Several months ago, I wrote an article addressing a public statement by the radical feminist Jessica Valenti. The Washington Post [1] published an article authored by Valenti on December 12 2010 in which she argued for the reversal of the burden of proof onto the accused, in criminal trials for the crime of rape.
For the sake of clarity, I will copy the paragraph in which Valenti states the case for presumed guilt.
It reads: In fact, some activists and legal experts in Sweden want to change the law there so that the burden of proof is on the accused; the alleged rapist would have to show that he got consent, instead of the victim having to prove that she didn’t give it.
The deliberately obtuse will claim that Valenti is merely commenting on somebody else’s position, with her vague attribution to “some activists and legal experts in Sweden”.
What experts? Valenti doesn’t name them. She does directly quote a Swedish feminist, Johanna Palmström, but doesn’t attribute the argument for presumptive guilt to Palmström. Wherever Valenti got this idea, she owns it now, and it’s Valenti arguing in its favor in her Washington Post article.
She is, of course not the first feminist to push the perverse idea of presumptive guilt.
Linda Bourque argued for presumptive guilt in rape accusations in her 1989 book Defining Rape. Susan Caringella, a sociology professor at Western Michigan University, called for the dismantling of what she calls overzealous protections for men in her 2008 book Addressing Rape Reform in Law and Practice.
No such overzealous protections exist, in fact, women accusing men of rape are commonly protected with a legally mandated anonymity, while men accused are smeared in the news prior to any legal or evidentiary inquiry.
I previously suggested that Valenti, in her advocacy of presumed guilt, recognized that by striping the right of habeas corpus from half the population, she understands and seeks a much more violent society; a society in which individuals cannot settle disputes through the courts, but must fall back on vendetta and violence because the system of law has become one of apartheid.
This is the outcome which logically follows the transformation of criminal law into a law of privilege for one group, and presumed guilt for another, based on sex.
Some critics of my analysis jumped to the absurd conclusion that I was actually threatening personal violence if this trend towards apartheid continues. The rhetorical contortions necessary to transmute a prediction of increased violence into a threat of violence is not unusual for opponents of men’s rights.
Having experienced substantial violence in my life, I can say with certainty that a society in which justice take the form of personal vendetta is a prospect I find abhorrent. The knee jerk attempt to characterize my analysis as if it were threat might be charitably seen as an honest but stupid misunderstanding. Or, the reading of my prediction of a more violent society as threat can be more realistically interpreted as a personalized straw man attack, pursued with the complete understanding that stripping away habeas corpus will leave many individuals with no options but violence in the settlement of disputes.
When the law is corrupted into a tool of wealth appropriation, apartheid, and privilege for one social class at the expense of another, I can see no possible outcome except a dramatic increase in brutal and deadly violence. If anybody still chooses to interpret that prediction as a threat, then I can only conclude that they’re deeply stupid, or wildly dishonest.
I still say that Jessica Valenti wants women to be killed. The alternative is that she is too stupid to understand what she’s arguing for. But that possibility must also encompass every single feminist arguing in her camp; too stupid to understand what they’re pushing for.
Feminism, the ideology to which Valenti, Caringella, and Bourque all subscribe has been variously described by its critics, including me, as an ideology of female supremacy. I now think this is only partly correct. It encompasses the deeply bigoted notion of supremacy of one biological demographic over another, but it is more accurate to consider feminism as a doctrine of violence.
If you’d like a few examples of this, consider mandatory arrest and primary aggressor laws. These laws mean that in cases of domestic violence – police have no discretion about whether to arrest somebody. Because domestic violence public service announcements and other propaganda universally depict men as aggressors – a portrayal wildly at odds with the stats on DV, [2] This means that the police act as feminist enforcers. Women can and do use the police as muscle to remove male spouses based solely on the woman’s discretion and say so. [3]
A report paid for and prepared on behalf of the US department of justice called “Violence Against Women: Synthesis of Research for Law Enforcement Officials” discusses domestic violence police intervention, and identifies only women as victims, and men as perpetrators, despite the large body of publicly available research [4] indicating gender symmetry in Intimate Partner Violence.
In cases where men are the victims of DV and calls for help from the police, it will likely result in that male victims arrest[5], rather than help. If you think this isn’t violence because it’s done through state funded enforcers, you’re delusional.
Another example is the funding and enforcement of the Violence Against Women Act; a set of laws providing extra protection for women, and fast track conviction for men, in spite of the well documented fact that men are far more likely to be victims of violence overall[6], and roughly coequally victims of domestic violence.
A policy to reduce violence against the group already least impacted by it, through the abrogation of legal rights of the group already most affected is tantamount to a policy of increased violence against the latter group; men.
Another example of systematic violence perpetrated by a violent ideology is the popularization of the foolish and hateful idea that every adult man is a potential pedophile. It’s social convention, and not legitimate research which brands men the offending demographic in the sexual abuse of children [7]. Because of the perpetuation of this falsehood, men must curb their normal, healthy, natural inclination to enjoy interaction with children.
To illustrate the point, consider the previous sentence. Did you picture something lurid when I mentioned men enjoying interactions with children? If you did, then you’ve at least partly bought into that poisonous lie. [8]
The reality is that women are the overwhelming majority of abusers and killers of children. The lie of ubiquitous masculine predation on children forces men to sequester themselves away from them out of self-preservation. That is inarguably violence done against men, and violence done against children.
How about workplace deaths? Organized feminism never ceases to remind us that women earn less than men. They’ll imply, or sometimes claim this is actually women being paid less to do jobs men are paid more for. [9]
This is false. In fact, on average, women choose jobs which afford them greater flexibility and access to friends and family[10].
Men, by contrast, tend to select jobs based almost exclusively on income. Because in our society, income is what men are valued by. However, as many times as the proponents of Big Feminism will argue for equalization of income outcome, you never hear an argument for the reduction of the percent of men who die doing their jobs. [11] 93 percent of workplace deaths are men.
The continued willful ignorance of this fact, while whining/ lying about income, is violence.
The National Organization of Women, one of the most prominent feminist organizations in the world has. on the landing page of their website, a list of their top 5 “issues,” one of which is stopping violence against women. According to the Bureau of Justice statistics, men are overwhelmingly more likely to be the victims of violence,[6] but the NOW is only concerned with stopping violence against women, not with stopping violence in general.
In light of the DOJ stats showing men as the principal victims of violence, doesn’t a focus on violence reduction for the demographic least affected translate to an implicit support for violence against men?
Yes it does, and quite explicitly.
The redefinition of the physical expression of love between a man and a woman, as a crime, is, itself, an act of violence against those who would give physical expression of love. “All heterosexual sex is violence” – said Andrea Dworkin, whose writings are still a staple of women’s and gender studies classes at universities in the United States and Canada. Dworkin doesn’t represent mainstream feminism, I hear somebody complaining?
Why, then, is her writing still used to teach university students to hate men?
Now, to avoid this becoming a tedious recitation of the forms of violence, I’ll limit the list to what I’ve mentioned. The complete list could extend to hundreds. Feminism, to be sure, is a doctrine of violence. We are simply bamboozled into thinking otherwise because the most obvious feminists do not themselves beat people with their fists.
Their violence is considerably more varied, and indirect.
One of the most remarkable features of this poisonous ideology of violence is the lengths to which it’s proponents will go to delude the laity, and delude themselves. This is illustrated in a Ted Talks lecture [12] given by feminist author Hannah Rosen, in which she publicly excoriates her own son, in front of her daughter, with the help of her husband, telling her baby boy that due to his masculinity, he is a lesser person than her daughter. She played the video of this humiliation of her little boy to a packed Ted Talks audience. Hannah Rosen performed this amazing act of cruelty thinking that she was actually doing good; that her actions were ethical.
Does some part of Hanna Rosen’s mind recognize the deliberate, calculated harm she’s doing to her son, and to all men in herself congratulatory preening lectures on feminism’s dominance of the public zeitgeist? I don’t know. I hope so.
Does anyone debate that this damage inflicted on her son is not violence?
How about the use of shaming language by proponents of feminism to silence any criticism or dissent? This is so common that a [13] bestiary of the most frequently used ad hominem arguments specifically targeting dissenting men can be found cataloged in a document called the anti-male shaming tactics catalog.
Is the silencing of debate through personal attack and shame not a form of violence? [14]If it’s not, then a vast majority of what feminists claim as violence against women must be summarily discarded without examination. Or maybe we live in a universe where that knife only cuts in one direction. Men can’t actually be victimized, because of the unique position of power they occupy. This is a clever piece of agitprop from feminist ideologue Marilyn Frye designed to de-legitimize any man’s expression of pain, and to validate any verbal or physical violence done to a man.
We also have the difference between depictions of rape against a woman, and depictions of rape against a man. In our mass produced entertainment, a woman raped is a horror, a shock, and an outrage, as it should be. Rape is a horrible violent crime. If our media depicts or describes rape committed against a man, it’s comedy.
Rape, when the victim is a man, is comedy, because feminism is a doctrine of violence.
Speaking about entertainment, why is it that almost all male figures used in advertising are depicted as buffoons, idiots, cretins, and infantilized boy-men? Women are portrayed as beautiful, clever, patient, wise, and in every way that matters, superior.
Can you imagine the consequences to an advertising agency who cast any other biological demographic as naturally inferior, used that for comic effect to sell car insurance, golf clubs or prescription drugs?
As long as its men portrayed as stupid, everything is Kosher, right? After all, the majority of the television audience are female[15].
In spite of the endless fraudulent claims by feminists that the real lifetime earnings imbalance which exists between men and women is the product of women’s oppression, women control 65% of the disposable income spent by individuals in the world. Regardless of who earns it, women spend it. This disparity is increasing, and by 2028, women are expected to control 72% of discretionary spending.
So denigration of men, violence against men, even killing of men is all just fine in feminism-land. Women are the majority of voters[17], entertainment consumers, and disposers of disposable income.
Women are in charge, and the violence of feminism’s doctrine is done indirectly, at once removed, or hidden behind language. It’s easy to be fooled into thinking feminism is something other than a doctrine of violence.
So, faced by 40 years of escalated violence against the male sex through media, through the courts, through the family courts, through the education system, have Men, the proclaimed great oppressors and rapists responded with escalated violence against women?
The unthinking, knee jerking response from proponents of feminism would probably be a shrill and hysterical yes. But I’d prefer to consult the statistics of the department of justice.[6]
The statistics collected by the United States Department of Justice indicate steadily declining rates of violent crime victimization for both women and men, but a consistently higher rate of violent crime committed against men.
So in light of the knowledge that men are far more often the victims of violent crime than women, why do media messages about stopping violence always focus on women as victims?
Are the producers of these messages unaware that men, and not women are subject to the majority of violent crime. Ignorance is implausible. What’s more realistic is that our society doesn’t actually care about violence done to men, we have no sympathy, and the agencies seeking funds are far more concerned about rent seeking than solution seeking. So they focus on a victim demographic more likely win emotional support and funding. Actual rates of violence don’t really matter, as long as there is enough damage being done to photogenic female victims to keep the money flowing.
Are you paying attention?
Damage to women is at the core of the victim industry’s business model. Damage to men is incidental. Well, almost incidental, it serves another purpose, and that’s to drive a wedge between men and women, setting them against each other. I’ll talk about that in greater depth in another article.
Also, let us not delude ourselves; the violence done by the violent ideology of feminism isn’t always against men. [18] Women are the world’s champions at killing children. Now in hearing that item of uncomfortable truth, some halfwit will likely screech that I’m saying women are all child killers. No, I’m saying that the US Department of health and Human Services show mothers abusing children at more than double the rate of fathers. How is it that with these stats so readily available, rescue organizations and non-governmental organizations running on a feminist ideology never seem to stray from the narrative that men are the problem full stop.
Are they incompetent? Confused? Or are they wholly unconcerned with actually reducing violence? Or do they simply produce a palatable message that the bad men must be curbed, because that message coupled with real violence done in the real world – never mentioning women as perpetrators – that’s the fastest and easiest way to secure funding and sympathy.
Feminism is an ideology of violence. After 40 years of feminist pre-eminence in policy making, education, the courts, and government, anybody still denying this may be beyond the reach of rational thought.
Now i’ll conclude with one more point. Feminism is an ideology. It’s not a biological demographic. Who listening to this is already fuming that I, a men’s rights activist must surely hate women. This is a favorite straw man argument against anyone arguing in opposition to.
Women and feminists are not the same thing, and opposition to violent ideology doesn’t mean hatred of women. I’m actually rather fond of women, when
they’re not lying to me, or calling me a potential rapist, or lobbying for policy to define my masculine identity as criminal.
[box type=”info”]
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/10/AR2010121002571.html
[2] http://www.fredoneverything.net/yyNOWCops.shtml
[3] http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/198372.pdf
[4] http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
[5] http://www.dewar4research.org/DOCS/PlightOfMaleVictimsSummaryMay08.pdf
[6] http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/vsxtab.cfm
[7] http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5006569130
[8] http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm08/figure3_6.htm
[9] http://consad.com/index.php?page=an-analysis-of-reasons-for-the-disparity-in-wages-between-men-and-women
[10] http://www.swlearning.com/economics/policy_debates/gender.html
[11] http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf
[12] http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/watch-hannas-fabulous-end-men-ted-talk
[13] http://www.womenshealth.gov/violence/types/emotional.cfm
[14] http://exposingfeminism.wordpress.com/shaming-tactics/
[15] http://www.bizreport.com/2007/08/adults_watch_but_do_kids.html
[16] http://www.womenwantmorethebook.com/press/septermber9.aspx
[17] http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/research/topics/documents/genderdiff.pdf
[18] http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm08/figure3_6.htm
[3] http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/research/topics/documents/genderdiff.pdf
[5] http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf
[/box]
The Violence Behind Feminism's Humanist Masquerade
