Subtle Feminist Propaganda
A recent article on National Radio Morning Report (5 December 2008) showed again the subtle ways that feminist mythology is constantly promoted. The article reported that violence had now overtaken all other causes (such as road and work accidents) for facial injuries requiring surgery or reconstruction. The medical specialists referred to the numerous “people” who came in to hospital with such injuries, especially on Friday and Saturday nights after drunken violence. It was emphasized that the violence “mainly involves men”. One medical specialist was reported to say “the behaviour of men must change”. Another talked about “all these drunks who have beaten themselves up” using up the hospital resources. One particular case was mentioned of a man who had been injured. However, the article did not say anything about the gender ratio of victims. Various types of injuries and situations were described (e.g. pub fights, broken cheekbones) but all without reference to gender, except for the situation of “women being brought in by Women’s Refuge because their boyfriends had beaten them up”. The article then played an excerpt from “Once Were Warriors” with a man menacing a woman. The article then quoted the Ministry of Social Development’s claim that “its campaign against family violence will help”.
So what’s the problem with this article? Well, barely any mention is made of males as the victims here, even though you can be sure the vast majority of these hospitalisations are male victims. And the men coming to hospital will probably have much worse injuries on average than the women. Men’s victimization, as usual, is ignored and hidden. Instead, the article’s creators and a number of those interviewed turned it into simply another piece of feminist propaganda, implying that most of the facial surgery resulted from men assaulting their female partners. No statistics were given to support this picture, a picture that is almost certainly false.
Further, the article made absolutely no mention of female violence, as if this is not worth considering. We know from scientifically sound research (as opposed to research by feminist lobby groups) that women commit about as many acts of physical violence towards their partners as do men. Fewer assaults committed by women will result in hospitalization, but research shows this proportion is similar to that for murders, i.e. between one-quarter and one-third as many males are murdered by female partners as females are by male partners, and this is also the case for injuries requiring hospitalization. Also, in a proportion of the cases where women were injured, the men will have been injured too or the man’s reaction provoked by serious violence initiated by the woman. The point is that female violence, clearly significant albeit somewhat less so than male violence, is treated as so trivial that it isn’t even mentioned.
There seemed to be an assumption that males requiring facial surgery were responsible for their injuries because they engaged in fighting etc (e.g. the strange claim that patients had beaten themselves up). While this may be true for a proportion of such patients, in the absence of good statistics such an assumption is inappropriate. Many of the male patients were likely to be as much victims of others’ violence as were any of the female patients. There will have been situations ranging from men being attacked in robberies or wanton violence without any provocation at all, to men being attacked for paying too much attention to a violent man’s girlfriend, to men involved in arguments or perhaps minor pushing who were then attacked with unexpected and out-of-proportion ferocity. Whether men or women committed this violence is irrelevant to the injured victims, but the article implied that males needn’t be viewed as victims because it is males who are thought to commit more violence. Imagine if the same position were taken on the basis of race. For example, more violent offending is committed by Maori than by Pakeha, so should we therefore blame Maori victims for their injuries, fail to mention them and otherwise withhold empathy from them?
By providing such an inaccurate picture, the article failed to contribute to an understanding of this problem that might lead to effective solutions. Instead of conveniently attributing the problem to men’s deficits, the article might have explored factors possibly contributing to an increasing pattern of violence by both men and women. Factors like violence on television and other entertainment. Factors like the reduction of discipline in schools under a belief that social modelling is the main influence on children’s behavioural development. Factors like family breakdown. Factors like the devaluing of men and reducing their sense of belonging in our society, and like “girls can do anything (especially the things they used to criticize men for)”. It’s ironic that many of those factors have resulted from feminist ideology replacing previous male-dominated tradition, not from problematic masculinity itself.
I sent my above article as feedback to Morning Report, National Radio, with the following introduction:
I would encourage other posters here (who believe they could represent our views reasonably) to follow this up with an email to National Radio to introduce themselves and similarly offer themselves for interviews. Don’t hold your breath though.
Comment by Hans Laven — Sun 14th December 2008 @ 12:16 pm
Hans, you’ve made a very good response to these feminist bigots. I think one of the biggest problems feminism has caused for men is that it has always been so determined to group all males as bad and fundamentally flawed (while never addressing any of the same problems in females) that it has closed down all debate about those males who cause so many problems for the rest of us. Before feminism neutered men, men used to know how to stand up to bullies and trouble makers. The other thing feminism has done is to completely ignore female violence or to pretend that it was only ever in response to male violence while the reliable research shows that females initiate violence more often than males and that offending rates are about equal. Except that is with crimes of dishonesty, in which females offend at the rate of four times that of males.
Comment by Sam — Sun 14th December 2008 @ 1:11 pm
I suppose the mens facial injuries ignores the two hours taken to repair my scalp and remove all the plastic after my X had smashed a cordless phone over it. Sorry I forgot, it was my head not my face, and I must have provoked her. 🙂
Comment by Alastair — Sun 14th December 2008 @ 2:42 pm
answer: alcohol
Comment by don't step on my blue suede shoes — Mon 15th December 2008 @ 10:05 am
Very well written Hans. I am sure there is hardly a male out there who has not been attacked in or near a pub for little or no reason at some point.
Comment by Dave — Mon 15th December 2008 @ 3:12 pm
Bellinda Kontominas
December 16, 2008 – 11:40AM
FOUR YEARS JAIL FOR FEMALE MURDERS MALE, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA..
A heavily intoxicated woman who stabbed her husband to death with an antique knife has been jailed for at least four years.
The judge told his family they might think her punishment was “inadequate”.
Danielle Stewart, 32, was found guilty in October of manslaughter after she stabbed Chaim Kimel, 55, twice in the abdomen during an argument in their Rose Bay apartment in August 2006.
Today at the Supreme Court, Justice Jane Mathews told members of Mr Kimel’s family, including his youngest son who was at home at the time of the stabbing, that courts could not impose sentences to reflect the pain and suffering of a family.
“I suspect that you’ll regard the punishment that I am about to impose as quite inadequate to the extent of your loss,” Justice Mathews told the family before sentencing Stewart to a maximum of six years and four months and a minimum of four years in jail.
Stewart could be eligible for parole as early as June 2011.
Mr Kimel’s family declined to comment on the sentence outside court.
It was “extremely traumatic” for Mr Kimel’s youngest son, who was 16 at the time and cannot be named, to have been present the night his father died, Justice Mathews said.
“No doubt [it] will remain with him for the rest of his life.”
Stewart, who had been diagnosed with severe borderline personality disorder, had been drinking heavily on the night in question.
The court heard she had become extremely agitated after her husband changed the password to their company’s website.
“The offender in her intoxicated state grabbed hold of the knife to stab the deceased without [considering] the consequences,” Justice Mathews said.
She found that Stewart had a good chance for rehabilitation as long as she received intensive treatment for her disorder.
Stewart had made several attempts on her life since the age of 12 and had suffered sexual abuse as a young girl, the worst occurring shortly after her mother died of breast cancer.
Justice Mathews found that Stewart was unlikely to reoffend despite the emotional and psychological issues that stemmed from having “more than her fair share” of childhood trauma.
Comment by SANTA CLAUS — Tue 16th December 2008 @ 10:39 pm
Re Post #6: Wow, many male violent offenders did so due to personality disorders and much childhood trauma. For men, that’s usually a reason for locking them up much longer. Obviously though for women it’s a reason not to. When women offend the Courts bend over backwards to understand them and to find other people or factors to blame. Female offenders are more likely to be referred for psychological assessment, because our society just can’t get to grips with the fact that women can be bad.
Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder are notoriously difficult to treat or help. They clog up mental health services all over the world because their problems just go on and on. While some people claim certain treatments can be effective in reducing the extent of the problems, those treatments are difficult to provide and their success is debatable. I wonder how the judge got the idea that this offender was likely to be rehabilitated and her risk of re-offending to be low.
Comment by Hans Laven — Tue 16th December 2008 @ 11:14 pm