	at some point.) It turned out later that he reached my height by 10.

    	So I imposed a ban on wrassling in my home.  Whenever he would try
    	to wrassle me, I would quietly inform him that it wasn't allowed.
    	When others came over, I let them know (up front!) that wrassling
    	with Ryan in any way was not allowed.

    	Ryan was still encouraged to play in other ways - we spent a lot
    	of time outdoors (with and without other adults and children,) but
    	the wrassling stopped.  No matter how many times Ryan tried to engage
    	me in it, I refused.  We still talked, built endless Lego models
    	together, swam, went to the park and the zoo, played and did a 
    	myriad of other things together, but wrassling wasn't one of them.

    	It was amazing how the yelling, the wild temper tantrums, and the
    	crying were drastically reduced at about the same time.  If Ryan was
    	upset about something, he would discuss it with me, but he would
    	remain calm.  We started talking things out more (even at 4 and 5
    	years old.)  He also stopped fighting so much on the playground.

    	Today, the guy is a 6'3" giant [compared to me] teenager, and we still 
    	talk things out.  We get mad occasionally, but the worst he ever does
    	is to slam an occasional door.  (Meanwhile, he tells me that we get
    	along better than all his friends get along with their parents.)

    	Ryan could probably defend himself if physically attacked (through
    	sheer size, if nothing else.)  Even at 190 lbs, the kid looks like
    	a Wheaties advertisement.  I would imagine he could overpower most
    	opponents (without doing much damage to them.)

    	He tells me quite specifically, though, that he does NOT believe in
    	violence!  He fantasizes about it occasionally when he gets mad at
    	some other guy, but he doesn't follow through.  He paces, then reads
    	a Science Fiction book.  

    	In no way do I consider non-violence to be detrimental to the psyche
    	of a male child.  It hasn't been harmful to Ryan, as far as I can see.

Referencing 78.98, EDP:

   Though I have some problems with many of the arguments you have made in 
this topic, I must say that I, too, have gotten the feeling that being
violent against women was being viewed by some to be some kind of innate 
characteristic that most, if not all, men have -- and that any arguments 
against the sole consideration of this idea were not being tolerated.

   If you have derailed the "single- track" pursuit of the "man bad" thesis,
then I thank you. If you have failed to do so, then thank you for trying.

                                                     -Robert Brown III

 Maureen:

   Thanks for your clarification. My Cold- Wind Bombs, Chi- Wave weapons,
and Prionic Lances have been deactivated.

   You may now consider me relaxed.

                           *           *           *

Briana:

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to *brag*!  ;-)

(Insert childish grin here)

   Before I told the story about how my Grandmother... uh... "convinced" my
Grandfather of how "unprofitable" it was to hit her, I wanted to talk to my
Grandmother to make sure I got my story straight before I entered it. Since she
is a little hard to reach sometimes, this took a little while. But I did reach
her, so:

   The way I understand it, my Grandmother had an argument with my Grandfather
over some little thing (which she forgot). It escalated to a most unfortunate
level, and my Grandmother began yelling about other things that he had done
before that made her mad (this is a habit she has to this day. If you make her
angry she doesn't just get angry over what you did just then, but at everything
you did to her before then. A bad habit, but one which I understand since I do
the same thing!), and she was going on and on despite his attempts to "shut her
up". At one point, he briefly lost control of himself and slapped her in the
face.

Her reaction was simple:

   She had nothing more to say to him.

   She walked out on him.

   And refused to have anything more to do with him.

   Unlike many of the husbands described in this Topic, my Grandfather was
reasonably civilized. What I mean by that is that while he wasn't very happy
with the seperation my Grandmother imposed on him, he wasn't the type to seek
her out and try to intimidate her or get revenge on her. In fact, he really was
sorry for hitting her; as I said, he struck her during a moment when he had
lost control.

   But even if he hadn't been civilized, nothing would have changed. My
Grandmother was known by many people -- whose methods of dealing with
uncivilized people were... well... not the sort of things that should be
discussed in a public forum like this one. And my Grandmother herself is a very
strong- willed, independent person; these qualities were ingrained in her long
before my mother was born. She certainly would not have allowed him to
intimidate her, and back then there was no guarantee that anyone attempting to
harm or kill her would have succeeded.

   But my Grandfather was civilized, and so instead of chasing her and trying
to intimidate her, he tried to convey to her how sorry he was for hitting her,
and to win her forgiveness.

   My Grandmother was not very forgiving.

   In fact, when she filed for divorce, he began to comprehend just how much
trouble he was in.

   And when the divorce procedures were completed, things became VERY clear to
him.

   It was some time before they "met" again, apparently by accident. She still
hadn't quite forgiven him, but despite everything she still loved him. They
dated. Eventually they remarried. It was understood that the incident which
precipitated their divorce would be put behind them -- and that there would
never be a similar one.

   They had disagreements, of course. They were both strong- willed people.
They fought; the way my Grandmother describes their relationship, their
marriage was *not* the kind described in fairy tales. But despite this they
loved each other very much; they stayed together until he died.

   And he never raised his hand to her again.

                    *               *                  *

   I learned many things from my Grandmother. She is not educated or
sophisticated, but I think it is safe to say that I will never know anyone who
is wiser than she.

   One of the things that she has always tried to teach her child and her
grandchildren is that nothing is more important than self- respect.

   Nothing.

   She loved her husband, but she also loved herself. It was fortunate that
through the time of their difficulties they still loved each other, and that in
the end my Grandfather was civilized enough to regret what he had done and was
"man" enough to control any future violent impulses he may have had. But my
Grandmother made it plain to me that she had been willing to live her life
without my Grandfather if she had had to choose between him and her own self-
respect.  And tolerating physical violence against her would have meant giving
up her self- respect.

   Perhaps that is the best defense a woman can have against male violence.
Because when I think about it, I realize that the fact that my Grandmother
walked out on the man who hit her wasn't what stopped him from doing so. The
seperation didn't stop him, and the divorce didn't stop him.

   What stopped him was the fact that she loved and respected herself enough to
do these things.

                                                     -Robert Brown III

    	RE: .100  Robert
    
    	> ...I must say that I, too, have gotten the feeling that being
	> violent against women was being viewed by some to be some kind 
    	> of innate characteristic that most, if not all, men have...
    
    	Your perception is not a true reflection of the views that have
    	been presented by those who are trying to discuss male violence
    	against women in this topic.
    
    	It's important to remember that men in our culture have more in 
    	common than Y chromosomes. 
    
    	> If you have derailed the "single- track" pursuit of the "man bad" 
    	> thesis, then I thank you. 
    
    	If the derailment hadn't occurred, then perhaps it would have become
    	more obvious to some people by now that this was not the thesis anyone 
    	was trying to put forth.

    I don't buy my son guns. I don't buy him war toys. Even hand-
    cuffs and stuff are taboo. If someone else does, fine. But most
    folks know my feelings and respect them. He does have squirt guns.
    That is an exception.
    
    A funny story happened the other day. My son, Daniel was going with
    his father to visit some friends of the family who have a feisty young
    boy who's a year younger than my almost 5 year old. This boy torments
    my son. Hitting him and pushing him whenever he gets the chance. I
    finally told my Daniel, much to his father's dismay, to haul off and
    belt the kid one time, hard but only once. 
    
    When Daniel arrived home that evening I asked him if the boy had hit
    him. Daniel told me that he had but Daniel didn't retaliate because
    it didn't hurt and "He's only little, Mom." It seems as though my
    boy taught me a bit about tolerance and forgiveness that day. I'm very
    proud of him and I hope to keep the lines of communication opened
    throughout our lifetimes. 
    
    
    Kate (beaming with pride)
    

    I remember watching, maybe 60 Minutes, where there was a program
    that treated rapists with hormone therapy and group therapy as
    opposed to hard time. This was probably 3 years ago. Does anyone
    else remember that program?
    
    Kate
    

    
    
    I was brought up with two older brothers.  We were raised for the most
    part without a father.  He was asked to leave when he was physically
    abusive towards my mom while he was drinking.  Violence was just
    not tolerated in my house.  My mom, aunts, and grandparents did not
    believe in hitting or any form of physical punishment.  We had to
    sit at the table in the dining room until we were calm enough to talk.
    I can remember many times sitting at that table with both brothers
    sitting there also.  After a while we all ended up laughing and were
    able to discuss what had happened.  My mom did not intervene.  She 
    gave us the responsibility for determining the outcome.
    
    The absence of a male force in our family has had tremendous affects
    on everyone.  My brothers are much more in tune with their "maleness"
    and myself and my little sister were raised to be very independant.
    Mom told the girls that we did not need a man in order to live 
    unlike what she was told which is find a man and marry him.
    Not sure what my brothers were told.  But the oldest one was a
    very violent teen.  Not sure if that was just due to his being
    a teenager or some other factor.  Several times he referred to
    himself as "the man of the house".  
    
    That was quickly shot down and he was told that that was not the
    role he was to play.  The other brother is a very calm person
    who I have never seen any violence from.  I often wonder if 
    everyones sense of calmness stems from my mom's way of resolving
    conflict or the fact that there was not  male role model in the house
    while growing up.  (when dad was living with us he was very violent)
    
    
    My boyfriend also grew up in a similar type situation, but his dad
    was allowed to stay in the house.  His dad was a drinker and often
    took his aggressions out on his wife and the oldest boy.  John had
    a problem with being violent, but has since recognized the problem
    and has through counselling been able to keep it under control.
    His brothers also have this problem, but niether of them have sought
    help.  
    
    
    I think that violence in anyone depends to a great extent on how they
    were brought up.  If they were brought up knowing that violence is
    wrong, then it still is today.  But if they continually were beat upon
    or watched a family member get beat upon, then it is ingrained on
    thier minds as part of living in a family.  
    
    Michele

    
    
    One thing that really scares me is that in several studies on 
    junior, senior high and college males.  Was thier assumption
    that if they pay for a date, then they expect sex in return.
    The scarey part is that when the same age girls were asked the
    very same question, the younger ones gave the same answers that
    the guys did.  If the younger generations of todays females think
    it is ok for a younger male to expect/demand sex if the males
    had paid for the date, they don't see that it is wrong.  The
    females in this situation are putting themselves into an enabler
    role.  They are enabling the males to continue to think that
    thier way of thinking is correct.
    
    
    What can be done to stop this way of thinking at such an early age
    by both sexes?

    Make sure girls get paid as much as boys so they can always go dutch
    or the girls can do some paying and some expecting too!  ;-)
    

      Legalize prostitution. Put sex-for-$ where it belongs, NOT
      in the dating game. 

    That's good too!

    I must point out to you percentage quoters that;
    
    "*also* quotes that 91% of all criminal violence between spouses are
    perpetrated by the MAN."
    
    IS NOT THE SAME as saying that 91% of all violence is by men.
    
    Please remember that in the future.  thank you.

    I am a little bewildered by the stance taken by some of the males in
    this string. You seem to be very upset(violently so, if I may be
    ironic) over the idea that male human beings could have something about
    them that is inherently violent.  Make no mistake about it an adult
    male human is the most dangerous creature on this planet. If you doubt
    that, please go and express those doubts to the ghosts of the north
    american mammoth, the great auk and the passenger pidgeon. Agression is
    part of our nature. It just is. It is of itself neither good, nor bad.
    
    An adult male wolf is also very dangerous, though not nearly so
    dangerous as a human.  Yet in wolf society, interspecies violence that 
    leads to death is very rare. Instances where violence is perpetrated
    upon females and young by dominant males is virtually unheard of. From
    birth, all wolves learn certain behaviors which allow them to settle
    arguments (and they DO argue) without much violent behavior and without
    any deaths resulting from such arguements.
    
    An adult male tiger is more dangerous than an adult male wolf, but
    still not as dangerous as a human.  If an adult male tiger happens
    upon a female and young, it is not unusual for him to violently drive
    off the female, and eat the cubs. Tigers are not social animals and
    rate pretty high on the "territoriality scale". They are not taught how
    to peacefully interact with other tigers.
    
    Modern humans are no less agressive and dangerous than primitive
    humans. Modern female humans are taught how to interact with each
    other and with males in peaceful ways. Modern male humans are not so
    taught. As the people of this file have stated this condition is
    causing a serious problem.  Of course these are generalizations, to
    some extent, and I am sure that someone somewhere can come up with
    instances where females do no adequately learn alternative, peaceful
    methods of handling disputes, but its a fair statement of the issue
    nonetheless. 
    
    I see a lot of denial of these facts from the male portion of this
    string. Why?  Isn't the first step in solving a problem acceptance
    of how things really are? If men forget that we didn't always wear
    three piece suits and shop at Kroger's they forget how dangerous they
    really are. They neglect to develop ways to channel their agression
    into productive activities. They forget how to do appeasement and
    displacement behaviors which defuse violence. They forget to develop
    alternative strategies for settling disputes.  Its obvious from the
    statistics quoted in this string that we HAVE forgotten these things.
    
    I say that men must look to women to be the leaders in this area. Seems
    to me that they have already got a pretty good working model of
    alternative behaviors. Lets not be afraid to learn from them 
     

Re .91 (EDP):
>    Let's see, you want to make a topic in which the people you are
>    attacking cannot write notes, and you think that if nobody writes notes
>    in that topic complaining about being attacked, that will prove
>    something?

    Why is a discussion of male -> female violence an attack on men?  I
    don't personally see it as an attack on anyone (productively, such a
    discussion should concentrate on understanding and trying to discover
    what can be done to reduce the problem, rather than on assigning
    blame), but even if one insists on viewing it confrontationally, it can
    only be considered an attack on the perpetrators of the majority
    (according to the statistics quoted earlier) of violent acts(crimes?)
    rather than on men in general.

    Nobody (as far as I remember) has asserted that there is a direct
    causal relationship between maleness and violence.  I personally
    believe that there is a link (ie that the statistical evidence is due
    to a genuine correlation, rather than coincidence), but that the link
    has more to do with differences between the upbringing of boys and
    girls than because of any innate violent tendencies in males.  That
    this seems obvious to me is, unfortunately, no guarantee of its truth.
    I find it hard to view this concept as an attack on men.

    Even if it were true that men (irrespective of upbringing) were more
    likely to be the aggressor in violent acts�, this observation would not
    constitute an attack on men, any more than observing that women (on
    average) are shorter than men is an attack on women.  It would simply
    be an observation.  Just as with the height analogy, it would say
    nothing about a specific man being more likely to commit acts of
    violence than a specific woman.

    John

    1 - To determine this, I suppose one would have to do an experiment
    involving a large number of men and women who had been brought up from
    birth in a completely non-sexist (but not non-violent) world, so it's
    not likely that the experiment will be performed in the near future.

    2 - I agree with EDP that a FWO parallel string is not really
    appropriate.  How about a "For responses that discuss the topic
    presented in the base-note" string and a parallel "For responses that
    discuss topics other than the base-note"?

Words too can be violent.  Words that are meant to attack, demean, and
belittle another.  This very note has many examples.  For those of us
who have written them and are interesting in looking at themselves,
that is a great place to start to look at this problem of violence.

It is true that most violence is committe by males (80-90%).  It is
true that not all violence is committed by males.  Not all men are
violent.  In marital violence cases in the US, the majority of
violence is male to female.  Of the female to male violence, 3/4 is
after an attack by a male.

It seems that it is a real hot button to some people when statements like
80-90% of violence is committed by males.  Is this true?  Or is it
something else?  I have no problem with a statement like this.  It is
a fact, a fact is a fact.  It does say anything about me or about all
men.

Unfortunately, female to male violence is on the rise.  I wonder if
this is due to the loosening up of gender roles.  While I think
equality (financial and legal) is a vital first step, I hope that
women will resist taking on the worst characteristics of the
traditional male culture.  If we could only work together and pick and
choose the best of both worlds and create new values and ways of being
where the old ways are lacking!

I was volunteering at the hospital last night and was called to visit
a three year old who has in a clean room because he had just receieved
a bone marrow transplant and was undergoing chemo.  We watched Pee-Wee
Herman.  The movie was filled with violent scenes.  I found myself
explaining the good guys and the bad guys.  I read him a Ninja book.
There was fighting galore!  He played Nintendo Duck Hunt.  Killing
and weapons.  He would sometimes hit the TV screen with the gun after
he missed the duck.  Wonder where he picked it up?  I found myself
getting caught up in it myself.  What happened to learning (he was
learning to count), affection (he liked to hold my hand and sit in my
lap as I read to him), stories of cooperation, love, of the great human
spirit we all have but too seldom use.

I was very moved my the stories in this note of mothers who had
persisting in teaching their children non-violent ways of behaving. If
I visit this boy again, I will certainly act differently.  Thanks for
reminding me that I do make a difference, that I am responsable. I am
very grateful for your stories. I wonder if there was a reason that
I was called to visit this child in a clean room.  I couldn't bring in
my usual carry-around toys (bubbles, balls, magic wand).  Hmmm.  This
issue of teaching non-violence is much clearer now.

I think that the majority of violence is committed and initiated by
men is an interesting thing to look at.  I don't think it has to do
with chromosones either.  Is is hard to see that boys and girls are
conditioned differently?  That violence as a way to solve problems, to
get what you want is approved for boys.  That power, success, and
wealth are very important for males (at any cost).  Women here are
pointed out some of their problems that this conditioning causes them
by living with us and a society largely defined by these values.  I
applaud these efforts.  I share many of the same concerns.  Women get
different condition and many are struggling to get through it and live
a better way.  I support these efforts.  If men are to do the same, we
must look at the conditioning that we get without fear.  This can only
be done if we don't confuse the conditioning we get with US.

I beleive that in many ways we are all the same in a deep sense.  But
the reality is that we get different conditioning based on our gender.
We seem to spend a lot of our energy here blaming, reacting to blame,
judging, blaming back, denying, etc, etc, etc.  I wish we could focus
this tremendous energy on helping each other to build a better place
for our children, our children's children, and children seven
generation down the line and for the earth and all creatures on it.

john

Referencing 78.102, Suzanne:

   If indeed my perception is incorrect, then I expect that the original 
positions will be clarified. Through clarification we can eliminate the
misperceptions which lead to unnecessary disagreement, or at least ensure
that a disagreer knows exactly what is being disagreed with.

   But my concern was not about whether or not male violence was being said
to be some inherent characteristic that men have. My concern was whether or
not the exploration of other alternatives was being tolerated. Actually, I
really would like to hear arguments supporting the "man bad" thesis, though I
will not guarantee that I will agree with all of them.

   In other words, I was not worried about the viewpoint. I was concerned 
about whether or not other viewpoints were being allowed. Just as I oppose
any suggestion that the "man bad" thesis should not be explored (whether it 
actually was being explored or not), I oppose any suggestion that alternate
viewpoints not be explored.

   If the people participating in this discussion are indeed tolerant of
each others viewpoints, then there is nothing for me to worry about.

                                                      -Robert Brown III

    other viewpoints on male violence are welcome in this note.  Viewpoints
    on female violence would be more welcome in a separate note,
    as it is not the original topic of this note.  Viewpoints on violence
    in general, or those which consider violence of humans in general can
    be discussed in still another new note, if that is the sole topic that
    you wish to discuss.
    
    splitting up the discussions does not invalidate them.  In fact, it draws
    people's attention and focus more closely to whatever topic is before
    them, rather than derailing a discussion which is trying to stay
    focused on one topic by attempting failover to another topic which may
    be related and vital, but which was not the initial intent of the
    current topic.  I think it would do all topics justice to devote new
    notes to each, so they can be explored in their fullest.  In fact, we
    can even begin another new note to discuss how our perceptions of all
    these factors intertwine - as a metadiscussion on violence and how we
    relate to it - or it relates to us.
    
    all three aspects of violence could readily and productively be
    discussed.  But by trying to discuss them all in a note dedicated to
    violence by men primarily against women, it may well reduce the
    comprehensibility and the discussability of the topic at hand.
    
    I am completely serious about this.
    
    -Jody
    

    	RE: .117  Robert
    
    	> Actually, I really would like to hear arguments supporting the 
    	> "man bad" thesis, though I will not guarantee that I will agree 
    	> with all of them.
    
    	If anyone decides to make this thesis, we'll see how it comes out.
    
    	So far, we've only seen this presented as an imaginary thesis (to
    	be argued against by those who perceived its existence as a result
    	of their own misperceptions about what people were really saying.)
    
    	> Just as I oppose any suggestion that the "man bad" thesis should 
    	> not be explored (whether it actually was being explored or not), 
    	> I oppose any suggestion that alternate viewpoints not be explored.
    
    	Gee, I could have sworn I saw you thanking someone for derailing
    	the imaginary "man bad" thesis last night...
    
    	At any rate, let's end "the discussion about the discussion" and
    	move towards discussing male violence towards women, ok?

    re .85 -
    
    That's for sure. This string is a beautiful confirmation of much of Dale
    Spender's research on male control of women's talk/writing.

    Back to the size/strength theory for a second...
    
    Dear old Dad (and quite a few of the other abusive men I've run
    into) were physically quite small.
    
    What was that guys name again?  Napoleon?
    
    -maureen
    

    
    	Take it to the Processing Topic, Mike.
    
    	The topic here has been derailed long enough!
    

    I would like to discuss some of the things I have seen with your
    couples.  I have a 19 year son has has been going with the same
    young woman for about 3 years now.  We have had some serious problems
    with him being violent towards her.  They are in counseling and
    are working these issues.  I've also seen alot of his friends going
    thru the same type of things.  Which are they all go to parties
    start drinking and get into arguments and end up physical.  However,
    I am also seeing that the young women are fighting back.  The anger
    at how they are being treated is coming out while they are drinking
    and they are reacting..  I don't agree with this behavior but I
    think I'm seeing a different attitude with these women.  
    
    denise

    (Please bear with me; I'll eventually get to my point.)
    
    Many years ago, I got to thinking about the path to racial equality,
    and how long it would take, with `the best will in the world'.  My
    subconscious popped up with the answer, "three generations".  (In this
    culture, a generation is about twenty to twenty-five years.)  A few
    years later, I did the same thing about sexual equality.  This time
    my subconscious offered "five generations".
    
    At this point I think that `the best will in the world' may be
    present in the struggle against racism, but I don't think that it
    is present in the struggle against sexism.  Non-Caucasians may well
    think that it isn't present in the struggle against racism, either.
    I can't tell from my viewpoint.  (Gloom.)  (Brood.)
    
    (Recovering.)  Anyhow, I perceive male violence against women as
    what sociologists call "overdetermined behavior".  I gather (I'm
    no sociologist nor do I pl-- forget it.) that "overdetermined behavior"
    is layers upon layers of reasons, justifications, excuses, and
    rationalizations for following a particular course of action which
    is nevertheless morally unacceptable.  The example used was slavery.
    
    		An aside:  An objective (culture-independent)
    		method of determining moral unacceptability was
    		not given.  I like the idea of doing a mental
    		mirror swap between overlings and underlings,
    		and see if the overlings agree that this new
    		set-up is fair to them.
    
    Therefore, I see the process of reducing male violence [against
    women] as a lengthy process of chipping off and grinding away
    these `determinations' from our society.  At first, we may only
    be able to take off small bits, and then bigger ones as we get
    past the flinty outer layer -- or -- we may be able to remove
    great awkward chunks at the beginning and then smaller, more
    cunningly camoflaged bits later.
    
    In either case, it is firstly a multigenerational project, and
    secondly one which will have to move more and more carefully
    as time goes on, because we do not want to remove any/much of
    the good stuff as we get closer to the good core of people.
    
    Please don't let us be discouraged because we won't live to see
    the end of this process; let us instead be encouraged by every
    bit of progress we do see.  Now maybe I can see past this note
    to my first step....
    
    						Ann B.

    
    	Gee, Mike, did you really expect the author of .120 to read the
    	text of .123 before entering her reply?
    
    	In any case, it doesn't matter now.  There is a new topic open
    	to discuss the problem of male violence against women.
    

    
    	RE: .132  Mike Z.
    
    	Then why didn't you offer an example that the author might have
    	actually SEEN before replying (when you asked how the reply could
    	have been written with a straight face?)  
    
    	Was it a short cut to throw a later reply in the author's face?
    
    	Finger-pointing (with names and reply numbers) must be a tiring
    	business, Mike.  Short cuts every now and then probably come in
    	very handy.
    

    
    	Never mind.
    
    	Your finger-pointing (complete with NODE::USERNAMES, first
    	names and/or reply numbers) isn't one of your more endearing 
    	pastimes.
    
    	That's the point I was trying to make in the first place.
    

    
    	It won't make any difference, believe me.
    

    Stop the shots, folks - or take it offline.  They're trashnotes.
    
    -Jody
    

	I have a son and a daughter one I fear will do violence against
	women and the other I fear will receive it.

	I tried to bring my children up in a non-violent household, but
	both their father and their step-father did not cooperate (maybe
	that is way they are no longer part of my household!!!).  The
	extended family also did not cooperate.  I did not want my children
	receiving war toys, guns, etc.  It was kept to a minimum but it
	still happened.  At what point does one tell ones family to take
	back a gift?

	While my children were still in grade school the three of us
	took karate from an excellent instructor.  The instructor was
	excellent because he taught that the main use of any action is
	to give you that extra second or two to get away from a bad
	situation not to stay and fight or or start a fight.

	I encouraged my son and daughter to pursue their individual
	interests - no matter what it was.  My son is a Political Science
	major in college and wants to be a teacher and my daughter is an
	Electrical Engineering major and wants to build computers.

	But there is still the outside influences that have confused the
	process.  My son needs to work, consciously, on not being violent,
	and he does not get a lot of reinforcement for his effort from
	the outside environment.  He was pledged to a frat, on the rugby
	team, a real "man" - he stopped all of that because it was not
	"good" for him as a person.  I am very proud of this young man.

	My daughter is trying to be a complete individual, but it is
	difficult to get others to see her as such.  She keeps getting
	trapped into the "cute kid" treatment, which feels good for a
	little while and then it becomes a trap.  She is now aware of
	this and tries to keep away, but it is very suductive - just 
	look cute and you will get what you want, well maybe some of
	what you want.

	The violence that is done by men to women is not something we
	are born with it is something that is learned.  BUT the ones
	that need to do the unlearning are MEN so that the next generation
	will have role models and a new set of appropriate behavior
	criteria.

	_peggy

		(-)
		 |
			To change the world start at home.

	I was cultured for violence from a very early age..

	Most grown men now would find similar memories of early play
	and cultural support. What role did all this play in my
	development.....who knows? Judging from my sons behavior, very
	little has changed at all.
	
	When I was just a boy my fantasies were consumed with violent
	and heroic visual/narriatives. In these psycho-dramas there
	was endless carnage, with me at the center, champion of some
	noble cause....always on the periphery some female just awed
	by the whole thing (particularly by me).

	Interestingly enough the cultural influences seemed to support
	my head trips. These were the days of movie epics like El Cid,
	Ben Hur, Spartucus, The Alamo , West Side Story (my friends and I
	tended to ignore the romance and concentrated on the gang fights).
	Again and again the same theme; aggressive, larger than life, male
	hero and admiring heroine. She somehow added justification to the
	whole process; she was an essential element.

	My play, with other boys, was really mock battle. I spent whole
	Californian summers with my buddies battling with toy guns and
	what not. The TV show 'COMBAT' was very popular then and formed
	the creative backdrop for a lot of our play. God how we wished
	for the real thing. TV in these days was filled with shows supporting
	the 'Machisimo' we were so attrated to: Rawhide, Wanted Dead or Alive,
	The Rebel, Lawman, Have Gun Will Travel, Combat and on and on it seems.

	Our tendancies towards aggression were heavily supported by cultural
	influences in those days. These influences also formed the basis for
	a 'code of conduct' that most of us aspired to...being on the side
	of the right and the weak and such.

	One can only speculate at the impact on young male psyche's of all the
	cultural violence and the underlying value system to which he will be
	exposed.

	Without it in the formative years would he be ready for the defense of
	the Nation which every generation of young men has imposed on them?

	I been rambling here somewhat...thought going inside a young males mind
	might offer some insight for this discussion.

			D

Within the last year or so there was a show on public television about the
effect of testosterone on children.  Unfortunately I don't remember the 
exact show, and some of the details are pretty fuzzy.   

A young girl, about 6, was found to have high level of testosterone for a girl.
It was also found that she was more active than normal girls.  Under controlled
conditions the researchers conducted an experiment.  They measured the level
of testosterone in the subjects, and then let them play together in a room
with a lot of toys.  When two girls with low test. played they were relatively
quiet and played together.  When a girl with high test. was paired with a 
low test. girl, the high test. girl was more active and played separately
from the other girl.  When a high test. girl was paired with a boy they both
had a great time punching out the inflated clown, throwing things and generally
rough-housing.  

They repeated this experiment with several children, including other girls
with high test. levels, and found that the higher the test. level, the more 
active the child tended to be.

Did anyone else see this program?  If so, I wish someone would fill in some
more of the details.  I don't have the best memory.

Now my personal conclusion is that children are encouraged at a very young age
to be active in violent ways (all those nasty cartoons and war toys).  The
above study insinuates that boys are generally more active than girls because
they have higher test. levels, and thus boys tend to exhibit violence more
often. If active children are encouraged to expend their energy in non-violent 
ways (running and tumbling contests?, Olympics cartoons?) maybe the learned 
reaction of energy expenditure-> violence won't happen in later life.  Several 
people have given examples of how they have successfully suppressed violence 
in their children.  This is terrific, but I believe that there must be some
activity to replace the violence and still expend the energy so the child 
will not be frustrated (can you tell I'm not a parent :-). 

			Bb

    	RE: .142  Barbara
    
    	> Several people have given examples of how they have successfully 
    	> suppressed violence in their children.  This is terrific, but I 
    	> believe that there must be some activity to replace the violence 
    	> and still expend the energy so the child will not be frustrated..
    
    	As one of the parents who found a way to move my son away from
    	violence as a young child...
    
    	You're right about finding other activities that would use up the
    	child's energy (at least, it was true in Ryan's case.)
    
    	On Saturday and Sunday, we needed to spend both days (all day) outside
    	somewhere - at the beach, the park or the zoo - and Ryan would run his
    	little legs off seemingly nonstop the whole time.  He had an incredible
    	amount of energy.
    
    	What I did was to take a blanket and my school books along, so that
    	I could provide a "home base" for Ryan to operate from - and he would
    	run off his energy within sight of where I was stationed.  He would
    	come over to talk to me quite frequently, but he always kept moving
    	the rest of the time (playing nicely with other children present.)
    
    	At home, we often found things to do together - we built Lego models
    	a lot (which required a good deal of interaction with me, since he 
    	had problems following instructions at 4 years old and would get easily
    	frustrated.)  By 5 and 6, he played with his own Lego creations.
    
    	The most quiet thing that Ryan would do by himself for long periods
    	of time was to go through some of my college text books.  I allowed
    	him unlimited access to my books, unless I was using them, and he
    	never tore or mussed up a single page.  His favorites were my books
    	on Astronomy and Biology.  (He liked the books with color pictures.)
    
    	By age 4 1/2, Ryan had the Solar System figured out (and I taught
    	him to name the planets in their order from the sun.)  He also had
    	it all figured out where babies came from (except that he couldn't
    	understand how the "daddy seed," as he called it, found its way to
    	the "mommy seed" in the first place.)  ;^) The book didn't have a
    	picture of this particular feat.
    
    	At 19, he still reads more than almost any other person I've ever
    	known (and I come from a family of avid readers.)  It's still one
    	of the things he has the most patience to do for a long period of time.
    
    	He's still quite physically active, today, and he paces sometimes
    	(when he gets upset.)  As tall as he is, the pacing itself can be a
    	bit unnerving at times - the cats dive for cover.  It seems that he
    	still needs an outlet for his energy.

    Like Suzanne, I also recognized the need for activity to expend
    the energy.  That was why the encouragement to participate in sports
    - and the need to include some which he can do *all his life*. 
    Fortunately, Dan doesn't sound as 'high-energy' as Ryan, but he
    is still 'higher-energy' than I am.
    
    The key to me seems to be recognizing that each child has his or
    her own, individual needs - and then helping that child find
    appropriate outlets for meeting them.
    
    Alison

	Many of the mothers have indicated that athletic pursuits are
very helpful with channeling male aggression positively.

	I'd like to add one for consideration: Judo.

	Judo , built from Japanese 'ju meaning gentle, supple or flexible
and finished by 'do meaning a way or path. This sport was developed by a
Japanese educator in the late 1880's who was looking for a physical culture
system which would be healthful and safe to practice.

	Judo is a metaphor for giving way to, redirecting and controlling 
aggression. It provides for practitioners a strict code of ethical conduct
and a means to experience ones own aggression in a controlled context.

	At tournaments (shiai) one rarely sees displays of temper or poor
sportsmanship; its simply not allowed. No one, even the children competing,
argue with officials over decisions going to ones competitor.

	The reason this works is that the concept of 'self competition being
the only real competition' is heavily emphasized from the earliest training.

	Compared to other sports, which may heavily emphasize 'winning at all
costs',Judo does very well.

	Next to Aikido it is perhaps the most passive of the Martial Arts.
I highly recommend it for young people (male and female) who need to get
a handle on their aggression.

			D

    re .146, Mark, I hope you're not raising a bully! :-)
    
    Lorna
    

    Mark brings up an interesting point. He mentions that his little girl,
    whom he pays a great deal of attention to, is more aggressive than some
    of the other small children. I've also read that successful business
    women have a tendancy to have been "daddy's girl" when they were
    children.

    The immediate thought that occurs to me is that these male trained
    females are somehow better suited to compete in our male dominated
    world. This then leads to the thought that agressive behavior is indeed
    more of a learned characteristic than an inherited one.

    I believe there is validity to the argument that much of the agression
    training our society forces on boys is training for their possible
    future as cannon fodder. That also explains why gangs of females in
    dangerous sections of towns have become agressive. They have to be to
    survive. liesl

I have always been a fairly assertive/aggressive sort of person.  I must have
been Daddy's girl by default -- he didn't particularly mind that I wasn't a boy,
mother was mortified that I wasn't.

As a small child, I put up with precious little intimidation from the little
boys I played with [no girls in the neighborhood].

My usual pattern was to meet violence with violence, but it was rare indeed
that I began the cycle.  That is to say, that someone usually took a ding
out of me before I ended it by pasting him upside the head with one of my
trucks or a doll [yes, I compensated for my small stature by becoming a
tool-user early on].

I got my way a _lot_ by being direct and firm and just plain contrary, but I
wasn't violent.  My niece, who has seen her father maybe three times in her
four years of life, is apparently cast in the same mold.

 Ann

	This month, 3 men raped a 13 yr old girl and "assaulted" 
	another teenage girl in a location near where I enjoy
	riding my mountain bike (alone). 
	

    		gee, I don't know where you are, but there may be
    		people who would benefit from knowing where you are
    		referring to.....???
    

	
	re: 78.151  (NRADM::ROBINSON) 

    	> gee, I don't know where you are, but there may be
    	> people who would benefit from knowing where you are
    	> referring to.....???
    
	How would people benefit from knowing where the rape
	and assault happened?

	So that they would know where to avoid going biking and 
	hiking?   So that they will change their routes to another
	place and feel safer for it?  

	The 3 men who [alledgedly] raped/attacked the 2 girls have
	since been arrested.  Even if they _hadn't_ been picked up
	yet, what's to keep them from attacking other women in 
	conservation land elsewhere?  

	It's not safe for any woman to go who hiking and biking 
	 _anywhere_ in public areas without some means of protection.  
	Besides, if I ever decide to torture my psyche enough to go
	biking there alone again, I don't actually want to be the
	_only_ one there because people think it's more unsafe than
	other areas.  

	Since no one else has replied, I guess no one else has heard
	about it.  That surprises me, since I've cancelled all sub-
	scriptions to newspapers and newsmagazines this summer 
	because I decided to quit reading about stuff like this on
	a daily basis for a while, but still managed to see something
	about this incident.  

	Not that I don't understand your wanting to know where it
	happened, and I don't care if anyone posts where it happened,
	... it would only serve to deter people from biking in one 
	specific location that is no less safe than anywhere else they
	choose to bike.

						nancy b.
	
	

    
    
    	gee, Nancy, I didn't think it was a dumb question, since
    	the note DIDn't say they had been arrested! No, it's not
    	safe to go alone, but some people want to exercise and don't
    	have someone to go with them. I ride my horse alone, on the
    	power lines or the street, but avoid the state forest and most
    	of the power lines when I'm alone. What else am I going to 
    	do? Sell my horse because I don't have a body guard to go
    	with me every time I go out??? 
    

          re:  78.153 (NRADM::ROBINSON)

          >    gee, Nancy, I didn't think it was a dumb question, since
          >    the note DIDn't say they had been arrested!

          gee, NRADM::ROBINSON, I didn't think it was a dumb question
          either :-), -- whether or not they had been arrested.  I believe
          I mentioned understanding your wanting to know where it happened.

          My .152 entry was more of a "on second thought" type of thing; I
          apologize for not making that clear.   My second thoughts were
          that telling where it happened would only have the effect of
          people avoiding that area for biking/hiking in the future when an
          attack has probably never happened there before and might not for
          a long while again.  Kind of like if someone is raped while
          studying in a classroom alone and then studying in that building
          alone after hours is prohibited when it's still being done in
          adjacent buildings.

          > I ride my horse alone...  What else am I going to do?
          > Sell my horse because I don't have a body guard to go
          > with me every time I go out???

          My advice :  Learn the safe and proper use of the ultimate means
          of personal protection when out alone - a small, easily
          concealable handgun of caliber .380 or above.  If you are still
          interested you can 1) send mail  or  2) discuss further in topic
          82.  Discussions of the proper caliber for self-protection should
          also be taken to topic 82.

                                                       nancy b.

          > I ride my horse alone...  What else am I going to do?
          > Sell my horse because I don't have a body guard to go
          > with me every time I go out???

    I've ridden alone since I was a kid. The only "incident" I remember was
    once riding up on a guy who was masterbating in the woods along the
    river where I was riding. What sort of person does this in a
    semi-public place? At any rate, I always carry a dressage whip when I
    ride on the trail. Short of a man with a gun I doubt anyone could get
    me. Even if they got close to my horse before I ran off I doubt they'd
    like a whip in the face. Shooting a gun from horseback is not
    recommended unless your horse is trained to it. It's also very
    difficult to hit anything if you aren't very skilled. liesl

    
    	Leisl - I also carry a whip (actually, a western bat). I've
    	run into strange people many times in the state forest...they
    	just appear, five miles from anywhere, out of the bushes. It
    	doesn't appear as if they are hiking...My horse is trained for
    	mounted shooting, and after speaking to NancyB, I'm considering
    	it. (I should have a handgun for trailering, anyways). The town
    	where I ride has been having major problems with a cult of some
    	type. They have caught about 20 people sacrificing animals up in
    	the power lines. (I've spoken to the police to verify this, it's
    	true...).
    
    	I agree with Nancy, you never know where it's safe and where it
    	isn't anymore. I used to ride for miles by myself and not think 
    	twice about it. Now, I'm afraid to go by myself. Every spring I 
    	go through this feeling, I think. This year it won't seem to go 
    	away, maybe that's good...
    
    	It's easy to think that your horse is spook-proof and no one could
    	get you off of him, but what about that one time it might happen? 
    	I'm glad you ride with someone else, Leisl, but I don't always have
    	that option. Well, I think I've succeeded in side tracking this
    	topic, my apologies......... :)
    

            The following article appeared in the February 27 Denver Post:

                      Prisoners reject violent ways
             Workshops use inmates to help teach alternatives
               By Richard Johnson, Denver Post Staff Writer

        
        Three-time loser, confessed rapist, convicted murderer--and trainer
        in nonviolent behavior.

        Meet Culver Jay Murray, 53.

        Murray has known violence intimately all his life.

        His mother killed his father, an alcoholic physician.  At 12,
        Murray was in trouble with the law.  At 19, when he assaulted and
        robbed a 30-year-old Denver modeling instructor, he had a record of
        eight previous attacks on women.

        He subsequently killed two women.

        But now, Murray, who is serving his second life sentence, is one of
        10 prisoners at Canon City's Skyline Correctional Center and
        Territorial Correctional Facility who have studied techniques for
        nonviolent living and are training other inmates to find
        alternatives to violence.

        The program in which Murray serves as a trainer, and through which
        he was trained, is called AVP (Alternatives to Violence Project). 
        It is operated by Denver's New Foundations Nonviolence Center.

        AVP workshops receive strong support from prison staff members, who
        like the pyramiding effect of nonviolent behavior.  About 300
        inmates at the two prisons have participated since the program
        began 2 1/2 years ago.

        Trainers include inmates like Murray as well as "outsiders"--men
        and women volunteers from Denver.

        Sgt. Brent Parker, Skyline program coordinator, describes the
        program as "excellent," citing "real change" in workshop
        participants in "just three short days."

        A quiet, pale, bespectacled man, Murray said "no words can
        describe" the changes he has undergone since being introduced to
        AVP in 1987.  He said he used to be "an ogre coming out of my cave"
        whenever he emerged from his cell.

        "I was definitely not the type of person you would want as a
        neighbor," he said.  "I was selfish, uncaring, a loner.  I lived
        most of my life blended into the shadows.  I was very intimidating. 
        If a disagreement came to a direct confrontation, you lost and I
        won.

        "Because of AVP, I've learned how to care about myself and others. 
        I've learned I'm not the center of the universe.  I want
        self-respect, and I want the feeling of belonging, of being cared
        about and of making a contribution."

        Other trainers at Skyline and Territorial offered similar
        testimonials.

        For example, Skyline's 43-year-old Norman Pacheco, a convicted
        murderer from Pueblo, said that before AVP training he "destroyed
        relationships with little compassion and no regard for human life." 
        Today he has "recovered my sense of who I am and why I'm here.  I
        know I have to take responsibility for my life.  I'm a totally new
        me."

        AVP, which is nonsectarian and non-profit, it modeled after a New
        York project designed by Quakers in 1975.  The program was
        developed at the request of prisoners who recognized that inmates
        tend to express conflict with verbal and physical violence.

        The Colorado AVP project is headed by Mark Wessley, a 34-year-old
        native New Yorker, who also coordinates one-on-one visitation
        programs at some of metropolitan Denver's county jails.

        Wessley is paid a $7,000 annual stipend by the United Church of
        Christ to oversee operations of the nonviolence center at 1615
        Ogden St.  All other staffers at the center, which operates through
        donations, are unpaid volunteers.  The AVP workshops, free and
        available to all prisoners, typically begin at noon on Friday and
        conclude at 3 PM on Sunday, with Friday and Saturday sessions
        ending at 8:30 PM.

        Prisoners can't be required to take a workshop, and guards or other
        prison staffers are excluded.  "An inmate has to want to
        participate," Wessley said.  "Nobody is pressured to take part."

        In prison, added Wessley, "a man can get killed just by looking at
        somebody the wrong way.  By the end of a three-day workshop, all
        these guys are talking with one another--blacks, Hispanics and
        whites."

        Wessley said that 95 percent of inmates complete workshops for
        which they enroll.  Anecdotes may best reveal the dynamics through
        which men with violent histories experience change and recognize
        within themselves their capacity for nonviolent alternatives.

        "At one workshop," said Wessley, "role playing became so intense
        that two men were ready to swing on each other.  At that point, the
        role playing was stopped and the two men, with the help of others
        in the group, analyzed their feelings.  The next step was for them
        to practice dealing with those feelings without violent
        expression." 

        Wessley added that prisoners are skeptical that women trainers can
        relate to the violence that always is a threat within a prison.

        "But the men see right away," he said, "that women on the outside
        can experience violence just as frightening as the kind that goes
        on in a prison.  One woman trainer, for example, told how she
        caught her husband sexually abusing their child.  She told of her
        rage and her violent tendencies.  We all have levels of violence
        we're dealing with."

        AVP training is presented at three levels--basic, advanced and
        training for trainers.

        "In basic workshops," said Wessley, "there are as many as 20 and as
        few as 10 participants.  The focus is on affirmation, building
        self-esteem, community and its importance, cooperation,
        communication skills and conflict management."

        In addition, development of spirituality is encouraged, "but not in
        religious terms," Wessley said.  "It's more a matter of finding
        your inner power and searching for the truth.  And it's a long
        road--not something that stops at the conclusion of a workshop."

        In advanced workshops, inmates are taught healthy and assertive
        ways to manage conflict.  Skills are learned in a variety of ways,
        with heavy reliance on role playing.

        Advanced workshop participation and trainers strive consensually--
        "a total community of learners" in Wessley's words--to address root
        causes of violence such as fear, anger and stereotyping.  In
        general, the inmates decide on the direction of study they want to
        take.

        That sense of autonomy and responsibility appeals to many convicts,
        whose everyday decisions--from what they eat to what they can
        wear--are dictated by prison authorities.

        "I went into AVP convinced it would be another waste of time," said
        Park Estep, a 40-year-old Skyline trainer serving a sentence for a
        Colorado Springs murder conviction.  "But I was willing to give it
        a shot on the off-chance I would find at least one useful thing.

        "I was cynical.  I thought I could be my normal self--a detached
        observer.  I was wrong.  I was emotionally snatched up and put in
        the middle of the most important learning experience of my life."

        He added that anyone who isn't severely impaired emotionally or
        mentally could benefit from the [program].

        At Territorial, AVP trainer Gerald Utesch, a 48-year-old former
        Aurora policeman convicted of attempted and aggravated assault,
        said violence is rooted in fear--"physical fear and fear of
        communicating our feelings."

        His fellow trainer, 40-year-old Vernon Marshall, doing time on a
        murder conviction, agreed.

        "You learn to get past your fear," Marshall said.  "You learn to
        trust.  You learn to really listen.  You learn to treat yourself
        with respect, and you learn that each individual has meaning and
        dignity in living."

        All the trainers said they aren't involved with AVP to improve
        their chances of being granted parole.

        As Marshall put it, "I don't care what the parole board thinks of
        the program.  I'm doing this for me."

    Sonia Johnson talks about violence and alternatives is one of her books
    (Coming to Power I think) and wrote the following, which I have posted
    on my cube wall:
    
    Violence cannot solve problems
    
    Cooperation is more supportive and life-enhancing than competition
    
    Life, including the quality of life of all living things, is the
    foremost consideration in making decisions
    
    I read those words everyday, I teach them to my daughter, and I share
    them with co-workers and others I meet everyday, I practice these
    tenets everyday.    Could they possibly help others?
    
    Sue
    

    That quote comes directly from the May 28, 1990 issue of "Newsweek".
    You will find it in the cover article, on page 82, at the end of
    the paragraph in the third column.

    Now, I could ask why anyone would spend their time attacking women
    in Womannotes, a non-public notefile, when the same charge is
    being disseminated via a national magazine.  I could remark upon
    the <mumble> level of someone who replaces the word women with
    people and claims to be making a mere "ninety degree" translation
    from women:men to black:white -- oops! to white:black.

    Nevertheless, I won't.

    I'll quote from the passage in "Newsweek" at length (This is a
    courtesy that has not always been granted to me.):

    	Perhaps the time has finally come for a new agenda.
    	Women, after all, are not a big problem.  Our society
    	does not suffer from burdensome amounts of empathy
    	and altruism, or a plague of nurturance.  The problem
    	is men -- or more accurately, maleness.

    	"There's one set of sex differences that's ineluctable,
    	and that's the death statistics," says Gleason [of
    	Boston University].  "Men are killing themselves doing
    	all the things that our society wants them to do.  At
    	every age they're dying in accidents, they're being
    	shot, they drive cars badly, they ride the tops of
    	elevators, they're two-fisted hard drinkers.  And
    	violence against women is incredibly pervasive.  Maybe
    	it's men's raging hormones, but I think it's because
    	they're trying to be a *man*.  If I were the mother
    	of a boy, I would be very concerned about societal
    	pressures that idolize behaviors like that."

    (As an aside, I'd like to point out that Gleason speaks of the "MOTHER
    of a boy", not the "PARENT of a boy" as the person who should be
    concerned.)

    So.  Let's see if "the problem is men" is somehow being unfair to
    non-violent men.

    Once again, I shall refer to Pareto's Rule. (For you readers who
    have forgotten, it is `Twenty percent of your <population> causes
    eighty percent of your <effect>.'  It means that 20% of your
    customers buy 80% of your goods; 20% of your products cause 80%
    of your complaints; things like that.)  So, 80% of male violence
    is caused by 20% of the male population.

    Does that mean that 80% of the male population are (is?) instantly
    off the hook, with an apology?  No.  Our society is a meshwork of
    interrelations, which is why we can't just chop out 20% of the
    male nodes and say, That's that!  Our violence comes out of our
    society, our male-dominated society -- but that's not my point.

    Women are taught, from the time they are babies, how to please men
    and other people, and how to diffuse the anger of men and other
    people.  Every abused woman can give a list as long as your arm
    of techniques, behaviors, and patterns that she learned that would
    -- sometimes -- keep her or her children from being hurt.  Every
    woman knows how important it is to smile at men (c.f. Human_Relations
    1050), to cheer them up, to make their paths smoother.  (Reader,
    I can recommend _Reflecting_Men_ by Sally Cline and Dale Spender
    if you'd like to learn more about this.)

    Men are not taught these things.  They don't learn how to defuse
    anger and violence.  So, the 80% of men are not doing their part
    to solve the problem of the 20%.  Not only are they not part of the
    solution, they are still part of the problem!  Consider:  Even if
    20% of the men commit 80% of the male violence, the remaining
    80% are still committing 20% -- which is greater than zero (and is
    also greater than the level of female violence).  So, even if we
    eliminate (such a neutral word) the most violent 20%, this still
    leaves us with a lot of violence, and we'd have to eliminate the
    next most violent 20%, and so on, until the level of male violence
    dropped to match the level of female violence.  (The latter would
    be a (slowly) moving target; as male violence decreased, reciprocal
    (Note important, sub-setting adjective.) female violence would
    decrease as well.)

    Now, dismissing the non-violent men by saying that they are not doing
    "their part" in solving the problem is being glib.  Some are working
    on it, and some of them are working very hard at it.  But (here's
    the really sneaky part) each and every one of them can be claimed
    to be working less hard than he *could* be.  It's an easy charge.
    The charge is just as legitimate as spending hundreds of lines
    complaining that women (and not even "some" women) did not put
    "some" in front of Every. Single. Uncomplimentary. Reference. To.
    Men. in an entry.

    						Ann B.

    Not sure if I should enter this brouhaha but here goes...
    
    
    I just finished a course on media's depiction of the Vietnam War.
    
    We began with the Green Berets, continued with Full Metal Jacket,
    Platoon, Casualties of War, Deer Hunter, Jacknife, and more.
    In *every* movie, the message was not "anti-war" but it was
    "to be a man, you must be willing to risk your life," "to be a man
    you must be willing to kill."   And the most horrifying aspect
    of these "war" movies is that the enemy was not the VC, or the NVA,
    in many of the movies the enemy is the *woman*.  In particular,
    Full Metal Jacket begins and ends stressing hate, hatred or the
    "other", and especially, the woman.  Biggest insult of all is
    to be told that "you act/shoot like a girl."  This is not entirely
    fiction of course since the military uses techniques like this to
    create their "killing machines."  The horror is, how does the "killing
    machine" turn himself off, after the war?  Other horrific messages in
    these movies are such as the soldier (boy) has no responsibility for
    his actions; you see, he is just so frustrated by the war, he can't
    help but go out and burn a village or rape a woman.  In Casualties
    of War, a woman is raped and killed basically because the sergeant
    wasn't allowed to go into the village that night to use a whore.
    
    OK, so these are "just movies."  But what are the producers of these
    movies telling us? And  what about the audience?  I am a middleaged
    woman with the benefit of a class to help me analyze the hate and
    misogyny in these movies, but what about the 13 year old boy who
    rents this stuff to watch at home after school?  In my class, even
    the 20 year old girls did not catch the violence towards the woman
    until it was pointed out to them, and then, they were appalled for
    missing it in the first place.  It's just so commonplace to see
    rape/murder of women, that we barely blink anymore watching it.
    
    Sigh.
    Maia
    

	MACHO STEREOTYPES LINKED TO SEX ABUSE RATE
		Boston Globe, August 15, 1990


Until Americans recognize that rape and other forms of sexual aggression 
are linked to pervasive stereotypes about sex and masculinity in US 
society, the nation will not be able to curb sexual violence, several 
researchers said at a meeting yesterday in Boston.

At present, most men consider themselves very different from those who rape 
women and children or sexually exploit them in therapy, researchers said. 
For example, many male mental health professionals prefer to see the 
problem of sexually abusive therapists as a "pathology" afflicting only a 
"few bad apples who need to be drummed out of the profession."

"What they need to understand is that this is a male problem," said Gary 
Brooks, a psychologist at the O.E. Teague Veterans Administration Medical 
Center in Temple, Texas. "Therapists who abuse their clients are 
unacceptable endpoints on a psychological spectrum on which all male 
therapists have a place."

Brooks and other researchers, speaking at the annual meeting of the 
American Psychological Association, blamed traditional stereotypes about 
appropriate male behavior for the unacceptably high levels of sexual 
aggression in American society. According to current estimates, one in 
every five women and one in every six men will be sexually abused at some 
point in their lives, from childhood on.

The researchers said that powerfully ingrained stereotypes may be one 
reason why. Boys are taught from an early age that it is manly to want and 
demand sex, for example -- that the more sex a man has the better, and that 
pornography and fantasies about raping women are harmless.

Males also learn to think about sex in recreational or violent terms, the 
researchers said. Some of the language commonly used by adolescents and 
young men about sex reinforces the idea that sex is a violent activity, 
devoid of mutual intimacy, they said.

"Sexual violence is embedded in our language and our culture," said Joseph 
Weinberg, an educational consultant for the Wisconsin Institute for 
Psychotherapy in Madison, Wis., who works with a group known as Men Stopping 
Rape. "When we break rape into its component pieces, we have to see it is a 
part of normal male behavior," he said.

Weinberg said he is often asked to counsel fraternities, athletic teams and 
other all-male groups that foster admiration for macho behavior. Research 
shows that members of these groups are more likely to engage in 
inappropriate sexual aggression.

"At some point in my sessions with these groups, someone will say, 'It's 
the language we use that causes rape,' and they're right," Weinberg said.

At the same time, men are taught that they are not supposed to express 
their feelings or show emotions, he said. "Normal men are perceived as 
tough, strong, alone and carved in rock," Weinberg said.

"The only two sanctioned emotional outlets for men are anger, which is 
often expressed through organized sports, or sex," said Don-David 
Lusterman, a psychologist from Baldwin, New York, who studies problems of 
male infidelity. "Many men have difficulty relating interpersonally without 
the sexual experience; just touching or crying is simply forbidden."

As a result, researchers said, many men feel they are entitled to sex. 
Recent research found that men who are particularly likely to engage in 
infidelity or sexual abuse are those who cannot openly express their 
emotions to their wives or primary partners and who therefore try to 
satisfy their repressed emotional needs through forbidden sexual 
encounters.

Lusterman cited the case of a New York City police officer who felt he 
needed to protect his wife from the "crap and filth of his job" and as a 
result never confided to her about the demands of the job. He did, however, 
feel comfortable confiding in a succession of mistresses and could not 
understand why his wife eventually left him.

Other men use sex to gain power and control over women, researchers said. 
In a recent study of psychotherapists who sexually abuse their patients, 
researchers concluded that these men were acting out of a desire for power 
of out of deep, underlying anger and sadism.

          In the September, 1990, issue of MS magazine "International News"
          section:

          "Between March and June of 1989, approximately 120 women were
          raped by narcotics police -- who were reportedly under the
          influence of drugs and alcohol.  Only 4 men have been arrested. A
          leader of the special narcotics unit, Fausto Valverde Salinas,
          has been promoted by the government to the post of the Attorney
          General's envoy to the United States."

          In Kuwait, it has been reported (by CBS?) that Iraqi soldiers are
          raping Kuwaiti women.  (anyone surprised?)

          Does anyone know what is the status of the police chief in W.
          Massachusetts that was accused of raping a girl?  (I have heard
          that the town has rallied around the chief, but that's it.)

          Oh, and when my parents were visiting, I learned from my Dad that
          my Mom's father broke her collarbone when he hit her with a
          hammer.

                                                       nancy b.

    Taken, without permission, from "Inside Worcester," Oct., 1990:
    
    
                              Numerically Speaking
    
    Sexual assaults reported to rape crisis centers in Massachusetts during
    1985-87: 7,253
    
    Rank of Boston/number of sexual assaults reported: 1/1,517
    
    Worcester: 2/936
    
    Amherst: 3/771
    
    Percent of attackers that were spouses or partners: 9
    
    That were relatives: 28
    
    Friends or acquaintances: 33
    
    Percent of victims that were female: 94
    
    That were male: 6
    
    Percent of sexual assaults that involved weapons: 14
    
    That occurred in the victim's home: 48
    
    Percent of victims who planned to prosecute their attackers: 28
    
    In Massachusetts, the average sentence for rape of an adult: 5 years.
    
    For rape of a child: 2 years.
    
    
    Source: Shattering the Myths: Sexual Assault in Massachusetts 1985-87,
    Massachusetts Department of Public Health
                    

     re: .164 (Karen Godin)   -< Statistics offered without comment >-

     Thanks for entering that Karen!


     I have some strong criticisms about the way the information was
     presented and grouped in the report referred to in -(.1).

     Red flag #1 - grouping the terms "friends or acquaintances" in the same
                   category.

     >  Friends or acquaintances: 33
                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     The term "acquaintances" can be a _very_ misleading term, especially in
     the way it is written above when it appears almost synonymous with
     "friends".   Through the eyes of the "law", an acquaintance can be
     someone you have merely _seen_ before, spent time standing next to on
     the bus before, the pharmacologist that has filled your prescriptions
     before, etc...

     The word "acquaintance" is undoubtedly one of the worst enemies of a
     rape victim seeking a guilty verdict, because the word plants the seeds
     of doubt into a jurors' mind if what happened can be called "rape".

     The typically juror's thought pattern is probably something like, [so he
     was her acquaintance...so this was probably something like "acquaintance
     rape"..."acquaintance rape", "date rape",... same thing... yea, this
     could have been just "bad sex"... besides, the guy sitting over there
     doesn't look like he would harm anybody... real rapists are psychos...]

     Defense attorney's know this, and go out of their way to prove a
     "relationship" existed prior to the attack.  As I've said before, the
     single biggest factor in determining conviction rates is
     _whether_or_not_ there was a prior relationship between the accused and
     the victim -- NOT the level of violence or how badly the woman was
     injured, NOT the evidence of force used, etc..


     So...

     >  Percent of attackers that were spouses or partners: 9
     >  That were relatives: 28
     >  Friends or acquaintances: 33

     Looking at the numbers some more...

     % attackers who were "intimates" = (%spouse or partner) + (%relatives)
                                      = 37%

     % attackers who were "friends"   = ?? 33/2 or 33/3  (conservative est.)
                                      = 11 - 16%

     % attackers who were effectively "strangers"  =  47% - 52%


     Or roughly half the attackers were probably "strangers".


     Red Flag #2:

     I wonder why they (the authors, the Massachusetts Dept of Public Health,
     _a_state_agency_) did not anywhere explicitly state the percentage of
     attackers who were _strangers_ to the victim.

     Because they were trying to emphasize the percentage that were not?
     Because attack by an essential stranger is a much more scary concept for
     the average woman?   Because they want us to believe that the state is
     effective at keeping the dangerous criminals off the streets?  Because
     they want us to believe our greatest threats are within our influences,
     our domains?

     I reject that as being true for myself, and I reject that as being true
     for _most_ women I know well.  The women I'm referring to are those who
     have carefully chosen their partners, carefully chosen and evaluated
     their (male) friends, and do not live with the threat that these men in
     their lives will rape them.  For them (us), the greatest threat is
     indeed the hardened criminals they are letting out of Dedham (for
     example), and all the repeat offenders that revolve through the Criminal
     Injustice system.

     Just ask the elderly woman in Framingham who was found raped last week
     in her apartment.


     >    1985-87       : 7,253
     >    Boston/number : 1/1,517
     >    Worcester     : 2/936
     >    Amherst       : 3/771

     These numbers seems (very) high to me, probably because I'm thinking of
     the number of cases that get reported to _police_, not rape crisis
     centers.

     I'm trying to visualize the size of 900 people...  Does anybody know how
     many people work at the Mill in Maynard?  In Building 5?


     >   Percent of sexual assaults that involved weapons: 14

     Exactly what the statistic is nationally...


     >    Percent of victims who planned to prosecute their attackers: 28

     How refreshing.

     >    In Massachusetts, the average sentence for rape of an adult: 5
     >    years.

     That's the average _sentence_ ?   How 'bout the average _time served_ of
     these 28% that are taken court _and_then_convicted_.   (they didn't say
     the % convictions)

     > , from "Inside Worcester," Oct., 1990:

     What is "Inside Worcester" ?  (a magazine?)

     Where could it be purchased?  (could you give me the name of a bookstore
     and rough directions?  My map drops off where Worcester begins, none of
     the gas stations or Cumberland Farms I stop at EVER have street maps of
     their own town, so finding anything there ends up being a frustrating
     experience.)

     Thanks again for entering that, Karen.
                                                        nancy b.


    re. 28 % that *plan* to prosecute - how many actually *do* ?
    How many get scared, talked out of it, intimidated by the trial
    process, etc... What percent actually follow through to the
    point where the verdict is rendered ? And *then* what percent
    is convicted to that average 5-year stay ? And only then does
    the actual-time-served even become an issue! (Rathole - a friend
    of mine was sentenced to a six-to-ten for drug dealing. He has
    been told that he will probably be paroled after doing 2.5 (!!)
    years, or 25% of the sentence.) 
    
    Look at it this way - if 100 rapes result in three convictions,
    and actual time served is three years, the average penalty for
    _all_ rapes is 9x52 or 468 weeks/100 rapes or just over  *one month 
    per rape*. Is it any wonder that there is *no deterrent* in effect
    from the _justice system_ ?
    
    I understand that our justice system is meant to protect those
    falsely accused, but it doesn't do much for the victims (or
    for society.)
    

    Earlier this year, one of our local news stations did a study on
    the prosecution of rape in Suffolk County (that's Boston, mostly).
    Of the 49 rape cases that went into or were going through prosecution
    at that time (I'm unclear about that), 48 went before the Grand
    Jury.  This means that 48 of 49 women went through police
    interrogation, Grand Jury interrogation, and a probable cause hearing
    interrogation, even before their cases could come to trial.  (The
    news team made the point that the Grand Jury does *not* have to be
    involved in rape cases, but that it adds another step of harassment
    for the victim.)
    
    Not all those cases went to trial.  One woman was murdered the day
    before the trial of her rapist was to begin.  (Now, there's a 2% for
    you.)
    
    Of course, many of the women had received threatening phone calls,
    and other attempts to keep them from testifying.  (I hope no one
    is surprised; my friend Mary was threatened repeatedly because she
    was going to testify against a man in a fender-bender traffic
    accident.)
    
    						Ann B.

          From an article in Thursday, Nov. 15, Boston Glob:

          " Prosecutor:  Rape victims identified man"

          Five women, one of them several months pregnant, who were raped
          at knifepoint in their Mattapan Homes in 1988 have indentified
          Joseph L. Powell Jr. as their attacker, a prosecutor told a jury
          yesterday.  [...]
          Powell is also charged in the rape of four other women in the
          same area in 1988, and is expected to [be] tried on those
          indictments later. [...]
          The rapist in most instances climbed in through a balcony door
          that was left partially ajar while the women slept, and
          disconnected the telephone, said Shea.  The women would awaken to
          find the rapist straddling them or standing in their bedroom wtih
          a knife, the prosecutor added. [...]

          Powell was arrested at his job at Digital Equipment Corporation
          eight days after the last rape.

    AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
    
    D!

    
    
    	I heard about this this morning but it was not
    	mentioned that the slime worked for DEC!!!
    
    
    	fumefumefumefumefume!!!
    
    	In the other file I saw this story in, it was said the
    	guy got 150 years for each guilty sentence (5) and would
    	not be eligible for parole for 98 years.
    
    	JJ
    

    *I* was taught that consecutive life sentences, or consecutive
    99-year sentences, or whatever were generally construed as a life
    sentence.  A life sentence is considered to be a forty-five year
    sentence.  In most states, one is eligible for parole after serving
    one-third of the sentence.
    
    Therefore, this 750 year sentence may be, um, completed in 15 years.
    
    						Ann B.

>         <<< Note 78.171 by REGENT::BROOMHEAD "Don't panic -- yet." >>>
>                                -< Ho, ho, ho. >-

>    *I* was taught that consecutive life sentences, or consecutive
>    99-year sentences, or whatever were generally construed as a life
>    sentence.  A life sentence is considered to be a forty-five year
>    sentence.  In most states, one is eligible for parole after serving
>    one-third of the sentence.
    

SORRY!

  What you are referring to is CONCURRENT sentences where one year served 
will equal one year from *EACH* of the x sentences.

Consecutive means one after the other. a 99 year sentence is *NOT* life
there is a dif. one third of 99 is 33. one third of life is 15 plus/minus
after the first 33 years the person will get a parole hearing, if granted 
he is then "free" of that sentance(except for the weekly checkins ) and
*STARTS* sentence #2. 

In the state of Maine where crime-rates are considerably less per capita
it was common for serious crimes to be sentenced consecutively, men serving
400 years were not un-known. the idea was to cut down the repeat offenders
seemed to work :-}
Amos

    Umm, a slight correction here...
    
    I believe that he received 5 *concurrent* 150 year sentences, with the
    1.5 years he's been in jail so far counted against that time.  If the
    sentence stands (it is being appealed), and if he is eligible for
    parole only after roughly 1/3 of the sentence is served, then he won't
    be out for 50 years...
    

    No, I meant what I wrote.  It may not be true in your state,
    but *in many states* a life sentence is considered to be for
    forty-five years.  A sentence of 99 years or more is considered
    to be a life sentence .AND. a life sentence is considered to be
    for forty-five years.  Yes, this means 99 = 45.  No, this does
    not make sense in the conventional meaning of the term.  Yes, this
    is silly.  No, I am not making it up.  Yes, it may have changed
    since I went to school.  No, I would not expect it to have changed
    in 100% of the states that used to figure sentences this way.
    
    						Ann B.

    I don't know how much of an impact it will have on the time he actually
    serves, but the judge in the case explained that his intent in setting
    the sentence the way he did (whatever way that was) was that the 
    condemned would never walk free again.  As quoted in the Boston Globe,
    the judge sounded fairly certain he'd achieved that objective.
    
    Karen

    Ann,
    
    Not to debate the reality of what you've experienced, I think 
    the others were only trying to make a distinction between 
    concurrent and consecutive.  In the law, consecutive means 
    one sentence served, then the other.  Concurrent means you
    can be serving the same time for multiple convictions.  Now
    the reality of sentencing is more along the lines of what 
    you are talking about.  IMO, the whole thing is a joke and
    the entire CJ system needs a good overhaul, because it's not
    working well in it's present state.
    
    

    Christine,
    
    I'm sorry.  I thought everyone understood that distinction
    (between concurrent and consecutive) so I just skipped past
    it, and discussed the problem of legal `arithmatic' for values
    greater than 45 years.  :-(
    
    						Ann B.

    This is extracted from "Time" for December 3, 1990, page 57.
    
    "... police arrested eight young gang members for the slaying of
    Kimberly Rae Harbour, 26, who had been raped, beaten and stabbed
    more than 100 times."
    
    "... the murder had been commited a month ago during a Halloween
    wilding spree but had been hushed up by police."
    
    "What they failed to note was that this crime was not about race
    but about gender.  Before their rampage, the suspects, who were
    black and Hispanic, allegedly declared that they planned to ``go
    rob females.''"
    
    Now, what were those arguments again about how it's just ignorance,
    or stupidity, or habit, and not a hate of women that leads men to
    commit crimes against women?  Oh, yeah, and that claim that misogyny
    is an overblown, overused term?
    
    						Ann B.

    Ann B., the confused emotional response that I struggle with to your
            reply above is that, accepting that misogyny, violence against
    women, linguistic presumptions of women as chattel..., I still respond
    emotionally to a statement that men are violent/misogynist as though
    the statement was "You, John, are...".
    
    This manifests itself in my life as an uneasiness in relationships in
    general, so I guess it's not just that sort of statement.  Don't
    touch/hug a woman because it might be percieved as assault, don't
    touch/hug a male because of all the homophobic training we get...
    
    Just terrified of that boundary at which one is seen as the beast. 
    Prob'ly means that I see (recognize?) myself as the beast...
    
    My best friend at this point in time is a gay woman who I think tends
    to be oriented rather strongly towards the males-as-dangerous-animals
    viewpoint; I note that we have a touching taboo.  We have never
    discussed it in words...
    
    J

    Yes, John, I understand it can be hard for thee.  I sometimes have
    similar difficulties with "Women are ..." statements that aren't
    true for me.
    
    Oh, there's a soap box!  Excuse me.  (Bang, scrape, thump, tromp,
    tromp.)  Male violence is a problem for men as well as for women.
    It is most likely to affect them by giving them negative feelings
    like that pit-of-the-stomach feeling indicated in .179 or feelings
    of fear when they are out -- alone -- at night -- in a strange place.
    It can also affect them by literally hitting them over the head.
    
    To the extent that any individual is a decent human being, the
    violence mentioned in 78.178 is an affront and shock to that person's
    sensibilities.
    
    I'll put this away now.  (Scrape, scrape, thump.)
    
    						Ann B.
    
    P.S.  You may hit KP7 or the Select key to add Version 2 of this
    conference, so you can read note 996.* and judge it for yourself.
    Warning: Note 996.* wouuld be over 1200 blocks if you extracted it.

    Well, of course, a woman is capable of being a misogynist.
    Maia
    

    
    I agree, Maia.
    
    I think that misogyny is a part of our culture, and women learn the
    same messages as men.  I think many women's low self esteem, for
    example, stems from misogyny.
    
    Justine

    Thanks, Ann.

    Well, when I was a boy growing up in the city of Boston, the targets
    were 'fags', and 'drunks' and the ostensive goal was to 'roll' them
    -rob them of their money.
    "Lets go roll us a coupla drunks"
    Were these kids homophobes and alchophobes?
    They may have been, but I don't think that was their motivation. I
    think these kids wanted money, and probably even more important wanted to
    inflict violence, and felt that these two categories of people were the
    'easiest marks'. Stomping the face of a gay man in the Fens or a wino
    behind the Boston Arena,  was a very safe activity in the 40's and
    50's.
    Its remarkable how quickly it is that urban kids learn what categories
    of people are 'outside the law' in the sense that they 'don't exist'
    "Whose gonna botherus if we roll a coupla queahs"
    Oh, I do only remember ONE person being killed by this kind of a gang
    attack and that person was a white, male, heterosexual sadistic cop who
    delighted in beating up young men (who may nevertheless have deserved
    it)
    Wouldn't surprise me that many of these boys -those who survived and
    many didn't- as adults abuse their wives. But the issue isn't misogyny

    Re: .182  women misogynists
    
    I agree too.  My mother is one.  But how could she be any different?
    Her father wrote the book on misogyny.
    
    Mary

    
    Where does misogyny come from in the first place, does anyone know?
    
    Maybe this is a separate topic..
    
    Dorian
    

    re .185, Nichols
    
    I spent high school and a couple years after that in Ridgewood, New
    Jersey.  I had one friend who was one of the jock/cheerleader
    peripherals who spoke of going into New York City to attack gay [men?].
    
    The goal was to be violent, not to get money.  The person is probably
    now a pudgy grey fellow in a business suit who watches football...
    
    If I review what my friends and I were doing in, let's say the years of
    high school and the two subsequent years between that and the Army
    (1961-1968), I'm scared by the picture.
    
    Date rape was a norm, as was random property destruction, driving while
    impaired, and perpetuation of myths about evil others (gay, female,
    black, kids from other towns, hoods vs. jock/cheerleaders vs. beats vs.
    nerds, you pick it).
    
    I don't think that I could tease out a specific thread of hate from
    threads of either mindlessness, or was it Zen just doing, in this
    period.  Certainly some hated, and taught others to hate, and all were, 
    of course, enmeshed in a language/culture gestalt that contains
    destructive constructs:
    
    men are leaders/women are fat/black is bad/Jew bastard/papist/kill a
    commie for Christ/use violence to resolve conflict/she(he) asked for
    it/dumb bitch/she's a whore/slopes/dagos...
    
    Some of the most intense discussion in this conference seems to get
    focused on word definitions and historical discussions, "i said, and x 
    didn't listen, and Y misunderstood, and you insulted me," and in these
    discussions, the thread of physical reality, inasmuch as it's knowable,
    gets lost.
    
    There's some real work I'd like to do.  OK, so when I was a young,
    dangerous ignorant assaultive asshole male, my friends and I did things
    that make me want to puke.  What can I do today, and tomorrow, so a
    sixteen or a nineteen year old, or a "mature" adult who's head is still
    stuck in that wilding mode, will learn faster than I did?  
    
    That'd help, in my viewpoint, much more than endless wordplay and
    family court proceedings with personnel.
    
    Woof.  I didn't even know that was in me.
    
    J

    <...The person is probably now a pudgy grey fellow in a business suit
    who watches football...>
    
    And beats his wife and kids, perhaps. 
    
    
    <...What can I do today, and tomorrow, so a sixteen or a nineteen year
    <old, or a "mature" adult who's head is still stuck in that wilding
    <mode, will learn faster than I did?  
    
    In my opinion, by 16 or 19, it is typically too late. If, indeed you
    were one of the 16-19 yr old 'abusers'(wasn't QUITE clear to me).  I'm
    very glad something happened to transform you.  
    
    I think it's very likely that men who abuse women were probably abused
    as children by their father and maybe even their mother.
    
    I think the issue is a pecking order kind of issue. Abusers used to be
    abusees, indeed often still are, or at least feel as though they are
    abusees. One  get abused by 'higher order' people, one abuses 'lower
    order' people, where order is unfortunately determined by strength.
    (or, in some people, intellectual prowess, cuz there is more than one
    kind of abuse)
    
    I think that most abusers pick their targets NOT because of an
    adversion to their target but much more because of their 'need' to
    abuse
    
    Wish I could be more sanguine
    
    				herb

Re: .187

> Where does misogyny come from in the first place, does anyone know?

Fear of "other"?

	-- Charles

    
    And very often that which is feared, is also hated.
    
    CQ

    and often it is the hatred that is the result of the fear, so
    which does one deal with first?
    
    BJ

    
    
    	I heard on the radio that twice as many wmn in Boston 
    	have been hospitalized following sexual assault in 1990
    	as up to the same period in 1989.  
    
    	I read in the paper that a serial rapist (with a history of
    	sexual offenses) is loose in Lawrence, MA, and it only
    	took the police there 3 months to figure this out after
    	?4? rapes with a similar MO.
    
    	I see on CNN a special segment about the Kimberly Rae Harbour
    	rape/beating/murder in Dorchester where they reported that gang
    	violence is increasingly turning against wmn.
    
    

    In Lawrence they have one detective who is trained to investigate
    both juvenile and adult rape.  For some reason (alledgedly political),
    the detective was reassigned to traffic in the middle of the serial rape
    investigation, and the cases were given to several other officers.
    It is conceded that this slowed down the investigation substantially,
    but that reassigning the officer was not improper because everybody
    does more than one job, and it was time to do another job.  The delay
    probably gave the suspect time to flee.
    
    Even after they determined that they were after a serial rapist, the
    department delayed announcement for another couple of months until
    *after* they put out a search warrant for his arrest.  Now all they
    have to do is find him.
    
    
    And, looking back at what happened in Mattapan with Powell, it seems
    all too similar.  From April to September 1988, Powell was raping
    women along Cummins Parkway (about a half mile long).  For several
    months, the police knew there was a serial rapist.  But not until
    they arrested Powell did they make an announcement to the community.
    
    Yes, they made the arrest.  Yes, they got the conviction.  Yes, they
    got a harsh sentence.  Couldn't they have achieved the same results
    while releasing information *early* to the community?
    
    								-mr. bill

    This is not to defend the Lawrence PD, but sometimes, if they
    announce a serial rapist, the department is flooded with all
    kinds of calls with "leads".  Time and manpower has to be 
    spent following everyone of the leads, and for some reason, 
    when such a case gets that type of coverage, many of the leads
    are false.  Perahps it was easier for the PD to keep the details
    to themselves to better facilitate their investigation.  They
    do have the responsibility of warning the public that the rapes
    are occuring, tho.  Just my opinion

    re Lawrence
    
    All of the rapist's victims were Hispanic.  Read an article in last
    Sunday's "Globe" that said that area shelters and other support
    networks were working with the Hispanic community on this one.
    
    Haven't seen any updates yet
    
    
    Judi
    

There is another problem with annoucing serial crimes - if not enough 
information is given out, false information could be generated, but more
damaging, if too much information is given out you could have two events 
occuring:

Copy cat crimes - one or more addition persons start to perform the same crime
     with similar methods of operation, obscuring facts, and making it harder to
     catch and convict all responsible. (catch the right offender, but in 
     relation to the wrong crime, the offender walks...)

The original offender buys a clue and chills out for a while or leaves the area
and starts up elsewhere.

grins,

clark.

    Good point, Clark.  I believe problems just as you described
    arose in the Hillside Strangler murders in Calif. etc.

    re 78.187ff
    <where does misogyny come from in the first place?

    <and often it is the hatred that is the result of the fear, so
    which does one deal with first?

    <which (hate or fear) does one deal with first?

    In my opinion, neither hate nor fear should be addressed first.
    I think it is an oversimplification to describe male abuse of women in
    terms of either hate or fear.

    People who abuse others are bullies (and -typically- cowards). It would
    be much more productive -I believe- to understand the factors that
    might contribute to being a bully. 

    A very important factor it seems to me, is a diminished sense of
    self-esteem.
    This diminished sense of self-esteem is often a result of abuse (physical
    verbal, emotional etc) (as well as other things, perhaps).

    I would guess that physical abuse is more apt to come from one's
    father.
    I would guess that verbal abuse is more apt to come from one's mother.

    It is a serious mistake to think that emotional abuse of all kinds
    including verbal abuse is not a significant contributor to diminished
    sense of self-esteem.

    So perhaps the answer to the question ...

    "What causes misogyny?" is
    Child abuse!
    
    see also 28.* 
    and 574.*
    
    Another way of asking the question might be 
    What is the best training for developing people who violate the
    boundaries of others?

    The answer:
    A childhood of boundary violation.

    re the serial rapist
    
    the most horrifying line i read in the globe's coverage was from a
    local cop defending why they didn't figure out earlier that it was a
    serial rapist:
    
    "we had 17 rapes that week [...]"
    
    17?!?!?  that WEEK?!?!?  just in Lawrence?!?!?

    re .187, .200

    <Where does misogyny come from in the first place, does anyone know?

    I'm glad that I considered your question to be a serious question. It
    gave me an opportunity to think about and to articulate something that
    has been in the back of my mind for a while.

    Nevertheless, judging by the lack of response I have concluded that it
    was a mistake for me to think that you were looking for a serious
    answer. 

    Or perhaps you were looking for a 'Politically Correct' answer?

    				herb

    
    RE: .202  Herb Nichols
    
    > Nevertheless, judging by the lack of response I have concluded that it
    > was a mistake for me to think that you were looking for a serious
    > answer. 
    
    Some judgment there, Herb.
    
    If I ever ask a question, please refrain from responding.  I'd hate
    to accidently miss acknowledging it and end up getting boiled in
    oil for it later.
    

    FYI:  If no readers respond to a reply that you've written, it may be
    because 
    
      - They agree, and realize that "Me too!" replies are noise
    
      - They don't disagree enough to go through all the hassle of writing a
    reply
    
      - They didn't read the reply
    
      - They're thinking about something else (like work)
    
    If lack of notes response is a sign of hostility, I for one am in BIG
    trouble.  Personally, I tend to worry instead about those replies of
    mine which garner too MANY responses....
    
    Ray

    sorry, I don't have enough self-confidence to do that reliably
    

    Try reading that title "Does ONE have to start a fight...", herb.
    
    Ray

re .-1
    
    I don't understand what you are trying to say

    Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to MAIL we go...
    
    (: >,)
    

	WASHINGTON (UPI) -- More women were raped in 1990 than any year in U.
S. history, exceeding 100,000 for the first time ever, a Senate report
released Thursday showed.
	``American women are in greater peril now from attack than they have
ever been in the history of our nation,'' Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.,
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said of the report issued by
the committee's Democrats.
	The report found that there were 94,504 rapes known to police in 1989
-- or 10 rapes every hour -- setting a record. In 1990, police identified
100,433 rapes -- or nearly 300 every day -- shattering the previous
record.
	While the national rape rate broke a record, the report also said 29
states set records in 1990 for the number of reported rates.
	The five states suffering the greatest number of rapes in 1990 were
California (12,413), Texas (8,427), Michigan (6,938), Florida (6,874)
and New York (5,315).
	And globally, the United States appeared to be the worst place in
terms of rape, according to the report. Last year, American women were
eight times more likely to be raped than were European women. The 1990
U.S. rape rate was 20 times higher than in Portugal, 26 times higher
than in Japan, 15 times higher than in England, eight times higher than
in France, 23 times higher than in Italy and 46 times higher than in
Greece.
	All of the numbers presented in the report represented the number of
rapes reported to police. The report said as many as 2 million women are
raped each year if non-reported attacks are taken into account.
	In an attempt to remedy the problem, Biden has introduced the
Violence Against Women Act, which cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee
unanimously last year but never made it to the Senate floor.
	Under the bill, penalties for rape and aggravated rape cases
prosecuted in federal courts would be doubled from five years to 10
years in prison, new penalties for repeat sex offenders would be created
and restitution for victims of sex crimes would be required.
	Biden said under current sentencing guidelines, robbers, kidnappers
and many drug offenders currently receive stiffer sentences than
rapists.
	The bill also would define gender-motivated crimes as ``bias'' or 
``hate'' crimes, opening the door for victims of rape to bring civil
rights suits against their attackers.
	Both Democrat and Republican staffers on the committee indicated the
Justice Department may have concerns with this provision of the bill,
but no formal objection has been made yet.
	The bill also would require states to pay for women's medical
examinations to determine if they have been raped, authorize $300
million for beefed-up law enforcement efforts to combat sex crimes and
$100 million for the 40 metropolitan areas most dangerous to women.
	Further, the bill would create a $20 million grant program for the
neediest colleges to fund campus rape education and prevention programs.

--

********************************************************************************

Lance McNulty   		[email protected]
Digital Equipment Corp.         --or-- ...!decwrl!futura.dec.com!mcnulty
Marlboro, MA                	--or-- mcnulty%[email protected]

Humanity's challenge is to cease to be animals while avoiding becoming
machines. 

    re.209
    
    I would really like to think that the 'increased incidence' is an
    upswing in reporting; but somehow I doubt it.
    
    While I'm all in favour of increasing penalties [and making them
    stick]; my jaundiced view is that changing the law won't change minds.
    I fear that women who are raped will still have _extreme_ credibility
    problems with law enforcement and that convicted rapists will still be
    paroled early in order to make room for 'truly dangerous' crimininals
    in prisons.
    
      Annie

    The number of girls under 13 who were sexually molested/incested
    ('raped' if you will) is almost certainly at least 300,000. 



    				herb

    re .209, .210
    >convicted rapists will still be
    >paroled early in order to make room for 'truly dangerous' crimininals
    >in prisons.
    Then perhaps the penalties for rape should be similar to the penalties
    for homicide?  Hm, would that result in a decrease in the number of
    rapes, or just in the number of convictions...

    
    
    	Within the past 36 hours, a woman was raped in/near the 
    	Alewife T station.  (I know that some of us use the 
    	Alewife T as the northwest first connection into Beantown.)
    
    	Also in Cambridge a woman was stabbed near her home.
    

    Yeah, the woman stabbed in Cambridge was a professor at Harvard
    and the stabbing took place just a few blocks from my home. Scary!
    
    Mary

    The note on the rape frightened me because our 20yr old daughter will
    be using (or was to be using) the Alewife station in the evening this
    summer.
    There was a story in the Boston Globe Saturday morning that gives more
    precise information about this attack as well as some other incidents.
    
    In summary
    
    The woman was raped more than 1/2 mile from the station while walking
    in a wooded path.
    
    
    From the Globe pg 26...
    "On Thursday, an Arlington woman was raped in a wooded area on her way
    home from the Alewife MBTA station"
    			.
    			.
    			.
    " Mayor Alice Wolf and Breen said police will step up patrols in the
    affected ares, including the Alewife MBTA station, even though
    Thursday's rape took place more than a half mile from the station in
    Arlington"
    			.
    			.
    			.
    "The 25-year-old victim of that assault, raped and beaten at about 7:45p.m.
    on a footpath by Alewife Brook,"...

    Complete text of newspaper article follows...
    
    	Rash Of Attacks on Women prompts fear in Cambridge

    		Sarah Koch Boston Globe April 6, 1991

    	City officials, community activists and residents yesterday expressed
    horror at three violent attacks on women this week, including the stabbing
    death of a law school professor

    	"It means no part of the city is safe," said City Councilor Edward
    Cyr.  "This notion of random violence that we are seeing is a frightening
    turn of events in a city like Cambridge where we have historically felt
    secure in our homes and on our streets, and it calls for a public response. 
    We have to rethink the way we do policing so we get more police on the
    streets."

    	On Monday, a 25-year-old Linaean Street resident was raped in her home.
    On Thursday, an Arlington woman was raped in a wooded area on her way home
    from the Alewife MBTA station, and Mary Joe Frug, a 49-year-old professor
    at the New England School of Law, was stabbed to death as she walked to a
    store near her Cambridge home.


    	Nancy Ryan, director of the Cambridge Women's Commission, called for
    more active neighborhood crime watches and a citywide response to this
    week's assaults and to two other recent attacks.

    	In separate incidents, a woman was raped and robbed and another woman
    was robbed while they walked home from the Porter Square MBTA station last
    month, she said.  As of last night, both of these crimes and all three of
    this week's remained unsolved.  Cambridge police said yesterday that they
    saw no connection among the file crimes.

    			"Worried about the T"

    	"Now it's clear we need a citywide strategy," Ryan said.  "We dare
    obviously trying to figure out what this whole series of incidents mean.  I
    am particularly worried about the T.  A lot of women rely on the T to go to
    and come from work."

    	Police said that Cambridge's crime statistics are holding steady,
    compared with last year.  But acting Police Chief Henry Breen said that, in
    light of the recent rash of attacks, residents need to be aware that no
    neighborhood is immune to violent crime.  "Where the murder was ... is one
    of the quietest places in Cambridge.  This is a place where people walk and
    jog," he said.

    	"It can happen anywhere.  There are no barriers, no walls," said Lt.
    Harold Murphy.

    	Mayor Alice Wolf and Breen said police will step up patrols in the
    affected areas, including the Alewife MBTA station, even though Thursday's
    rape took place more than a half mile from the station in Arlington.

    	The 25-year-old victim of that assault, raped and beaten at about 7:45
    p.m. on a footpath by Alewife Brook was take to Choate-Symmes Hospital in
    Arlington Thursday night and released yesterday morning.  Police have a
    description on an assailant but yesterday had no suspect.

    		Different jurisdictions

    	The Alewife Station, on the Arlington-Cambride border, is patrolled by
    Cambridge and Arlington police as well as by Massachusetts Bay
    Transportation Authority and Metropolitan police.  In January and February,
    there were two stabbings on the Cambridge side of the station, police said.

    	Since then, Cambridge police, who now patrol the area in cars and on
    foot about a dozen times a night, have established a task force with MDC
    and MBTA officials to increase surveillance and better coordinate patrols. 
    Cambridge City Manager Robert Healy said yesterday that Arlington police
    would be asked to join that effort in light of Thursday's rape.

    	Captain Eugene Delbaizo of the Arlington police said that, while
    Arlington police patrol the area of the rape, it is officially under
    Metropolitan Police jurisdiction.

    	Though officials from all the police departments patrolling the area
    said yesterday that they work will together, Cambridge resident and
    Planning Board member Carolyn Mieth said the jurisdictional overlap has
    left residents unsure about whom to call if they witness a problem.

    	"There has been a long standing turf issue with the MBTA, the MDC and
    the Cambridge police because of jurisdictional questions," she said.  "The
    average person doesn't know where the dividing line is".

    	Cambridge police Lt. Walter Boyle said people should simply "Dial
    911. .. If it's of an immediate nature, Cambridge will respond,"  If it is
    not an emergency, he said Cambridge police would notify the appropriate
    department.

    	Wolf said she is concerned about the recent rise of violence in the
    Alewife Station area and that she wants to make sure "there is no business
    of falling through the cracks between the T police and the Cambridge police
    and the Arlington police as well."

    	She said she will soon hold a public meeting to discuss the recent
    series of violent attacks on women and to determine the best response by
    the city and its residents.
    

    
    Alewife T station is NOT in a good section of town.
    
    And Porter Square is right on the Somerville/Cambridge line, and
    Somerville is bad news.  I used to date someone who lived in
    Somerville, there are a gazillion local bars there.  Remember, this was
    the "Get rid of Barneys" town.
    
    Lisa

    Never-the-less the footpath is used by alot of people.  It doesn't
    really go through the woods, it goes along the street but there
    is a portion where the footpath is hidden by the ramp of route 16
    merging with route 2, and there are some trees nearbye.  There is
    a bus that goes from Alewife to Mass Ave that would probably be
    safer in light of this attack.  I know I lost sleep over the attacks
    this week.
    	Linda

    <There is a bus that goes from Alewife to Mass Ave that would probably
    <be safer in light of this attack.  
    
    Particularly in the dark, as it was at 7:45 last Thursday.
    I wouldn't walk there.

    I feel sick.  Literally.
    
    D!
    

    If I had to be there, I'd sign up for Model Mugging. Immediately.
    
    

(I don't know if this has been discussed someplace else; mods please move 
if appropriate)


from an article "Misogyny in Media -- It's Killing Us, or, How Sonny Mehta 
Turned Knopf Books into Snuff Books," National NOW Times, March/April 1991


"Misogyny in media is now as American as apple pie. We cannot turn on the 
television, go to a film, read a book or even look up at a billboard 
without being assaulted by an image of a woman being raped, murdered, 
sexually battered, accosted, or brutalized in some violent, menacing way. 
Ranging from *Twin Peaks* and its misogynistic creator David Lynch to 
*American Psycho* and Knopf's president Sonny Mehta, we are now seeing more 
blatant and exploitive attacks on women in mainstream media than ever 
before.

"Publishers reject thousands of manuscripts every year, applying some kind 
of editorial judgment. We don't see a proliferation of pro-apartheid books 
or novels on the joys of child molestation because publishers know that it 
would be unacceptable. But when it comes to violence against women, there's 
an entirely different set of rules.

"Why is violence against women in media so acceptable? What made Knopf 
Books think that it's acceptable to publish a book like *American Psycho* 
that details the skinning alive of a woman, the graphic tortuous rapes and 
murders of women, their dismemberment and even a scene in which the hero 
inserts a rat in a woman's vagina and then describes the sounds she makes 
as it eats through her body? Why is a how-to novel on the torture and 
dismemberment of women being elevated into Americana?...

"In *American Psycho*, the tortured deaths of women are presented in a 
nonchalant, gratuitously violent fashion. Knopf has acted without regard 
for the social consequences in a society where violence against women is at 
epidemic proportions and when social scientists are seeing the direst 
connections between violence against women in media and increasing violence 
against women in the home and on the street.

"The true issue here is not the book. *American Psycho* and Ellis [its 
author] are only symptoms of a much larger problem. That larger problem is
the fact that the gatekeeper -- the publisher -- has chosen to exploit
the fear, suffering, and death women face in this country every day simply
to make a fast buck." 
    

                                                                              
    Thank you for entering the article - I have read many similar ones here
    in the UK.
    
"Misogyny in media is now as American as apple pie. We cannot turn on the 
television, go to a film, read a book or even look up at a billboard 
without being assaulted by an image of a woman being raped, murdered, 
sexually battered, accosted, or brutalized in some violent, menacing way. 
Ranging from *Twin Peaks* and its misogynistic creator David Lynch to 
*American Psycho* and Knopf's president Sonny Mehta, we are now seeing more 
blatant and exploitive attacks on women in mainstream media than ever 
before.
    
    I have had days when I just want to scream at someone to please give
    women a break from being continually abused by the media. Every film I
    have seen in the cinema recently involves some kind of violence against
    women portrayed graphically with no sensitivity - it just seems like a
    revelling in someone else's torment. The problem I have with the above
    paragraph is that some IMO worthy works like David Lynch's "Twin Peaks"
    do not glorify and titillate like some others. What I think is going on
    is a representation of life as it is; not how it should be. Women and
    men are victims of violence - in life and in "Twin Peaks". I don't
    think it is fair to label someone as a misogynist. I have never met
    David Lynch so I have no idea whether he is a misogynist or not. A
    person's creation does not necessarily reflect their own personality. 

"Publishers reject thousands of manuscripts every year, applying some kind 
of editorial judgment. We don't see a proliferation of pro-apartheid books 
or novels on the joys of child molestation because publishers know that it 
would be unacceptable. But when it comes to violence against women, there's 
an entirely different set of rules.
    
    This is an interesting point - especially in the context of a (British)
    TV programme about censorship I saw recently. A scene which had been
    cut from one of the Death Wish series of films was shown.  
    It was a vicious gang rape scene which was cut from the film version  
    shown in the UK although it is available on some video versions. 
    The scene was a graphic portrayal of the violation of every orifice of
    a woman's body by several men. The camera frequently showed the enjoyment 
    of the rapists on their faces. It seemed to go on interminably and it  
    made me weep. I also felt sick. People are watching this stuff and 
    getting off on it. 
    
    In an interview afterwards, the director of the film, a man called
    Michael Winner strongly argued against censorship. He stated that there
    were some obvious boundaries that should not be crossed - as an example
    he said that in his opinion every reasonable person would agree that
    the rape and torture of children should not be shown. This was not an
    interactive style of interview - it was just him saying his piece. I
    felt there was a glaring silence afterwards - after showing the scene
    that he had shot and defended it did seem he was saying it's not
    alright when children are involved but it is OK to show rape and
    torture of women.  

"Why is violence against women in media so acceptable? What made Knopf 
Books think that it's acceptable to publish a book like *American Psycho* 
that details the skinning alive of a woman, the graphic tortuous rapes and 
murders of women, their dismemberment and even a scene in which the hero 
inserts a rat in a woman's vagina and then describes the sounds she makes 
as it eats through her body? Why is a how-to novel on the torture and 
dismemberment of women being elevated into Americana?...
    
    I can only echo the question WHY? But I feel as though every woman's
    cry for an explanation gets swallowed up in the vast, bleak,
    patriarchal society which dominates our world.

    I have read the part of Brett Easton Ellis's novel that describes the 
    rat eating through a woman's body.  IMnot-soHO, the work had little 
    literary value. The vocabulary was limited and there was nothing there 
    that was impressively or imaginatively described. I believe that such dark
    thoughts and images are not impressive feats of the imagination and
    if anyone else wanted to make lots of money, they could have dreamt up
    whatever sick fantasies they had and published it. It doesn't take much
    effort. The climate of today's society makes it possible to publish
    anything - and anything with shock value will cause uproar and make
    lots of money. People have been and are desensitized. Having read some
    of Ellis's novel, I think that we, society, have been exposed to the
    darkest thoughts and fantasies of the human race. The depths to which
    humans can plunge have been described. We can't get much lower. 
    
    I think it is a valid excercise - once you have exposed the worst,
    perhaps taboos of society will lessen over time. I don't believe that
    such books as "American Psycho" actually cause people to commit 
    "copycat" crimes. Someone who would commit such acts would do so
    whether "American Psycho" was published or not. They might get some
    ideas they hadn't had before, but then they might easily have thought it 
    for themselves. I believe that the sickest things that I can dream up
    have happened somewhere, at some time. Nothing in this world is
    original.    

"The true issue here is not the book. *American Psycho* and Ellis [its 
author] are only symptoms of a much larger problem. That larger problem is
the fact that the gatekeeper -- the publisher -- has chosen to exploit
the fear, suffering, and death women face in this country every day simply
to make a fast buck."
    
    I agree that women's fear is being exploited for the sake of making
    money. I have tried to explain to male friends how one rape case that
    is reported in a local newspaper adds to the oppressive fear that I, as
    a woman carry around every day. None of them seems to understand what
    I'm trying to say. Every newsagents that I go into displays row upon
    row of porn mags. It makes me feel frightened, sick and angry. I am a
    woman and degrading images of women as sex objects, submissive victims etc,
    are surrounding me. How can I feel other than disgusted and afraid? And
    yet if I raise an objection, then I am defending censorship and
    impinging other people's right to freedom of expression. What about my
    right to live without fear?  
    

>    The scene was a graphic portrayal of the violation of every orifice of
>    a woman's body by several men. The camera frequently showed the enjoyment 
>    of the rapists on their faces. It seemed to go on interminably and it  
>    made me weep. I also felt sick. People are watching this stuff and 
>    getting off on it. 
>    
>    In an interview afterwards, the director of the film, a man called
>    Michael Winner strongly argued against censorship. He stated that there
>    were some obvious boundaries that should not be crossed 

   I can't see this as a censorship issue.  I tend to be very laissez faire
about these things, but the above is an advertisement for rape, period.  My
gut reaction is than Mikey needs some remedial education in "obvious
boundaries".

    Sharon

Funny how it's legally ok these days to publish just about anything, and 
yet, as the article from the NOW paper mentions, plenty of things *don't* 
get published. I wonder whether, if the actions depicted against women in
*American Psycho* were depicted against [you-name-it ethnic or minority 
group], Knopf would have touched it with, well, with a ten-foot pole?

Not long ago someone in I forget which topic in here, made a distinction 
between having, on the one hand, a *legal right* to do something, and on the 
other hand, a *moral responsibility* not to do it. I wonder if such a 
distinction is pertinent to the question of freedom of expression and our 
media's treatment of women?

D.

    back in the late fall, i wrote a note in this conference (forget which
    topic exactly but it's related to this one) about a friend Kim who was
    being harassed by an ex-boyfriend.  Said boyfriend called her workplace
    with hang-up phone calls, upsetting the entire workforce at the store. 
    Management's response to this was to call up his mommy and threaten
    legal action if he didn't stop.
    
    well, he hasn't stopped, he still calls almost every day, not as much
    as before, but he's still doing it.  i still consider him dangerous. 
    Now he is calling Kim's mother (she doesn't live with her) and doing
    the same thing.  Good thing that Kim'm mom is tough, she got one of
    those caller id machines and you can bet she will nail that bad boy to
    the wall!
    
    so, how much action would you expect any company to take to keep this
    creep from disrupting its business?  just a rhetorical question.
    
    sue

    re.226 If she hasn't done so already she should report this to
    the phone company *immediately* - they take a dim view of people
    abusing their system and customers.

    i'm sure kim's mom will take the direct route and involve the phone
    company.  The store did this too, tracking the calls for several months
    to get enough evidence for court.  The store's upper management
    declined to prosecute, even with this guy continuing to harass the
    store.
    
    

    
    
    	During a seminar before PC Expo began, a woman was assaulted 
    	in the bathrooms.
    
    

    The July/August issue of Matthew Fox's magazine _Creation_Spirituality_
    is devoted to the topic of men's spirituality.  The following article
    by S. Brian Willson is reproduced (without permission) from that issue. 
    It discusses the problems of violence and nonviolence from the
    perspective of male spiritual development.  Those of you who are on my
    peace mailing list have already seen this article.
    

                                Die If You Must
                                BUT NEVER KILL
    
    [On September 1, 1987, Vietnam Veteran Brian Willson was run over by a
    munitions train while peacefully blockading the railroad tracks at
    Concord Naval Weapons Station in California.  He lost both his legs.
    Before and since he has been on a spiritual journey.]

    Though I am certainly no expert on understanding male, as distinct from
    female, spirituality, I do know that growing up male has very definite
    meanings.  Very definite assumptions, roles, responsibilities,
    attitudes, character and personality traits, etc., came with birth as a
    boy without being conscious of most of them.  Becoming aware of these
    attitudes and patterns provides us with clues for our healing.  When we
    act on this awareness we can begin to express healthy attitudes and
    behavior based on our inner and inter-connectedness as males,
    contributing to the reclaiming of our role as promoters and protectors
    of human justice and ecological imperatives.

    Even though from high school age I experienced personal affinity with
    those identified as "underdogs," it was expressed from the security of
    being a physically strong and reasonably popular student and athlete.
    It was not until working in Vietnam a decade later as a U.S. Air Force
    security officer, after a number of years studying in college and
    graduate school, that I discovered consciousness.  Seeing the face of
    male and female war victims, children as well as adults, I experienced
    many feelings, including shock, grief, and anguish, that literally
    brought me to tears.  It was as if this dimension of feelings had
    resided within me all my life. This was my first knowledge of their
    being liberated.  These people, these Vietnamese, had become my brothers
    and sisters, their children my children, and I felt this connection at
    an extraordinarily deep place within.  This was a totally new experience
    of feelings.

    Returning to civilian life, I went through a long period of denial in
    order to stop my newfound consciousness from interfering with my attempt
    to live within the boundaries of the "American Way of Live" (AWOL).
    Though I rhetorically expressed a new politics based on this
    Vietnam-produced consciousness, I nonetheless wanted to pursue the
    "good" life I was conditioned to expect.

    An internal conflict began to rage within me, however. My newly emerging
    consciousness was increasingly questioning, and therefore interfering
    with, the pursuit of AWOL. Who was, who is, the real Brian Willson?  How
    many Brian Willsons are there?  Since Vietnam, I like so many others,
    have been searching in one clumsy way after another to learn with it
    means to be a human becoming, to be spiritual and political
    simultaneously, to be a humble warrior seeking justice, and to be a
    feelings-oriented as well as an intellectually honest person.  In
    effect, I have become a recovering white, EuroAmerican male.  I want to
    discuss some of the aspects of this journey in male spirituality.

    INTERCONNECTEDNESS

    As we become more ecologically conscious in its most comprehensive
    meaning, we know that everything and everybody is interconnected.  We
    are all one.  An injury to one part, one person, or organism, in fact
    injures the whole, all of us.  An injustice anywhere is a threat to
    justice everywhere, as Martin Luther King used to say.  This is a law of
    the Universe as we develop holistic perspectives of physics, chemistry,
    biology, psychology, economics, politics, sociology, anthropology,
    history, philosophy, and their inextricable interrelationships.  What
    have I left out?  One could call it the theology of the planet within
    the context of the universe.

    But of course, it is not just a matter of intellectual understanding.
    It must be viscerally experienced, if it is to be fully incorporated as
    wisdom, felt deeply and noticeably in the stomach, in the chest, in the
    soul.  Thus it is natural, and indispensable, that we live in and
    appreciate community, experienced intentionally at the local level, and
    in an extended manner in the global context.  As we begin feeling
    anguish when others are suffering, and joy when they are laughing, we
    experience oneness in very real ways.  We actually feel it.  This
    passion, and compassion, increasingly motivates us to express in some
    concrete manner solidarity with the person or organism experiencing the
    pain or joy.  This for me has been revolutionary.  It is the realizing
    of sacredness. Everything is sacred.  I have finally accepted that even
    I am sacred.  What a revelation!  What a revolution!  Caring and sharing
    begin to become "natural" as we increasingly open ourselves to this
    inner/outer Life Force.  Gandhi called it soul or truth force.  Martin
    Luther King called it cosmic companionship.  I call it an unfolding
    relationship with and faith in the Great Spirit.  The Higher Self.  It
    matters not what one calls it.  I began realizing interconnectedness in
    Vietnam as the tears poured down my cheeks as I looked at dead mothers
    and children.  My God, I internally moaned, these are my sisters, my
    children too!

    FIERCE BUT GENTLE NONVIOLENCE: DIE IF YOU MUST, BUT NEVER KILL

    Using Gandhian language, satyagraha replaces the methods of violence.
    Satyagraha, soul or truth force, seeks truth through the passionate
    pursuit of justice.  This truth-seeking approaches union with the Higher
    Self, the Great Spirit, or God.  This effort is distinguished by its
    strict utilization of the methods and spirit of nonviolence, a concept
    approaching unconditional love.  Nonviolence is an affirming love that
    tenaciously resists the wrongdoer with action that just as tenaciously
    refuses to do harm.  Active nonviolence is a conscious willingness to
    suffer, even die if necessary, as a chosen substitute for violence to
    others, in order to resist evil with a spirit of unconditional and
    unsentimental love.  In so doing, the Satyagrahi seeks to break the
    cycle of retaliation, hoping to provoke the transformation within the
    soul of, while respecting, the oppressor or adversary.  Simultaneously,
    the Satyagrahi seeks understanding from engagement, deepening his or her
    own consciousness.  Central to nonviolence is respect for
    interconnectedness with the opponent, even while opposing the perceived
    destructive behavior.

    We are liberated, we are free, to the extent of our willingness to take
    risks, of our preparedness for death, in resisting and non-cooperating
    with evil.  As domination by fear subsides, willingness to take risks
    escalates.  As we come to experience the sacredness of all life
    (including our own) and feel the pain and anguish of the suffering of
    others (i.e., experience our interconnectedness, our community with each
    other) it becomes easier to overcome fear in the passion and struggle
    for preserving sacredness.  Obsession with our longevity disappears.

    The peace warrior understands the importance of breaking the historical
    cycle of retaliation through the courage of his or her example.  It is
    worth emphasizing that self-suffering is not chosen for its own sake,
    but to demonstrate sincerity in pursuing truth (justice) through love
    (nonviolence), and respect in refusing to injure the opponent.
    Initially it may take courage to experiment with this new paradigm.  But
    as one increasingly feels the sacredness and interconnectedness, choices
    to pursue justice by interfering with policies and behaviors that
    destroy dignity, and life itself, become more natural.  Think of the
    person who rushes into a burning house in an attempt, no matter how
    future, to rescue loved ones without undue concern for personal safety.
    This is the result of a passion for life, not a suicide wish.

    It might also manifest in an attempt to block the movement of lethal
    weapons when it is known they will be utilized to terrorize and murder
    innocent human becomings in other countries for selfish political
    reasons.  Or in an effort to be present at the testing of nuclear
    weapons designed to commit omnicide, hoping to interfere with the
    continuation of an insane policy.  Or in a Buddhist-like conspicuous, but
    perhaps strategic, presence of silence, chanting, or drumming.  Or in an
    effort to __________.  You fill in the blank from your own inner
    heart-felt truth.  We are all connected.  An injury, or even the threat
    of an injury, to one is an injury to all.  When this is viscerally felt
    the peace warrior must respond, no matter the personal dangers involved.
    Through thoughtful discernment, the way will be shown.  The death trains
    are everywhere to be seen:  forces destroying sacredness and community.
    Literally, a warrior's motto must ultimately be: "Die if you must, but
    never kill," in pursuit of a nonviolent world.

    INTEGRATION--PHYSICAL, SPIRITUAL, MENTAL, AND EMOTIONAL HEALTH

    As a recovering white EuroAmerican male it is important to be eternally
    vigilant of the various conditioned attitudes and behaviors that
    interfere with inner and interconnectedness, clarity of thinking and
    feeling, and loving at all levels.  It is a process that enables each of
    us to be a student, and therefore a teacher, throughout our lives.
    Attitudinal and physical violence toward others, arrogance, a sense of
    superiority, a need to dominate, and insensitivity to other's needs, are
    some of the culturally learned traits that severely prevent us from
    learning about our interconnectedness, about passion and love, and about
    awareness and consciousness.

    A peace warrior must strive to heightened physical, mental, spiritual,
    and emotional conditioning that enables him/her to disarm the adversary
    emotionally and physically and to engage in a spiritual or verbal
    dialogue.  A peace warrior must always be prepared to deepen his or her
    consciousness.  One's understanding of truth is always subject to
    change.  Humility, therefore, is very important.  This is another reason
    why in resisting an adversary it is important never to harm him/her.
    One never possesses absolute truth.  When open, one is always learning.

    It is obvious that in order to be a justice seeker, good physical,
    emotional, and spiritual health is necessary.  This requires focus,
    training, and discipline.

    For me, I have had to forgive myself, as well as others who have
    offended me, in order to continue loving myself and others.  As I read
    history, and as I experience it unfolding, I feel anguish about the pain
    and suffering that has been, and continues to be, involuntarily imposed
    on Mother Earth, and her millions of species, and on billions of human
    becomings:  men and women, children and adults.  This has occurred over
    the centuries, and continues to occur, because of lust for greed and
    thirst for power.  Some of the most egregious destruction to life has
    occurred in the past 45 years by the policies of the United States
    promoting the American Way of Life (AWOL), that most of us fuel with our
    personal lifestyles.  This behavior of violence and aggression has been
    normally associated with specfically masculine traits.  This need not,
    must not continue.  As most anthropologists and biologists have told us,
    aggression and violence are not innate.  They are not of our natures.
    They are culturally learned and tend to become entrenched as primary
    values after centuries of perpetuation.  Cooperation, mutual support and
    aid, and love are also culturally learned, and there is much evidence
    that these traits of caring and sharing are much more dominant in the
    long history of the evolving human condition.

    An important component of our process toward integrated health is the
    need to change our lifestyles.  For most of us this is  nothing short
    of revolutionary.  AWOL consumes between 40 percent and 60 percent of
    the Earth's resources with but five percent of the world's population.
    This is immoral, and requires us to be violently assaultive and
    exploitive as a nation against Mother Earth and the vast majority of
    human becomings living on the planet.  They are worth no less than we;
    we are not worth more.  By living the way we do we are painfully
    complicit in the carnage AWOL imposes on all life.  The peace warrior
    must affirm a life of global justice with his or her simple lifestyle
    while resisting evil and destructive policies and behaviors.  As one
    disengages from dependence upon a destructive economic system, one
    experiences the political independence needed to speak truth, to be a
    peace warrior.  This kind of "right livelihood" can only function in
    community.  The community pursues an alternative constructive program,
    concretely experimenting with cooperation, mutual aid and support, and
    sharing lifestyles that discover the joy and liberation of reduced
    consumption through local reliance in harmony with the ecological
    imperative.

    THEOLOGY OF TRANSFORMATION (OR LIBERATION PSYCHOLOGY)

    Liberation theology describes, from a Christian perspective, the call of
    God with and through the community of faithful believers to engage in
    the struggle for justice now.  It is a theology of struggle for people
    who understand their oppression by oppressors.  Closely related, from an
    eclectic and ecumenical perspective, is what I term the Theology of
    Transformation.  Our Higher Self, the Great Spirit, or God, calls to us
    to endure the painful but liberating, and therefore joyous, process of
    radical transformation from homo hostili to homo amicus (literally, from
    hostile man to friendly man).  I believe this is critically important
    for psychological health; thus I refer to this as liberation psychology.
    To become healthy we need to be liberated from the extraordinary
    limitations, many subconscious, that we have accepted from the teachings
    of our culture and its political and religious values and structures
    which severely prevent us from becoming fully human.  Thus, like
    liberation theology in the "Third" World, the theology of transformation
    is revolutionary, and a threat to the continuance of "First" World
    nation-state systems, and their oligarchic counterparts that oppress the
    poor in the "Third" World.  This perhaps might be considered a "First"
    World counterpart of liberation theology.  As I have often discovered,
    in a most painful way, being an oppressor, even if unconsciously, as a
    male in the United States' culture, is extraordinarily unhealthy and
    pathological for me as well.  It deceitfully but egregiously robs me of
    my own humanity.  Extrication from complicity with the values and living
    patterns of our arrogant, all consuming culture is absolutely
    indispensable for this personal and cultural transformation to occur.

    There are four aspects to the essence of the theology of transformation:

    First, it is fundamental to become aware of our interconnectedness, as I
    have already discussed.  This is discovered as profound wisdom when we
    connect with our feelings-dimension, and then synthesize these feelings
    with our intellectual understandings.  Some might call this our
    heart-felt, more intuitive sense of truth.  I believe that for most men
    our feelings-dimension has been buried by layers and layers of denial,
    learned (conditioned) over the centuries severely retarding our becoming
    human.  Denial generally manifests in numerous forms of addictions that
    enable us to remain numb.  It goes without saying that it is absolutely
    imperative that we recover from these addictions in order to experience
    our multitudes of feelings. Then, and only then, can we begin to
    integrate and heal.  These feelings, this heart-felt dimension, provides
    the source of our love, our sense of interconnectedness, our passion and
    compassion.  When integrated with the mind, a new life force of our
    humanity is unleashed--with gusto.

    Second, as we become aware of our interconnectedness, we become aware of
    the pain and suffering that our culture, that our own personal attitudes
    and behavior, directly and indirectly, have inflicted on Mother Earth
    and other human becomings.  We might at first feel depressed or
    betrayed.  Then we begin feeling pain and anguish, as we understand that
    our behavior, both collective and/or individual, has caused so much
    suffering.  Then we can grieve, weep, and moan.  This grieving is not
    just for others.  It is for ourselves.  We come to know of a personal
    loss we are experiencing.  We know how sick we are, how disconnected
    within ourselves we have been.  We know that others have suffered due to
    our blindness, our inner deprivations, our insensitivities.  We are all
    one, all connected.  We are all sacred.  Even I am sacred.  What a
    relief!  What a joy!

    Third, as we understand how our various attitudes and behaviors have
    been complicit with the causing of destruction, pain, and suffering, and
    have emotionally owned our relationship to and complicity with the pain
    through our grieving, we then must learn about forgiveness.  We must be
    able to forgive ourselves as we ask others to forgive us.  In this way
    we acknowledge our inner and interconnectedness, and that we are
    imperfect, fragile, and very human.  We learn again how important it is
    to be humble.  We understand at an even deeper level than before how
    sacred each of us is.  We feel relief.  The injured and the injurer have
    released each other to deepen their interconnectedness, their
    sacredness.  They learn from each other.

    Fourth, the act of forgiveness must be concretized through
    manifestations of changed attitudes and behavior.  I call this the
    process of atonement, or at-one-ment.  The injurer changes his or her
    behavior by discontinuing the harmful behavior, but also by attempting
    to make whole the wrong done, even if it cannot literally be
    accomplished.  This is called *reparations*.  It renders justice to the
    injured.  As the injurer changes his or her behavior in making specific
    amends, deeper transformation and empowerment are experienced.  The
    sense of inner and interconnectedness is more profound than ever.
    Healing is experienced.  New life-force is unleashed.  Atonement and
    reparations lead to a fifth, and very closely related concept of
    reconciliation, where new harmony and peace are experienced.  More
    relief.  More energy, more inspiration for being a peace warrior.  And
    more learning.

    The planet, and the people of Earth, are desperately awaiting the fierce
    but gentle love, the fierce but gentle nonviolence of the heretofore
    missing male energy.  I again make a commitment to continuing on the
    path of learning to be a peace warrior, to being a recovering while
    EuroAmerican male.  But I need help.  I conclude with this proposal:
    I'll help you.  But I hope you will help me too.  If you see me fallen
    down on the trail, please help me us.  When I see you down I will help
    you up, of course.  I hope we see each other.  It is extraordinarily
    important.  Our future is at stake.

	This, from an e-mail friend, is about the mass-murder
	situation in Milwaukee, and how the press is neglecting
	to tell the whole story regarding the police involvement 
	in this horror...

------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
This act of complicity is an outrage!
 
Not only did these police officers fail to arrest, let alone question, an 
individual who implicated himself in an obvious incidence of child physical 
and sexual abuse, of a child who had already been reported as missing.
 
They compounded their (criminal?) negligience by placing the child back into 
the custody of that individual, who would later culminate his multiple acts of 
child abuse by brutally murdering that child.
 
They, in effect, became (witting or not) accomplices to the murder of this 
child.
 
What's the point?
 
We already know that the police cannot protect each and everyone of us at all 
times.
 
We already know that the police are not liable to protect us even when they 
have knowledge that a crime of violence is imminent.
 
We now have an incidence in which the police actually aided (through both 
positive action, and also the lack of action) the completion of crimes of 
horrible physical violence against a child.
 
We are on our own. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

    P.S. home on a VT100 with the page size set for a VAXstation is hell!
Suzanne,

The horrible thing is, according to today's newspaper, laughing
is precisely what the police did in the Milwaukee case of the
little boy. It's on tape. And this is after two black women
neighbors reported the murderer to the police, and the murderer
was ALREADY a known sex offender! Since these murders were discovered,
it is coming out how neanderthal the Milwaukee police are in their
treatment of everyone but white males.

Eileen

    
    well natchurally this is so, whyte males being the incarnations of
    evyl that they are..

Article 431 of misc.activism.progressive:
Path: nntpd.lkg.dec.com!news.crl.dec.com!deccrl!decwrl!ucbvax!cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wupost!mont!rich
From: [email protected] (Rich Winkel)
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: Camp LeJeune listening project
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 14 Aug 91 01:59:28 GMT
Sender: [email protected] (Rich Winkel)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Organization: PACH
Lines: 301
Approved: [email protected]

/** military.draft: 100.0 **/
** Topic: CAMP LEJEUNE LISTENING PROJECT **
** Written  8:28 pm  Aug  6, 1991 by wrlmilitary in cdp:military.draft **
Listening to the Marines "CAMP LEJEUNE LISTENING PROJECT"
 
TOPIC SUMMARY:
 
The article posted as the first response to this topic is "Camp
LeJeune Listening Project", by Candace Powlik of the Richmond
Peace Education Center, published in the Center's newsletter for
July, 1991.
Ms. Powlik describes her experience as one of a team of
interviewers/ listeners who went to Jacksonville, North Carolina
(near Camp Lejeune) for a day of interviewing any Marines they
found in town who would agree to the process.  Goals of the
project were to get some understanding of the Marines, to further
the understanding among peace activists of public attitudes, and
to inspire discussion of ethical issues among the ranks of the
Marines.  Questions in the survey dealt with ideals, attitudes
towards violence/ nonviolence, society and one's duties to it,
what sort of orders as Marines they could obey and which they
couldn't obey, attitudes towards conscientious objection and
objectors, -- and more.  The author discusses the impact of the
experience on her, and the implications of the project for peace
work generally and for counter-recruitment work.
The article is about five pages long.
** End of text from cdp:military.draft **
 
/** military.draft: 100.1 **/
** Written  8:34 pm  Aug  6, 1991 by wrlmilitary in cdp:military.draft **
                 CAMP LEJEUNE LISTENING PROJECT
                       by Candace Powlick
from: Richmond Peace Education Center News, July 1991,
14 N. Laurel St., Richmond, VA 23220.  e-mail: igc:rpec
 
   The flyer said: NEEDED: A FEW GOOD MEN AND WOMEN; REQUIRE-
MENTS: WILLING TO LISTEN.  Having heard of and admired the Lis-
tening Project as conducted by Herb Walters of Rural Southern
Voice for Peace (RSVP), and being particularly concerned with
issues of militarism in general and the men in the brig at Camp
LeJeune in particular, this seemed like an ideal opportunity for
me to learn and listen.  My husband, Ray Powlick, and Carol Depp,
one of our Alternatives to Violence Project trainers agreed.
 
   The goals of the project were:
   1) to encourage widespread discussion of alternatives to
violence in the mainstream media.
   2) to help the "Peace Movement" understand the attitudes and
motivations of men and women who have volunteered to risk their
lives, and
   3) to initiate serious discussion within the lower ranks of
the military about basic ethics.
 
   The method was to survey active duty Marines at Camp LeJeune
on issues of conscientious objection, civilian-based defense,
solving international conflicts without violence, and alterna-
tives to domestic violence.  Twelve participants surveyed over
thirty Marines on Saturday June 22 in the afternoon and evening.
 
 
   While the results have not yet been compiled and analyzed, I
felt it was timely and important to share my observations and
experiences, with particular emphasis on how I had met goal
number 2 for myself.  What follows, then, is a personal account
of my participation in the Listening Project conducted at Camp
LeJeune.  We will report in our September issue on the final
results of this project, as well as any follow-up studies which
are done at other military locations (more on that later).
 
First impressions
 
   The project schedule began on Saturday at 9AM with a three-
hour training.  When we arrived in Jacksonville, North Carolina,
at 11 PM on Friday night, the atmosphere was as heavy as the hot,
muggy air.  As we drove down the main road, we passed yellow
ribbons, flags, pawn shops, flags, "Welcome Home" signs, flags,
strip joints (dozens of them!), still more flags, signs saying
"JOB WELL DONE", and flags.  All of us wondered what sort of
reception we would receive the next day, and marveled that David
Grant, the coordinator of this project, had managed to find
anyone to allow us in their home.  Our fears were somewhat
alleviated when we entered the home of a local minister and his
wife, and received a warm welcome.  "We're so glad you're here,
we've missed you".  Since none of us had ever met these people
before, they meant "peaceniks" in general.
 
   The next day we were trained and on our way.  Ray and I chose
to approach Marines at the mall.  Carol went with David to some
local bars (of the non-stripping variety), and other pairs went
to a flea market, the USO and a nearby park.
 
Meeting our Goals
 
   I began very early on to understand the attitudes and motiva-
tions of the young men (we never did interview any women) who had
volunteered to risk their lives.  My own stereotypes about Marine
"grunts" were soon demolished.  The young men I interviewed were
intelligent, thoughtful, and had some deep understanding of per-
sonal ethics.  They seemed much more self-assured, polity, and
with a very strong sense of self, including plans for their own
lives, than other young men I have met who were the same age.
They were attractive, and in some ways reinforced my own stereo-
type that we send the "cream of the crop" to die at war.  One
example of this was a remarkable resistance to peer pressure.
 
   In one situation other marines listened to the first few
questions and became increasingly agitated, finally stating that
it was time to leave -- the other guys had the car and our inter-
viewee was going to be abandoned if he didn't go now.  I assumed
the interview was over, but I was wrong.  "Go ahead, I'll catch a
cab. . ." and we resumed the interview.
 
   I found that we shared values in a number of ways: freedom,
family, love, service to others, even non-violence.  In answer to
whether nonviolence required more courage than violence, the
answer was virtually always, yes.  These men had a strong sense
of duty, often stating that the reason for joining the Marines
was to "give something back to my country".  However, we
differed strongly in the methods used to carry out our beliefs
and in the social analysis of issues.
 
"On each end of the rifle we're the same"
 
   Not totally.
 
   We asked a question about whether there was any "person, law,
or spirit that outranks your own conscience -- that can command
you to do something you personally believe is wrong".  The
answers we received were fairly evenly split.  Some would not
obey an immoral order, some would obey any order, even from a
sergeant, and some had thought this through enough to say that
they would obey an immoral order, if it were legal, but would not
obey an illegal order, even if it were the moral thing to do.
 
   Indeed, the interviews hit several ominous notes.  Many of the
men were not only willing to go to war, but expect to do so
sometime in the next 3 years.  The connection of questions 3 and
15 was quite chilling.  In question #3 we asked, "What do you
value most about America?"  The most frequent answer was freedom,
and as a listener, I thought "Here's a point where we agree, our
values are the same."  However, question 15 asked why there is so
much violent crime in America, and the most frequent answer was
again freedom -- we have too much.  In future surveys this issue
needs to be explored; i.e., how do the speakers define the
freedom that they say is what they value most about our nation,
and (how) do they recommend curtailing (whose) freedom to reduce
violent crime?  Since most of the men I spoke to want to be law
enforcement officers, freedom is a likely core issue for the
civil rights movement for the next 20 or more years.
 
"Whose family have I fixed within my sights?"
 
   It seems for the most part that had we asked, the answer to
this would have been, who cares?  We did ask a question about the
100,000 or more Iraqis who were killed and the countless women
and children abandoned, and while there was some concern
expressed about the orphaned children, the women were often
considered as much to blame as the men, who had "asked for it",
and "knew what they were getting into."  Even when a Marine said
"I feel bad," that statement was quickly followed with "but we
did what we had to do",  or "civilian deaths are wrong, but they
always happen in war", or "they shouldn't have messed with us."
 
   This was the most difficult question for us to listen to, and
therefore, probably the most important one.  Certainly, some of
our notions about the effects of a "nintendo war" were borne out
-- the Marines, like the rest of us, did not see the carnage.
Furthermore, none of the men I spoke to had any combat experi-
ence, and this is likely to be an important consideration in
follow-up, i.e. how do the men who were there respond to the
consequences of the war.
 
   It is inconceivable to me, however, that lack of visual con-
nection with the destruction is enough to explain the near total
lack of remorse or horror over the damage done.  After all, those
of us in the peace movement didn't see it either, but we do have
imagination and compassion.  On reflection, while other questions
often elicited animated answers (especially the ones on Conscien-
tious Objection) and some were responded to in utter confusion,
this question seemed to turn these men into automatons -- their
feelings were turned off, and the programming kicked in.  It was
clearly more than their not having seen the death and destruction
-- they had been trained not to see it, not to feel it, and not
to think about it.
 
They knew what they were getting into . . .
 
   Obviously Camp LeJeune was not chosen randomly, but because of
the young men who are currently in the brig.  These men are con-
scientious objectors to war, and we wanted to listen and interact
with active duty Marines on this issue.  A series of 6 questions
related directly to this issue.
 
   There was no sympathy expressed for the CO's by the men I
interviewed.  "They knew what they were getting into, and should
not have enlisted if they were opposed to war."  Many stated
(convincingly) that even if they did not know what they were
getting into when enlisting, no one leaves boot camp without
knowing that the "military is about killing people."
 
Listening Changes both the Listener and the Speaker
 
   Well, sometimes.
 
   At the end of the series of questions about the CO's, some of
the men seemed to have softened their attitudes slightly.  And,
when asked "If -- after signing your military contract -- you
changed your mind about being able to follow orders to kill
someone, what would be the honorable thing for you to do?",
almost no one stated that the answer was to go to war anyway.
Options offered included everything from going AWOL to becoming
an aide in the chaplain's office, but there was general agreement
that there were honorable ways out of the contract.
 
   Furthermore, although these men had a very focused sense of
who they were as individuals and where they were going, few had
any comprehension of social ills or international events.  They
rarely saw connections between war and domestic violence, or any
potential solutions to the problems in the Middle East, and I saw
no evidence of change during the interviews on those issues.
 
   Certainly my own initial reaction to the town was reinforced
as I witnessed incident after incident of violence against child-
ren at the mall, of a frequency and magnitude in Jacksonville
above and beyond anything I have ever seen in Regency or Chester-
field.  And, I do see connections to domestic violence and war
(and militarism) which were reinforced during my visit.
 
And you want to go back?
 
   Yes.
 
   Our goals can most likely only be met with additional
projects.  I believe that goal number 2 was met for me as an
individual, and perhaps to some degree, for you as a reader.
Yet, each of the three goals will be met one person (or news
source) at a time, and like a pebble in the water, will spread
from that center.  Both discussion in the media, (goal 1) and in
the lower ranks of the military (goal 3) will take place over
time, and will be increased by additional Listening Projects.
 
   Furthermore, there are reasons to believe that we have begun
to meet goal number 3, at least for the thirty or so Marines with
whom we spoke.  Many of the men wanted to receive the results of
the survey, and requested additional information on non-violence
and conscientious objection.
 
   Another good reason for continuing this process is the humani-
zation which takes place, on both sides, when you meet face to
face with your "enemy".  While we do not have the ability to
cause the military to sit across the table from an Iraqi child,
sitting across from a "Peace Freak" was apparently a close se-
cond.  In response to one of the final questions, "What can each
of us do to move towards peace in the world", one man began his
answer with "Well, not protest and picket.  I hate that.  Those
people are . . ."  and he listed a dozen unflattering adjectives.
Since this was question number 22, and we had now been together
for over half an hour, I felt the need to enlighten him about my
own participation in the protest movement.  He was visibly stun-
ned, and proceeded to discuss public protest, in a far less
threatening manner.  Clearly, I did not fit his stereotype of a
protestor any more than he had fit my stereotype of a Marine.
 
Next Steps
 
   Rural Southern Voice for Peace (RSVP) would like to see
follow-up events of this type.  We at RPEC hope to be working
with RSVP and with one or more of the peace oriented groups in
Norfolk to do a Listening Project with a local military
installation.  If you would like to be part of this effort,
please call (804) 358-1958 and ask for Candace or Rogenia.
 
   This Listening Project also clarified for me some directions
which we ought to consider as a peace movement.  Counter-
recruitment ought to be more of a priority, because even if the
CO's did not know what they were getting into, they are going to
be held as responsible as if they did.  I also think we ought to
give serious consideration to the certainly expressed that we
will be involved in another war soon.  If you would like to find
out what you can do to promote peace in Central America, call
RPEC and speak to Paula.
 
"If I were a breath of wind. . . I'd pick you up and teach you
how to fly"
 
   One Marine told me he did not "Dream dreams which were unreal-
istic."  Perhaps this was the essential way in which we, the lis-
teners, differed from the speakers.  Our final question was "What
do you believe is your highest duty in life?"  The answers were,
for the most part, ones with which we could all agree.  "To live
my life the best I can, to be content with my own consci-ence, to
love other people."  But the answer which most stuck in my mind
was "to pursue peace", because the speaker then qualified it,
saying, "but that will never happen, we will never get there."
 
   I plan to fly there on my unrealistic dreams.  Perhaps with
ongoing contact, we can encourage the young men (and women) in
the military to dream with freedom.
                       ___________________
** End of text from cdp:military.draft **
 

Article: 551
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
From: [email protected] (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Coalition against Trafficking in Women
Sender: [email protected] (Rich Winkel)
Organization: PACH
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 04:08:13 GMT
 
/** gen.women: 214.0 **/
** Topic: Coalition against Trafficking in Wo **
** Written  7:53 am  Aug 24, 1991 by ckruger in cdp:gen.women **
From: <ckruger>
Subject: Coalition against Trafficking in Women
 
*****************************************************************
 
I found this in a new publication being posted in nonviolent.act
and thought it would be of interest here.
 
The publication is called "NI's Frontline" NI is Non-Violence
International.  
 
Take care ......... Cynthia
 
*****************************************************************
 
/* Written  1:35 pm  Aug 21, 1991 by nonviolence in cdp:nonviolent.act */
/* ---------- "NI's Frontline, Vol. 1, No. 1" ---------- */
WOMEN'S COALITION ADDRESSES INTERNATIONAL TRAFFICKING
 
(The abuse of women is a deeply personal and inhumane kind of
violence that has rarely reached a level of discussion or analysis
similar to that which has motivated nonviolent action on other
issues.  NI supports the Coalition and seeks to introduce readers
to their groundbreaking work. - Ed)
 
   The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, a global feminist
organization, recently met in Washington, DC, to discuss the
plight of millions of women who are the victims of female sexual
slavery.  Leaders from the Philippines, Algeria, Bangladesh, and
the United States reported on earlier meetings designed to develop
legal, social and political strategies to address the sexual
exploitation of women. Three critical issues are targeted by the
group for further research and nonviolent action:
 
1. Military Bases and Prostitution:  Aurora Javate-De Dios,
representing the Philippines, pointed out that the U.S. military
accepts the traditional recreational behavior of soldiers, which
glorifies prostitution.  Thousands of men take advantage of the
prostitution trade that is a result of the economic and social
powerlessness of women.  Although prostitution is illegal in the
Philippines, the government cooperates with this activity,
because soldiers partaking in the "entertainment industry" spend
$66 million in the country annually.
 
2. Sex Tourism:  Mail-order bride services, multinational
corporation executives, and even government officials trying to
induce foreign investment, are participants in the sex tourism
industry that inducts women into slavery under the guises of good
business, international relations, and even economic development.
 
3. Abuse of Female Labor:  The Coalition representative of
Bangladesh, Sigma Huda, described practices of misleading women
about employment in order to press them into prostitution in South
Asia and in the Middle East.  Men, pretending to be recruiters for
domestic servants, sign false contracts with young women and
arrange their flights to other countries where they are stripped
of their passports and personal belongings and "sold" to local men
for $1000-$1500.  The women are powerless to rebel, due to the
loss of identity cards and the social outcasting they would suffer
if they managed to return to their families.
 
   The immediate goal of the Coalition is to update the 1949 U.N.
Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of
the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, and the 1980 U.N.
Convention to Eliminate all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
However, the U.S. coordinator of the Coalition, Barbara Good,
emphasized that grassroots work on the issue can be done in many
different areas.  Efforts need to be made to provide women with
counseling, health care, shelters, job training, and legislation
to break this deep rooted tradition of violence.
 
   NI supports the Coalition's work and is seeking appropriate
means to reduce and end female sexual slavery. For more
information on the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, write
or call Barbara Good at the Sewall-Belmont House, 144 Constitution
Ave., NE, Washington, DC  20002.  Phone: 202/546-1210. 
 
** End of text from cdp:gen.women **
 

Article: 425
From: [email protected] (Rich Winkel)
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: War on women in Kuwait
Date: 13 Aug 91 23:06:54 GMT
Sender: [email protected] (Rich Winkel)
Organization: PACH
 
/** mideast.gulf: 28.0 **/
** Topic: War on women in Kuwait **
** Written  6:05 pm  Aug  2, 1991 by greenleft in cdp:mideast.gulf **
War on women in Kuwait
 
By Sissy Vovou
 
The war may well have ended in Kuwait, and the ``government'' of 
Emir Al Sabah restored by the ``Allies''; women, however, are 
paying an increasing price for the arrogance of the victors, who 
are stepping up their violence against them.
 
The number of rapes committed now in Kuwait has reached up 
to 20 a day, report foreign correspondents from Kuwait City.
 
Doctors and nurses at the Maternity Hospital, the largest 
gynaecological hospital in Kuwait, report that in the first week 
of April, five to 20 rapes were reported every day by Asian, 
Filipina and even Kuwaiti women. Almost all reported that the 
rapes were committed by Kuwaiti soldiers in uniform, and the 
doctors fear that many of the victims are pregnant.
 
The number of rapes has been increasing since the ``liberation'' 
of Kuwait, and it is believed that at least as many have not been 
reported. Meanwhile, officials to whom the incidents were 
reported have refused to acknowledge them and hence to take any 
measures. It is feared that with the return of more Kuwaiti 
soldiers, rapes will increase.
 
Officials of the Catholic Church in the city are working on this 
problem, while a special envoy of the pope came from the Vatican 
to discuss the matter with the emir.
 
It's highly unlikely that the envoy will raise with the 65-year-
old emir the problem of rapes that he himself commits, as quite a 
few times a year he ``marries'' yet another woman, the youngest 
of whom was 15 years old. The emir has had three wives for 30 
years, and every few weeks he takes a concubine or ``temporary 
wife'', which he is entitled to do under ``Islamic law''. 
Officially, he has 37 children, but it's estimated that in 
reality he has 120.
 
One hundred women have reported being raped during the Iraqi 
occupation by Iraqi troops, though it is considered that the real 
number is much higher. Doctors and nurses are preparing to 
``welcome'' the first babies which are being born as a result of 
these rapes, which the mothers usually leave on the steps of the 
hospitals.
 
As for the reforms promised by the emir, these do not include the 
right of women to vote, as he has made categorically clear. 
Already in Britain a Committee for a Just Peace in the Middle 
East has been established, among the aims of which are the rights 
of Kuwaiti women, including the right to vote. The committee, in 
which four female MPs are participating, is putting the 
matter to parliament, to the parties and to the trade unions, and 
is trying to expose the hypocrisy of the British government, 
which, when referring to the restoration of the ``lawful'' 
government of the country, is not interested either in the fact 
that this government was never elected by its people, or in the 
lack of any rights for its women.
 
[Translated by Mike Karadjis from the Greek newspaper Epochi.]
 
************************************************************
 
Reprinted from Green Left, weekly progressive newspaper. May 
be reproduced with acknowledgment but without charge by 
movement publications and organisations.
** End of text from cdp:mideast.gulf **