gender

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.From Dr. Helen:

The original article has some interesting theories on monogamy (or not) that I'm not sure I agree with.

What I do agree with is the way that men (as opposed to women) are portrayed in media, sitcoms, television and the way that they are increasing treated in the court system treats both genders unfairly by robbing them of choices that should be theirs to make.

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re:  Tiger Woods and everything surrounding that mess

okay...

#1

  • we have ONE man who has slept with women other than his wife.
  • we have FOUR women who have slept with a man who is married, and who is not their husband.

Everybody get ready for the roll of the eyes and collectively say, "men are such pigs".

80% of the people fooling around here are women.

#2

  • a woman gets caught cheating and her husbands whacks her one.  Society (as a whole) tells us "there is never an excuse for violence"
  • a man gets caught cheating and his wife whacks him one.  Society (as a whole) rolls its collective eyes and says, "duh.  He deserved it."

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A study conducted by UCLA's Department of Psychiatry has revealed that the kind of face a woman finds attractive on a man can differ depending on where she is In her menstrual cycle. For example: If she is ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged and masculine features. However, if she is menstruating, or menopausal, she tends to be more attracted to a man with duct tape over his mouth and a spear lodged in his chest while he is on fire...

No further studies are expected.

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From Glenn Sacks

Here's a test.

Listen to the facts of this case.  Randy and Melissa Pratt of Pennsylvania had about $1,700 in their bank account.  One day they woke up and there was $170,000 in the same account - bank error in their favor.  So they did what any reasonable couple would do - took the money and went to Florida.  (If you said that they're incredibly stupid, you get extra credit.)  Randy said he considered the money a gift from God.

So pretty soon the law catches up with them and arrests them.  One of them remains in jail subject to $100,000 bail; the other was released from jail with no bail.

Here's your test question:  which one got the $100,000 bail and which got out of jail free?

Here's the story (MSNBC, 1/22/09).

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On Complegalitarian, Don Johnson tells us how a complementarian can be a poor witness based on how they react when a woman teaches.  A complementarian is not to question, not to raise a fuss, they should either not attend if they know ahead of time or slip out quietly if caught by surprise.

How to turn this table?

If a woman is in a complementarian church and suddenly believes that she is to be in leadership over men, should teach authoritatively in the assembly - against the leadership of that church.

Should she stay and try to convince that church that she is right and they should put her in leadership, should she speak within that church against the leadership of that church and what they believe or should she leave quietly and go to a church who would put her in leadership?

I have asked that question before and an egalitarian answered that of course, she should stand her ground and fight the leadership.

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Yesterday, tiro said,

the new rumors that women are just as abusive (specifically physically) as men and maybe even more so is just a bad rumor…. which I explained further in post #6.

I would say be careful what you label as "rumor"...

While it is possible that more violent women is new...it is not rumor.   I've worked in a public high school fairly recently and in that school, the majority of physical fighting was done by the young women.

I can offer a lot of possibilities that could contribute to a "new" phonomena.  Removing dads from the picture, or relegating them to a minor role could be preventing the teens and young adults from knowing how to interact with males in a positive way.  The scarcity of male teachers adds to that absence of positive role models.

The research shows that women instigate violence as much as men and that the greatest number of violent incidents include both partners.  To dismiss the research means denying men and women the help they need (either as violent partners or victims) AND serves to continue the "women good-men bad" attitude that political feminists seek to serve up.

(My computer got rebooted - by my son - and the tabs where I had the research got closed.  I am in the process of locating them again. )

At any rate, we're packing for a long weekend in Chicago so I'm setting the comments to "all comments need to be approved"...feel free to comment, but everything is held in moderation and I'll get to it several times.

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Since his message is that women can be violent also, I'll be assuming that Sue will find him "not credible" as well).

(here is the questionaire)

Several studies, including large and nationally representative samples, have found that female-only violence is as prevalent as or more prevalent than male-only violence, and that the most prevalent pattern is mutual violence. The 1975 and the 1985 National Family Violence Surveys both found that about half of the violence was mutual, one quarter was male-only, and ne quarter was female-only (Gelles & Straus, 1988; Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980). The National Comorbidity Study (Kessler, Molnar, Feurer et al., 2001) found similar percentages. Other studies showing similar results include (Anderson, 2002; Capaldi & Owen, 2001; McCarroll, Ursano, Fan et al., 2004; Moffitt, Caspi, Rutter et al., 2001; Williams & Frieze, 2005). In all of these studies, the predominant pattern was mutual violence.

Not a Dutton to be found.

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Stets and Straus - 825 respondents:
49% reported reciprocal violence

28% reported that only the wife was violent

23% reported that only the husband was violent.

The men reported:

men struck the first blow 43.7% of the time...they reported women hitting first 44.1% of the time

The women reported:

women striking first 52.7% of the time...men hitting first 42.6% of the time.

Women are more likely to hit back (24.4% vs. 15%)

Stets and Straus (1992) combined the 1985 US National Family Violence Resurvey (N = 5,005) with a sample of 526 dating couples to generate a large and representative sample of male-female relationships, in which they reported incidence of intimate violence by gender. Using a subset of 825 respondents who reported experiencing at least one or more assaults the authors found that in ½ (49%) of the incidents the couples reported reciprocal violence, in 1/4 (23%) of the cases the couples reported that the husband alone was violent and 1/4 (28%) reported the wife alone was violent. Men (n = 297) reported striking the first blow in 43.7% of cases and that their partner struck the first blow in 44.1% of the cases. The women (n = 428) reported striking the first blow in 52.7% of the cases and that their partner struck first in 42.6% of the cases. Stets and Straus (1992) concluded that not only do women engage in a comparable amount of violence, they are “at least as likely” to instigate violence. The results also indicated that women were more likely to hit back (24.4%) than men (15%) in response to violent provocation by a partner (Straus & Gelles, 1992). This latter result is difficult to explain from the patriarchal view that women are more afraid of male violence than the reverse. Stets and Straus also analyzed for level of violence x gender. They concluded that equal levels of violence by both men and women were the most common form of violence (40% of married couples). The second most frequent form was women using severe violence against men who were either completely non-violent or who used only minor violence (about 16 % of married couples). The stereotypical pattern (male severe, female none or minor) was found for only 8% of married couples. (emphasis mine) (Donald G. Dutton)

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Violent Partners - Linda G. Mills (Intro)

(cross-posted on MzellenReads)

Violent Partners, by Linda G. MillsFrom the back of the book:
"In Violent Partners, Linda Mills continues to ask dangerous questions - about women's propensity to violence; about the murky powers stirring partnerships; about the ways in which the flaws and failures of the women's movement's response may have unintentionally sustained some of our collective risk. In addition, she bravely confronts her own complicity in the violence that helped shape her life: (Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of "Random Family")

Even the introduction is packed with information. Mills asks,

"(...)But has this enormous revolution in both public perception and public policy made America less violent? Are there fewer batterers than before? Are batterers learning to take responsibility for their behavior? Are women safer or more in control of their own lives?"

She begins to answer:

"(...)the ideology and rhetoric of the anti-domestic violence movement have become so rigid that they have created a new set of myths - or, at the very least, a new set of highly partial truths - that can be as pernicious as those we fought so hard to dispel years ago."

The book is about realities:

  • the popular perception of domestic violence (...)represents only a small fraction of the American couples struggling with violence today
  • Yesterday's victims often become tomorrow's criminals. Most researchers (...) now agree that child abuse if far more responsible for creating batterers than sexist attitudes and beliefs, and yet most batterer intervention programs fail to acknowledge this troubling legacy
  • Violence is dehumanizing not only for the victim for for ther perpetrator as well. When we treat the batterer as a pariah, we may be discouraging them from seeking help
  • Women frequently strike out - and not only in self-defense; in 24% of American marriages only the woman is abusive

Mills (in the introduction) makes it clear that she is not trying to demonize the movement, but rather expand it and adjust it to include the greater needs that have been covered up to this point (unintentionally, but unnoticed just the same)

Posted by Ellen