This Is Where I Bitch About America
Current Song: "Coyote" -- Better Than Ezra
I realized about two hours ago that the paper that I thought we were doing in class tomorrow actually had to be done before class, so I've been scrambling. Unfortunately, due to my choice to work on the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) all semester for my Family Policy class, I have been reading a lot of masochistic, far-Right rhetoric that insists that legislating against domestic violence victimizes men and takes children away from fathers. Fathers who hit them, or who hit their mothers in front of them. The last column I read (from a political science professor at Howard University*, no less) insisted that "restraining orders" are unconstitutional because they make it unlawful for the "restrained" to do what other people lawfully do, like talk to his estranged wife who cries herself to sleep every night and jumps whenever a door slams. All of these critics of the VAWA also cite faulty statistics indicating that men are victimized at least as often as women, failing to account for the fact that a) violence from men to women is far more likely to end in medical treatment for the victim, b) that violence against women by men is astronomically statistically more likely to end in homicide, and c) a significant portion of the statistics on men's victimization include men who are victimized by their male partner. It basically breaks down to every time a woman pokes her husband in the chest during an argument, another woman's husband punches her in the face. It's not quite the same.
What it boils down to is that I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that so-called "men's rights" groups are fighting for the right to beat their wives.
*Also, this particular critic came right out and said that dating violence (including stalking) among teenagers does not exist and should not be part of the Act. I have a theory, and it's that this guy lives in a cave and has never met any women. And certainly no teenage women.
I realized about two hours ago that the paper that I thought we were doing in class tomorrow actually had to be done before class, so I've been scrambling. Unfortunately, due to my choice to work on the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) all semester for my Family Policy class, I have been reading a lot of masochistic, far-Right rhetoric that insists that legislating against domestic violence victimizes men and takes children away from fathers. Fathers who hit them, or who hit their mothers in front of them. The last column I read (from a political science professor at Howard University*, no less) insisted that "restraining orders" are unconstitutional because they make it unlawful for the "restrained" to do what other people lawfully do, like talk to his estranged wife who cries herself to sleep every night and jumps whenever a door slams. All of these critics of the VAWA also cite faulty statistics indicating that men are victimized at least as often as women, failing to account for the fact that a) violence from men to women is far more likely to end in medical treatment for the victim, b) that violence against women by men is astronomically statistically more likely to end in homicide, and c) a significant portion of the statistics on men's victimization include men who are victimized by their male partner. It basically breaks down to every time a woman pokes her husband in the chest during an argument, another woman's husband punches her in the face. It's not quite the same.
What it boils down to is that I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that so-called "men's rights" groups are fighting for the right to beat their wives.
*Also, this particular critic came right out and said that dating violence (including stalking) among teenagers does not exist and should not be part of the Act. I have a theory, and it's that this guy lives in a cave and has never met any women. And certainly no teenage women.
spit at you by Nil at 6:40 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home