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by Anonymous User on 02:36 PM December 19th, 2004 EST (#1)
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From the WashedupPost front-page horror feature, Sunday 12/19
They all were pregnant, with futures that seemed sure to unfold over many years. [that last part of the sentence is really informative!] One was a nurse's assistant who planned to name her daughter T'Kaiya. Another had just bought a house. The youngest was a high school cheerleader.
You might get the impression from the DeadPost article that all those women were impregnated spontaneously, or maybe by drinking from dirty glasses. For those who have received the news about how babies are made, do you think that the fathers of those children were going to have any reasonable opportunity to participate in their children's lives? Or would the cops be chasing them to collect whatever money they could for "child support"?
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by Boy Genteel on 05:10 PM December 19th, 2004 EST (#2)
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Anyone remember this story? It creates sort of an interesting contrast. Violence against women: a problem we all need to face. Violence against men: a "dying art" we need to revive.
Feel free to point this out to the POST when sending your dozens of letters of complaint.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/spec ial/clinton/stories/oslap041998.htm
When You Make a Lasting Impression
By Stephanie Mencimer
Sunday, April 19, 1998; Page C01
"I thought, maybe I should just give him a good slap across the face. But then I thought, well, I don't think you can slap the president of the United States like that."
– Kathleen Willey, recalling her reaction to President Clinton's alleged advance
Once upon a time, the slap was a lady's traditional response to not being treated like a lady. The slap, though, seems to have gone the way of the virgin bride. Letitia Baldrige, Jackie Kennedy's social secretary and the author of several etiquette books, says "women slapping men for unwelcome sexual advances is really a bygone art. In the 19th century, women used to slap men daintily. It was a sign of ostracism." She remembers that the slap was in use well up through the 1930s. "Now, women don't think of it. The vocabulary -- and sometimes the lawsuit -- has replaced the slap."
That the slap is no longer part of a woman's arsenal is a tragedy. It has many admirable qualities to recommend it. The slap has such a lovely sound. Strong, immediate and universally understood, one quick flick of the wrist says in no uncertain terms, "How dare you!" The slap is outrage asserting itself. It's civilized, even haughty, and it conjures up images of Scarlett O'Hara wielding a distinctly feminine power.
Given the rise in sexual harassment allegations, it's time to resurrect the slap -- and the sense of shock that went with it. (Maybe if Bob Packwood had gotten a good slap in his office, he would still be in the U.S. Senate.) While women today are making ample use of the legal tools available to confront harassment, they frequently fail to use the most primitive weapons at their disposal.
The slap stings because it invokes an element of public shame that is often lacking in women's responses to inappropriate behavior -- including the lawsuit. Many of the most reprehensible sexual harassers never see the inside of the courtroom, nor do they lose their jobs. "Most good cases settle," said local civil rights attorney Lynne Bernabei. The settled suit is easily concealed, but slap a man when he pinches your behind near the copy machine and you've outed him. He won't forget it. And he's not likely to do it again. "It certainly humiliates the guy," said Baldrige. "If you slap the guy, it will absolutely resonate throughout the room."
Obviously, there are some good reasons the slap has gone out of style -- the main one being that some men hit back. The slap flourished in a dusty era when a woman who did not loudly rebuff unwanted sexual advances risked her reputation. Today, a woman who raises her hand risks her job.
The slap was also the reaction of a proper lady whose exposure to the male genitalia happened only after marriage. The sexual revolution removed the need for women to defend their virtue so aggressively. Today's sophisticated woman often worries more about seeming prudish than easy.
New-Age pop psychology further muddied the waters. The 1960s' idea that holding hands and hugging strangers was the key to world peace helped blur the distinction between proper and improper physical contact. That's part of the reason Willey says she did not recoil from Clinton's initial embrace: He's known as a hugger, and it is hardly fair to slap a guy for a bear hug.
There are other reasons why the slap has disappeared. For large numbers of women entering the workforce in the '60s, ignoring lurid sexual comments, gropes and gooses was a survival skill. Rather than imposing higher standards on men, women learned to talk dirty with the best of them. Judith Martin, the columnist known as Miss Manners, said women who wanted to succeed in the boys' club learned quickly: "If you can behave like a man and live the life of a man, you can be here as an honorary man." Boorish behavior once rewarded with a slap on the cheek is now met with a roll of the eyes from women who pretend they have seen it all.
The attitude trickles down. No longer do mothers instruct their daughters in the Victorian art of the slap. Instead, they teach that silence is dignified. When girls complain about boys snapping their bra straps on the school bus, how many mothers counsel, "Just ignore them, dear"?
This modern female gentility leaves sleazy male antics mostly unchecked. "People should react when they see this," said Martin, "and not wait for the law and courts to sort it out. If somebody grabs you, you scream!"
In fact, in abandoning the slap -- and the scream, and all of the vocabulary of outrage -- women have unilaterally disarmed.
Just assume, for the sake of argument, that Paula Corbin Jones has been telling a true story. She was summoned by a state trooper to a hotel room by the governor of Arkansas. He propositioned her, pulled his pants down and showed her his equipment. She was supposedly so horrified that, when outed by the trooper three years later, she filed a sexual harassment suit against Clinton.
Imagine, instead, that Jones had slapped Clinton and run from the room screaming, leaving the door wide open for passers-by to glimpse the governor in all his splendor. That one bold swipe would have elevated Jones from secretary to She-Ra, female avenger.
But alas, that's not what happened. The doormat ethic prevailed: Jones says she kept quiet, out of fear of losing her job, just as, two years later, Willey allegedly kept quiet while angling for a White House paycheck. And many people think their reactions were entirely sensible. "Being subtle is the rational thing to do," explained Bernabei. "That's what most women do."
But is it really rational to keep quiet? After all, it's the man who should fear unemployment. And, as Martin pointed out, "The law is easier to enforce when there is a reaction. If somebody does that kind of thing and you haul off and smack him and run out of the room screaming, it's a less accepting posture." To be sure, reviving the slap would place some of the responsibility for men's behavior squarely on women's shoulders. It's unfair -- not to mention discomforting -- but then, so is being harassed and walking away.
So let 'em have it. Be warned, though. If you're going to wind up, you'd better do it well first time. Baldrige suggests practicing in the mirror on yourself to get the feel for it. "It really is an art," she explained.
Stephanie Mencimer is an investigative reporter for The Washington Post.
Men are from EARTH. Women are from EARTH. Deal with it.
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by Anonymous User on 08:09 PM December 19th, 2004 EST (#3)
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(warning the below may be offenisive)
"But a guy isn’t supposed to hit a woman, I say.
"The guy’s not supposed to hit a woman," he counters, " but it’s okay for a guy to hit a weaker guy. I mean, it has nothing to do with physical weakness. Woman are ‘sacred’ [in this society]. This idea that they’re second-class citizens is bullshit. They live longer, they don’t go to jail for the same crimes, they don’t have to go to war. It’s bullshit. They get better bathrooms. Anybody who says women are second-class citizens should go into a male and female public bathroom, and come out and tell me with a straight face that women are second-class citizens."
Yeah, but you’re still not supposed to hit a woman.
This belief has "nothing to do with Strength v. Weakness," Goad writes, "and everything to do with Man v. Woman."
If I had assaulted, say, an eight-foot-tall Negro gentleman as many times as Anne attacked me, and the Negro gent finally hauls off and pulverizes me, everyone would think I deserved it, even though the eight-foot Negro is stronger relative to me than I am compared to Anne.
If I had broken the nose of a man smaller and weaker than Anne, would anyone think I deserved life in prison?
Well, it could be said that a gentleman hits neither a woman nor a smaller guy.
"H.L. Mencken said a gentleman is a man who never hits a woman without provocation," Goad replies.
He utterly rejects any argument that men are more prone to physical violence than women.
"Every study of family violence that’s ever been done has seen it neck and neck–or women committing more violence than males," he argues. "Does the justice system reflect that? Women do as much damage with a frying pan in their hand, or a knife or a blunt instrument, as any man." The lopsided law "has nothing to do with relative physical strength, and everything to do with female sanctity, and male scumminess, or males being subhuman compared to females, and guys get blamed for it."
He puts it succinctly in Shit Magnet:
When Lorena Bobbitt sliced off her husband’s bratwurst, comedians joked about it for a year.
Imagine the laughter if he’d mutilated her vagina.
"I’ll hit anyone who’s seriously threatening my life," he tells me, "and that’s what happened, and that’s what sent me to prison."
http://nypress.com/15/26/news&columns/feature.cfm
"funny anti-domestic-violence TV ads" (not so funny but scary and offensive and I wondered at first if they were real to really show men in this way...But they do show in exagerated way the whole VAWA medai propganda..)
http://www.homefrontcalgary.com/Restaurant_R_Full_ Frame.mpg
http://www.homefrontcalgary.com/Boardroom_R_Full_F rame.mpg
found at http://www.jimgoad.com/
sorry if this was offensive to anyone, but I gave a warning. I think points of view, even if they are offensive can sometimes make me think about things differently.
p. george
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by Anonymous User on 08:13 PM December 19th, 2004 EST (#4)
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if you cut and paste the links, you'll probably have to find the break in the links and connect it together...
p. george
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by Anonymous User on 08:19 PM December 19th, 2004 EST (#5)
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actually I regret even giving those two video links out now, they can't be real, they swear in one of them...I think people are seeing the way that men are being portrayed in the media more so nowadays though. I can only think these are angry spoofs of that or something.
sorry about all that.
p. george
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by Anonymous User on 09:20 AM December 20th, 2004 EST (#7)
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Why is this posting here? We are trying to combat the Washington Post's Pro-VAWA campaign not relive some old story?
Why are you diverting our attention!!
We need to be bombarding the Post with a call for gender neutral treatment of domestic violence!
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by Boy Genteel on 03:21 PM December 21st, 2004 EST (#8)
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"Why is this posting here? We are trying to combat the Washington Post's Pro-VAWA campaign not relive some old story?"
Because it's pertinent. While the woman who wrote that story may not be part of the group now decrying violence against women, it neatly sums up the media's general hypocrisy on violence: that which is committed against women is horrible, while that which is committed against men is not only acceptable but something that "needs to make a comeback."
bg
Men are from EARTH. Women are from EARTH. Deal with it.
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by dougwells on 01:27 AM December 20th, 2004 EST (#6)
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Did anyone notice that the report was authored by 4 women (no men), and that most male categories of victimization had "dashes" because (the authors claim), of inadequate data?
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A follow-up report on the Washington Post's pro-VAWA series, with links and actions to take. Please click "Read more..." for more.