The ongoing campaign against anti-male/anti-father domestic violence ads appearing on buses of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) has heated up. In a local news outlet Morgan Lyon, DART’s media relations official, tried redirecting the focus and seriousness of his company’s blunder by stating the company has received very little negative response from the public about the DV ads via the company’s online customer feedback form.
It is a pathetic and disturbing attempt to minimize the magnitude of the situation. The company’s online form was never mentioned as a method in which to file a complaint until yesterday. If one clicks to this page on DART’s website, what appears is a form used to file complaints about particular bus routes. It’s obvious this form was not designed to handle a serious public relations crisis.
In contrast, the protest form found at Glenn Sack’s website – the ONLY KNOWN ONE – has led to over a thousand complaints against the ads forwarded to DART – confirmed by DART officials.
Also, DART has stated that the majority of the complaints received via Glenn Sacks site have been from outside the Dallas metro area, implying this controversy has no validity because the locals aren’t complaining.
My question to Mr. Lyons is, “So are you saying the Jena 6 incident was devoid of any real racism because the majority of those protesting the charges against the six students were from outside Jena?
Is this the “community standard” upon which you claimed to have used in judging the sexist DV ads, now posted on your buses, as acceptable?
Is this just another example of the dysfunctional corporate culture at DART?
Since Mr. Lyons felt not enough individuals used their online complaint form to take this situation seriously, I’m asking everyone who is disturbed by these ads, and the sleazy behavior of DART officials, to fill out the top and bottom portion (comment box) of this form. Here is the link.
Numerous Women Join DART Protest
Erin Pizzey, the founder of the first domestic violence shelter in England back in 1971, and a long time advocate for domestic violence prevention, has signed a petition asking the Dallas Area Regional Transit (DART) to remove the misleading and vile domestic violence ads from their fleet of buses.
Pizzey has been joined by over 50 others from various backgrounds on the petition in an effort to try and convince DART the ads are a mistake. The petition reads:
The undersigned believe that DART’s domestic violence ads ‘One day my husband will kill me’ and ‘When I grow up, I will beat my wife’ provide a distorted and counterproductive view of fathers, children, and domestic violence. We respectfully request that DART remove these ill-advised ads as soon as possible.
Other women joining the protest and signing the petition:
— Barbara Kay, a writer for the National Post called the ads “hate speech” in her most recent column.
— Syndicated Columnist Amy Alkon called the ads “ugly, toxic, and wrong”.
— Dr. Helen Smith, columnist with Pajamas Media
— Wendy McElroy, writer and founder of ifeminist.net
The petition can be found at Glenn Sacks website.
Note: The creator and financial backers of the discriminating domestic violence ads, The Family Place, rushed Paige Flink, Family Place Executive Director, to a public board meeting by DART Tuesday to defend the ads. It is reported that she and the organization have vowed not to “back down” from the criticism received from those ads.
According to Glenn Sacks website:
Flink spoke in support of her own ads along with two men who she brought with her. However, they avoided (emphasis mine) answering the challenge that the ads might depict males negatively or confuse children who see them but lack the maturity to understand the underlying messages.
Answering My Critic
Yesterday I received a response in my comments section essentially scolding me for being completely wrong on this recent issue, and criticizing the research I consulted. Here is the comment followed by my response:
And if you stay on their front page long enough, it scrolls through a picture with text, “We help ALL victims of family violence, men, women and children.”
And this, taken from their About Us page:
“We helped 423 women and 497 men recover from childhood sexual assault and incest in our Incest Recovery Program.”
Good on them and good on DART for providing the confrontation society needs about the truths of domestic violence.
You quote the report dated August 2007 about “non-reciprocal” intimate partner violence. The reason why women appear more in this report is because MOST of female to male violence occurs within the context of the female being a victim of physical violence, so when you ignore the factor that in most cases of IPV men are hitting women who are hitting back, and just use the one’s where women weren’t hit first, then it would show that women instigate IPV more…..but that is putting a spin on the numbers for the benefit of achieving some specific agenda, it doesn’t show the real truth that MEN are the biggest instigators of IPV.
In the November 2007 report, if it included stalking, sexual coercion and sexual abuse the figures would be very much different. In fact, the incidence of male to female aggression would skyrocket to somewhere around about 30 – 45%. It’s quite convenient to leave out the violent behaviours that are specifically used by men more than women, don’t you think? Another report with a spin to fit an agenda.
Comment by shivers
Dear Shiver,
It would be nice if you stuck to the facts concerning what I wrote, and didn’t twist the argument to something completely different. With that being said, I would like to thank you for your comment, because you have unknowingly proved my point about male discrimination on this subject better than I could have.
First, my argument, and the protest campaign, is about the discrimination men face in the DV prevention environment. The DV prevention industry and their supporters will go to great lengths to minimize or devalue men as victims of domestic violence, and at the same time, try to minimize and diminish the fact that women can be as violent as men in the home.
Your response pointed to the fact that The Family Place has helped over 400 men and 400 women who were victims of molestation. The difference of treatment concerning sexual abuse of males and females by The Family Place WAS NOT my argument. My argument was the discrimination men face concerning the DV prevention industry that continues to perpetuate a false ideology that men are always the perpetrators of DV, and women are always the victims in spite of numerous studies which prove otherwise. I opinioned that The Family Place is guilty of this behavior as proven by a page from their own website which I included as evidence, and the sexist nature of their ads that are now being protested. Also, I did mention their claim of helping male victims, but an indirect point I was looking to make was how could an organization that advocates unequivocally that men are the sole perpetrators of domestic violence rather than victims, effectively address and help male victims of DV and their children?
I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear enough.
Second, you wrote:
“You quote the report dated August 2007 about “non-reciprocal” intimate partner violence. The reason why women appear more in this report is because MOST of female to male violence occurs within the context of the female being a victim of physical violence, so when you ignore the factor that in most cases of IPV men are hitting women who are hitting back, and just use the one’s where women weren’t hit first, then it would show that women instigate IPV more…..but that is putting a spin on the numbers for the benefit of achieving some specific agenda, it doesn’t show the real truth that MEN are the biggest instigators of IPV.”
Thank you again for displaying the sexism men face when discussing domestic violence.
Feminist and women’s groups deplore the behavior of those who would sink so low as to dare apply “blaming the victim” to women who have been victims of violence, and have worked tenaciously to eradicate this behavior. However, these same women – you included – have no problem engaging in this disgusting behavior when the victim is a man and the perpetrator is a woman. So my question to you is, “Do believe blaming the victim is an acceptable form of behavior that applies equally to male victims as well as female victims, or do you believe that this malevolent behavior should only apply to male victims?
But let’s ignore your sexism and hypocrisy for one moment and extract it out in another way. Let’s say that it is true that the reason so many women are often charged with domestic violence is via the mode of defending themselves against an abuser as you have claimed, and as many in the DV prevention industry have also claimed as truth. If one accepts this argument as a realistic truth, the one must also find as an equal truth that many men are falsely charged with domestic violence in the process of defending themselves against an unprovoked attack by a female partner. Considering that many states have made it mandatory if injuries are present in a spousal altercation, then the individual without injury is presumed to be the perpetrator. Under this presumed judgment of guilt, the presumed attacker is immediately arrested and charged. Given the DV prevention industry’s mantra that men are more physically stronger than women, and the potential injury to a woman is much greater for them in even the most minor altercation, it becomes extremely plausible that a man defending himself from an unprovoked attack from a female partner will run the risk of causing visible injuries on her, but consequently, will have minimal or no injuries on himself. Therefore, the odds are much greater that a man defending himself against a female attacker is more likely to be presumed falsely as the aggressor by the authorities, resulting in his arrest and a charge of domestic violence. The female attacker will be falsely calculated as a victim.
Therefore Shiver, implying the numbers as being grossly inflated for female aggressors by using a “self defense” argument, in return, you and others in the DV prevention industry are inadvertently creating a valid argument that the statistics showing men as the dominate aggressor in domestic violence incidents have the potential to be grossly inflated also. The “self defense” argument cuts both ways, however, you and the DV prevention industry conveniently leave this valid point out.
And isn’t it a little pious for you and others to assume that of the numerous DV studies which found women are as violent as men, that not one of these professional, seasoned, experienced researchers even considered your argument that self-defense may skew the numbers, and accounted for this variable in their research? One of the researchers in the above mentioned studies is Murray Strauss. He has been studying family violence for almost forty years. Maybe you should contact him and offer to consult him about the serious faults you found in the majority of his research along with other fatuous research you’ve discovered on domestic violence.
You also wrote:
In the November 2007 report, if it included stalking, sexual coercion and sexual abuse the figures would be very much different. In fact, the incidence of male to female aggression would skyrocket to somewhere around about 30 – 45%. It’s quite convenient to leave out the violent behaviours that are specifically used by men more than women, don’t you think? Another report with a spin to fit an agenda.
Well thank you again for helping me display the bigotry men face when it comes to discussing relationship violence.
What you state is somewhat true, but again, your skewing the argument, and your approach towards analyzing gender violence is an example of the enormous bias men face on these issues. But I’m willing assume your position to prove my point.
If we are going to account for all acts of violent behavior when discussing the genders to make a point, as you did, then I will start with family violence. If one considers that all violence in the home should be labeled “domestic” (the actual meaning of the word), then the numbers for female and male perpetrators of domestic violence drastically change.
If the abuse of children in the home is categorized as domestic abuse – with mothers outnumbering fathers in abusing children according to statistics – then female as perpetrators of domestic violence begins to increase. If one includes the killing of children as domestic violence, then females as perpetrator of violence rises again. If one includes the number of female nannies, childcare workers, baby-sitters, housekeepers, au pairs, etc. who commit violence against children in the home, then the number of females perpetuating domestic violence increases again. If one includes the number of false allegations of abuse made by women against men in divorce and child custody cases as domestic abuse (emotional, financial, etc.) then females as perpetrators of domestic violence begins to take a commanding lead. If one includes the number of women who have hired or manipulated others to commit acts of violence or murder against their partners, then the number of female perpetrated domestic violence increases beyond expectation. And lastly, since we are speaking of violent behaviors towards one gender by another, if one also includes the number of women who bring false allegations of rape against men, and consider the destruction it causes men physically, emotionally, mentally, and financially, and how devastating it can be for a man’s reputation, his family, his career and such, then this type of female harm/violence should just about bring female malevolent behavior on the par with that of men.
My point is Shiver, if you want to “lump” everything together to validate your argument to increase the perceived harm/violence men do to women, then a convincing, substantial argument can be made to counter yours by “lumping” together women’s harmful and violent acts against men and children to prove women are just as harmful/violent as men. Fortunately I am never in a “contest” to prove women are worse than men. I only write to prove women and men are equally guilty of harmful/violent acts as a defense against those like yourself who feel an uncontrollable need to always make these serious issues into a “contest” of gender superiority.
And while I will agree that research at this point show men are responsible for most forms of stalking, you are displaying once again the discrimination men face on issues such as sexual coercion and sexual abuse. Most studies on gender violence issues begin with an inherent sexist assumption that most men are the perpetrators and women are most often the victims.
The most noted study on sexual coercion was done by Koss, Gidycz, and Wisniewski (1987). In that study, it was found that 15% of the women in a national sample of over 6,000 college students had experienced rape. About 4% of the men indicated that they had perpetrated rape. What is not mentioned whenever this research is cited is how only the women were asked if they were ever sexually assaulted while only the men were asked if they ever committed a sexual assault. This isn’t just a little sexist, it is extremely sexist!
In looking at research which included sexual coercion by females as well as males, one finds women aren’t far behind the men when engaging in this behavior.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, at least a dozen more studies that included both male and female sexual victims appeared in the literature. For example, Lottes (1991) discovered that 24% of the men and 35% of the women in a classroom sample of over 300 college students reported that they had been coerced into sexual intercourse. In a survey of 433 Canadian college students, O’Sullivan, Byers, and Finkelman (1998) found that 24% of the men and 42% of the women reported being pressured or forced into sexual contact in a heterosexual dating context in the past year. A survey of 221 high school seniors in New Zealand (Jackson, Cram, & Seymour, 2000) revealed that 67% of the boys and 77% of the girls reported that they had engaged in unwanted sexual activity.
And a study from California State University collaborated those findings in their own study by stating:
Results reveal that 70% of subjects [men] reported experiencing some form of sexual coercion within the past five years.
Looking at sex crimes in general, newer research is shattering the myth that women rarely engage in crimes of sexual perversion;
Canada’s largest study into the sexual exploitation of street kids and runaways has shattered some myths about who the abusers might be – with the most surprising finding being that many are women seeking sex with young males.
“Some youth in each gender were exploited by women with more than three out of four (79 per cent) sexually exploited males reporting exchanging sex for money or goods with a female,” said Elizabeth Saewyc, associate professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia and principal investigator for the study conducted by Vancouver’s McCreary Centre Society.
“I must admit it wasn’t something we were expecting.”
And it seems a week doesn’t go by in which the media is reporting another crime involving a female teacher having sex with one of her male students. Consider, these are the ones being reported, so how many are not?
So let me ask you this Shiver, “Who really is trying to force an agenda here?
I’m write from the perspective that men and women are human first, and therefore more likely to engage in the same behaviors – good or bad.
Your approach of spreading misleading and biased information is not a solution to these issues. You and others like you are part of the problem.
Careful In Our Judgments of the Chris Brown and Rihanna Episode
Tags: commentary, crime, culture, current events, domestic violence, equality, female violence, feminism, genders, inequality, male injustices, marriage, media, men, men's issues, people, relationships, sexual politics, society, Tags: commentary, women
As I’ve watched the Chris Brown/Rihanna saga unfold, I’ve kept my sympathy and anger in check. Why? Because my experience in dealing with gender issues, sexual politics, and domestic violence topics has taught me that what we believe/assume, and what is real/truth are consistently at odds with one another.
Feminist have done a great job convincing society that domestic violence is a problem that victimizes loving, caring, vulnerable women. Their spouses are the evil, controlling, misogynist partners, whose macho ideals manifest into violence against women. But sadly this is not the case. Feminist and women right’s supporters have been incredibly effective over the past decades creating more mythology than truth about domestic violence and the behaviors of women and men. Why? Because the truth shatters their benevolent aura they espouse about women and femininity.
Recent research has shown that not only can women be victims of domestic violence, but that they are also more likely to instigate the violence first – the perpetrators. Studies on domestic violence in recent years reported by The Center For Disease and Control Prevention, the American Public Health Association, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the University of New Hampshire, and others are changing our preconceived notions concerning domestic violence. The studies mentioned have concluded that women are just as likely, if not more likely, to instigate a physical confrontation in a relationship as compared to men.
However, this is really not news – it’s just the first time we are hearing about it.
Feminist and women’s rights supporters have known for a while that many studies have concluded that women are just as likely to instigate violence in a relationship (Martin S. Fiebert from the Department of Psychology at California State University has compiled a list confirming this) .
However, over the years, feminist have successfully dismissed these acts of violence as “self defense”. In other words, it was the victims fault: the very societal cruelty feminist have tried to eradicate, that is, “blaming the victim”. Feminist studies advocates blaming the victim is wrong, as long as the victim is female. But if the victim is male, and the perpetrator female, then this disturbing societal ill is readily acceptable.
Here is evidence of this irony. I found this on a women’s website about domestic violence. It explains one of the warning signs of an abuser – blaming the victim:
It appears feminist excuses for female domestic violence are at odds with their own beliefs, essentially establishing they may be potential abusers themselves.
But what separates some of the recent studies from the older studies is that the more recent research includes methods for distinguishing between reciprocal and nonreciprocal violence in the analysis. And when this is done, the results are surprising – women initiate violence more than we once believed. For example, the CDC study concluded:
In fact, 71 percent of the instigators in nonreciprocal partner violence were women.This finding surprised Whitaker and his colleagues, they admitted in their study report.
And it should be noted: when a man retaliates against a woman’s violence, she is more likely to receive the more serious injuries.
Women receive significantly more serious injuries than do men (Dasgupta, 2001). Archer (2000) found that more than 60% of those who suffered an injury from an act of partner violence were women. Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, Zlotnick, Kohn, Peterson, and Pearlstein (1998) found that 73% of those individuals reporting injuries from domestic violence were female. Even when the partner violence is mutual, women sustain higher levels of injury.
In other words, the severity of injuries one receives can never be used as an instrument to determine who initiated the violence, as some feminist and women’s rights groups would like you to believe.
So why do I bring this up? I’ve learned not to make quick, easy assumptions when hearing about domestic violence cases.
Here is what is being reported at this point about the Chris Brown/Rihanna case:
— It was first reported that Chris Brown became enraged in jealousy due to Rihanna’s potential interest in another man. Now it has been reported it was actually Rihanna who became enraged over a text message Brown received from another woman. Ironically, just days before this violent episode, OK magazine reported a source close to Rihanna as stating she is a “clingy” girlfriend. The magazine reports:
The Barbados-born beauty is a clingy girlfriend who can’t bear to let boyfriend Chris Brown out of her sight.
“She has to have Chris around her 24/7,” a source close to Rihanna, 20, tells OK!. “If Chris is with her on a photo shoot and steps away for a second, she starts saying, ‘Where did he go?’”
“If Chris isn’t with her, she wants to call and check in every second. She’s crazy about him.”
Many advocates for prevention of domestic violence offer tips to help individuals spot the warning signs of a potential abuser. Here are the some of the behaviors to watch for:
Whether or not the OK magazine source is accurate about Rihanna’s behavior, it validates my point about our skewed assumptions concerning men, women, and relationship violence. If it was reported that Chris Brown displayed the same behaviors as Rihanna, he would immediately be judged a typical abuser. However, as we see from the OK magazine article, Rihanna is accused of just being “crazy” about him. In other words, when possessive, controlling behavior is attached to a man, that behavior is judged as a threat. But when that same behavior is found in a woman, the behavior is judged as “beautiful, feminine love”.
— It was reported Rihanna suffered “horrific” injuries. But factual reports state that Rihanna refused medical treatment at the scene, and agreed to a medical exam at a local hospital only at the urging of the authorities and friends.
— The latest unsubstantiated reports are claiming that the bite marks on Rihanna hands and arms may not have been caused by her defending herself from Chris Brown, but rather the other way around. Fox News is starting to speculate by way of information received from sources close to the investigation that Rihanna became enraged about the text message and began striking Brown in the face while he was driving. In return, Brown used his mouth to clamp down on her arm until he was able to wrestle the car to the side of the road in an effort to avoid a crash. At that point Rihanna took the keys out of the ignition, exited the vehicle, and further enraged Brown by throwing the keys off onto the side of the darkened road. When Brown couldn’t find the keys, he attacked Rihanna.
— To this date, Chris Brown has not been charged with any serious domestic violence charges. While he may eventually face these additional charges in the future, some speculate the reason why he hasn’t already, or may not at all, is because he was not the one who initiated the violence.
Now I know that this is all speculation, and it still would not excuse Chris Brown for his violence upon Rihanna, but I shudder to think that Rihanna may be playing the victim to avoid accountability for her violence if in fact she did strike first.
The assumptions made above are not out of reach. To prove how valid this speculation may be, one need only go back and glance at the headlines from July of 2002. At that time, race car driver Al Unser Jr. was driving home from a strip club with his girlfriend Jena L.Soto. Soto claims Unser was intoxicated so she offered to drive them home. As she was driving, Unser began reaching over and shifting the gears on the car. Soto admitted to police she became enraged when he didn’t respond to her repeated request to stop his behavior. She then lashed out and began striking him while she was driving. Unser then hit her back. Soto pulled over to the side of the road and got out of the vehicle. Unser then entered the driver seat and drove away leaving Soto on the side of the road. Soto called the police and Unser was later arrested for domestic battery and other domestic violence charges. Even though both Soto’s and Unser’s stories corroborated that she hit him first, Soto was never charged with any domestic violence crime, only Unser was.
Does this sound fair and equal to you, or do you think gender stereotypes and feminist misinformation played a role?
Here is another example how differently we dismiss female-on-male violence. I found this video of an Indian game show host who becomes enraged at a male contestant after he mouth’s off to her. She then lashes out at him with vulgarities, and then concludes her tirade by physically assaulting him. He responds by hitting her back. At that point the male crew members on the set rush in to protect her by beating/subduing him. The crew ignores her initial violence, and is instead coddled and nurtured as the victim in the incident.
It is disturbing to me that her irresponsible behavior and violent instigation of the attack was completely ignored. And it is still more disturbing that she still has her job as a game show host. Imagine if a male game show host physically assault a female contestant during the taping of a show. The incident would make international headlines, seen by millions on the internet and television. He would immediately lose his job, suffer emotional and financial consequences for his actions, and become the poster boy for male violence towards women.
But when the instigater is a woman, and the victim male, she is still labeled the “victim”, and suffers no consequences for her violent behavior.
And it should be of pertinent interest that I found this clip while searching a website for “funny” videos – another indication of how discriminatory we are towards female violence.
It is in my opinion, progress to diminish violence between the genders will continue to stall, or fail, until female violence is found to be as harmful and as dangerous as men’s, and the consequences equal.
So let’s withhold our judgments of Chris Brown and Rihanna until we know more facts about what happened. If current research is correct, it may turn out both of them need serious help in addressing their emotional insecurities and their violent reactions to them. That would be in the best interest for both men, women, and the prevention of relationship violence.
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