Carey Roberts
Domestic violence industry: hateful
By Carey Roberts
Dogged by weeks of protest, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit finally took down the controversial advertisements from its buses this past weekend. Purchased by a local abuse shelter, the ads featured a young schoolgirl who blithely predicted, "One day my husband will kill me."
Journalist Helen Smith denounced the ads as "Very disturbing hate speech against husbands, fathers, and even boys." Advice Goddess Amy Alkon titled her op-ed, "Hating Men — Supposedly for the Greater Good." One distraught mother responded to the Dallas Morning News article by writing, "I took my son aside after seeing it and explained to him how certain women in this society abuse their positions to promote hatred towards men and boys."
From its beginnings three decades ago, the domestic violence industry has been plagued by a cabal of pinkshirts who will do almost anything to advance their agenda.
Erin Pizzey, founder of the first domestic violence shelter in England, let the cat out of the bag when she revealed many of the women in her shelter were as abusive as the men they had left. In retaliation, feminists issued death threats and eventually forced her to flee the country.
In the United States, Dr. Suzanne Steinmetz' research on the Battered Husband Syndrome triggered a whispering campaign designed to torpedo her impending promotion, as well as a bomb threat at her daughter's wedding.
Family violence researcher Murray Straus at the University of New Hampshire has been similarly slandered, harassed, and threatened by radicals who all claim to be against violence.
Eventually the gender partisans got their way, securing passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994. Conservative commentator Phyllis Schlafly would later refer to the legislation as the "hate-men law."
Is that description a little over-the-top? Read on, decide for yourself.
Federal domestic violence laws funnel millions in taxpayer money to sponsor public awareness programs such as the Dallas bus ads, as well as training for judges and law enforcement personnel.
Former police officer George Sperry of La Mesa, Calif. described the training he attended as "so dripping with male hatred that everyone in the class felt uncomfortable, male and female officers alike."
But the most virulent anti-male ethos is found at the 1,800 abuse shelters scattered across the country.
A former worker at Bethany House in Falls Church, Va. revealed the facility was "largely used as a free hostel for women with emotional problems if they were willing to hate their husbands enough."
One woman, hired to work for a network of shelters in the St. Louis area, quit in disgust after only a few months because the residents "were subjected to a constant barrage of man-hating lesbian propaganda."
One Seattle-area judge who served as a member of the advisory committee of a shelter admitted, "I was shocked at the anti-male bias of the ladies who ran the shelter. The only solution championed by the shelter was to get free from that big, malicious male."
Joy Taylor, former volunteer at a Washington state shelter, found that "Men were always presented as potential abusers; any goodness one might see in them was only temporary."
Shelter residents also complain of deep-seated anti-male bias.
At Independence House in Hyannis, Mass., Nev Moore disclosed, "Women are ordered to leave their husbands, even in the complete absence of real domestic violence or abuse."
Former shelter resident Nezha Saad revealed, "exposure to domestic violence audio and visual materials in the shelter has negatively affected my children to the point where even they may now feel that men, in general, are abusive." Saad demanded that "Justice, not man-hating ideology, must prevail in our justice system."
But the problem is not just an out-of-control industry that marinates itself in defamatory caricatures of men — the source can be traced to feminist ideology as a whole.
Gloria Steinem once made this breath-taking statement, "The patriarchy requires violence or the subliminal threat of violence in order to maintain itself." And feminist icon Andrea Dworkin spewed this shocking tirade: "Under patriarchy, every woman's son is her betrayer and also the inevitable rapist or exploiter of another woman."
Three years ago the New York Times ran a screed that blamed the problem of domestic violence on "every man and in every class of society." (All the research shows women are as likely to abuse as men — www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm — but goodness gracious, let's not allow the facts to stand in the way of female empowerment!)
Americans pride ourselves as being open-minded and tolerant. So where did the feminist movement get sidetracked?
Professor Murray Straus, a courageous man who refuses to back down in the face of feminist efforts to squelch his research, explains it this way: "History is full of atrocities carried out in the service of a moral agenda."
© Carey Roberts
December 1, 2008
Dogged by weeks of protest, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit finally took down the controversial advertisements from its buses this past weekend. Purchased by a local abuse shelter, the ads featured a young schoolgirl who blithely predicted, "One day my husband will kill me."
Journalist Helen Smith denounced the ads as "Very disturbing hate speech against husbands, fathers, and even boys." Advice Goddess Amy Alkon titled her op-ed, "Hating Men — Supposedly for the Greater Good." One distraught mother responded to the Dallas Morning News article by writing, "I took my son aside after seeing it and explained to him how certain women in this society abuse their positions to promote hatred towards men and boys."
From its beginnings three decades ago, the domestic violence industry has been plagued by a cabal of pinkshirts who will do almost anything to advance their agenda.
Erin Pizzey, founder of the first domestic violence shelter in England, let the cat out of the bag when she revealed many of the women in her shelter were as abusive as the men they had left. In retaliation, feminists issued death threats and eventually forced her to flee the country.
In the United States, Dr. Suzanne Steinmetz' research on the Battered Husband Syndrome triggered a whispering campaign designed to torpedo her impending promotion, as well as a bomb threat at her daughter's wedding.
Family violence researcher Murray Straus at the University of New Hampshire has been similarly slandered, harassed, and threatened by radicals who all claim to be against violence.
Eventually the gender partisans got their way, securing passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994. Conservative commentator Phyllis Schlafly would later refer to the legislation as the "hate-men law."
Is that description a little over-the-top? Read on, decide for yourself.
Federal domestic violence laws funnel millions in taxpayer money to sponsor public awareness programs such as the Dallas bus ads, as well as training for judges and law enforcement personnel.
Former police officer George Sperry of La Mesa, Calif. described the training he attended as "so dripping with male hatred that everyone in the class felt uncomfortable, male and female officers alike."
But the most virulent anti-male ethos is found at the 1,800 abuse shelters scattered across the country.
A former worker at Bethany House in Falls Church, Va. revealed the facility was "largely used as a free hostel for women with emotional problems if they were willing to hate their husbands enough."
One woman, hired to work for a network of shelters in the St. Louis area, quit in disgust after only a few months because the residents "were subjected to a constant barrage of man-hating lesbian propaganda."
One Seattle-area judge who served as a member of the advisory committee of a shelter admitted, "I was shocked at the anti-male bias of the ladies who ran the shelter. The only solution championed by the shelter was to get free from that big, malicious male."
Joy Taylor, former volunteer at a Washington state shelter, found that "Men were always presented as potential abusers; any goodness one might see in them was only temporary."
Shelter residents also complain of deep-seated anti-male bias.
At Independence House in Hyannis, Mass., Nev Moore disclosed, "Women are ordered to leave their husbands, even in the complete absence of real domestic violence or abuse."
Former shelter resident Nezha Saad revealed, "exposure to domestic violence audio and visual materials in the shelter has negatively affected my children to the point where even they may now feel that men, in general, are abusive." Saad demanded that "Justice, not man-hating ideology, must prevail in our justice system."
But the problem is not just an out-of-control industry that marinates itself in defamatory caricatures of men — the source can be traced to feminist ideology as a whole.
Gloria Steinem once made this breath-taking statement, "The patriarchy requires violence or the subliminal threat of violence in order to maintain itself." And feminist icon Andrea Dworkin spewed this shocking tirade: "Under patriarchy, every woman's son is her betrayer and also the inevitable rapist or exploiter of another woman."
Three years ago the New York Times ran a screed that blamed the problem of domestic violence on "every man and in every class of society." (All the research shows women are as likely to abuse as men — www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm — but goodness gracious, let's not allow the facts to stand in the way of female empowerment!)
Americans pride ourselves as being open-minded and tolerant. So where did the feminist movement get sidetracked?
Professor Murray Straus, a courageous man who refuses to back down in the face of feminist efforts to squelch his research, explains it this way: "History is full of atrocities carried out in the service of a moral agenda."
© Carey Roberts
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