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Editor says "if your wife beats you up, you probably deserve it"
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2007-11-15 19:51
On September 13, 2007, I sent the Ledger-Enquirer a letter asking why they ignored male victims of domestic violence in their article “Getting out isn't easy“ (9/13). In response, editor Ben Holden wrote: "We didn't mention it because anyone with an ounce of common sense (and without a meanspirited private political agenda) knows that as a general proposition, men hurt women in domestic situations, not the other way around. Besides, I always figure if your wife beats you up, you probably deserve it. That's the way it works in my house. Regards, Ben" (The email exchange is below.)
Of course, we all know that's just another stereotype. Even Harvard Medical School just recognized that half of heterosexual domestic violence is reciprocal, half non-reciprocal, and that the *men* are more often hurt in the non-reciprocal violence, which women commit 71% of.
It's scary that Ben Holden is not only an editor but holds himself as some kind of spokesperson on dating violence, as you can see from this recent article.
Sensationalism, myths and stereotypes sell better than social science, and Ben Holden must be very pleased about that.
Marc Angelucci
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: your article ignored MALE victims of domestic violence; Ledger-Enquirer
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 10:57:35 -0400
From: bholden@ledger-enquirer.com
To: marcangelucci@hotmail.com
Mr. Angelucci:
We didn't mention it because anyone with an ounce of common sense (and without a meanspirited private political agenda) knows that as a general proposition, men hurt women in domestic situations, not the other way around. Besides, I always figure if your wife beats you up, you probably deserve it. That's the way it works in my house.
Regards, Ben
-v-
Ben Holden
Executive Editor
Ledger-Enquirer
(706) 571-8560 - Phone
(706) 576-6290 - Fax
www.ledger-enquirer.com
bholden@ledger-enquirer.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Marc Angelucci [mailto:marcangelucci@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 9:32 AM
To: Holden, Ben - Columbus
Dear Editor,
Why did your article, “Getting out isn't easy“ (9/13), leave male victims of domestic violence invisible?
Virtually all sociological research shows women initiate domestic violence as often as men and use weapons more than men, and that men suffer about one-third of the injuries, even though men are less likely than women to report the violence in crime data, as Professor Martin Fiebert of California State University shows in this online bibliography at http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
For example, the Centers for Disease Control’s May 2007 study found women commit 70% of nonreciprocal domestic violence - about half of all domestic violence. http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/42/15/31-a
A recent 32-nation study by the University of New Hampshire found women commit partner violence as often as men and that controlling behavior exists equally in perpetrators of both sexes.
http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2006/may/em_060519male.cfm?type=n
And a recent study in the Journal of Family Violence found many male callers to a national hotline experienced high rates of severe forms of violence from female partners who used violence to control them. http://www.springerlink.com/content/a7q0032j88817218/fulltext.pdf
Even if male victims were in the minority, that would still be no excuse to ignore them. Decades of neglect has left them swept under the rug while their children suffer long-term damage by the exposure. This is a serious but hidden problem. That’s why concerned experts formed a global coalition to promote honest, research-based, inclusive solutions, and their website confirms the above statistics at http://www.nfvlrc.org/
Marc E. Angelucci
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Comments
Hmmm....
All I can say is, kicking and screaming will the ignorant be dragged into the future.
There's hope
At least some of the newspaper staff writers are not as clueless as their editor appears to be. If you're thinking of writing the editor about this, it might be equally worthwhile to give kudos to articles like this one that actually confront the blatant discrimination we know so well.
follow up from Marc A. re Ben Holden, etc.
Someone just emailed me asking if I mind that he/she contact Ben Holden about this. I replied that I don't mind at all. Nor do I mind if people show him this posting.
I had not intended to post this anonymously at all. I don't know how that happened. I posted this so people know there are editors out there who think this way. I posted it online after learning, recently, that this guy actually speaks to students about dating violence. That is frightening, IMO. And People need to know about it.
Please also be aware that the email exhanges between him and me, in which he made that comment, were copied and broadcast to numerous Ledger-Enquirer editors and staff. This is the list it went to. I obtained these from the newspaper's website.
ksledge@ledger-enquirer.com
psiddall@ledger-enquirer.com
hmcfadden@ledger-enquirer.com
dkholmes@ledger-enquirer.com
jhouston@ledger-enquirer.com
mowen@ledger-enquirer.com
benw@ledger-enquirer.com
jmorehouse@ledger-enquirer.com
kprice@ledger-enquirer.com
dminty@ledger-enquirer.com
fmoore@ledger-enquirer.com
lgordon@ledger-enquirer.com
tadams@ledger-enquirer.com
ariquelmy@ledger-enquirer.com
bbarnes@ledger-enquirer.com
tchitwood@ledger-enquirer.com
hfranklin@ledger-enquirer.com
lgierer@ledger-enquirer.com
rhyatt@ledger-enquirer.com
akennedy@ledger-enquirer.com
sokamoto@ledger-enquirer.com
mwalsh@ledger-enquirer.com
dnix@ledger-enquirer.com
"Common Sense"
Whenever some chivalrous (translation: sexist) fool boxes himself into a corner, he inevitably comes out swinging with "common sense". Let's take a closer look at that particular flavor of cognitive dissonance, shall we?
"Common sense" is the bigoted fool's way of saying "what I believe". He has no data, no statistics and no logic to back up his position. He simply feels that something must be so. Hence it becomes "common sense", simply because of his ingrained racism, sexism or other bigotry. This is a favored tactic among feminists, who also treat feelings as facts while deliberately avoiding any evidence which might contradict their preconceived notions. It's far easier to hold a hateful, discriminatory view of the world without experiencing cognitive dissonance when that view can't be challenged by mere facts.
Here's some other common sense that I'm sure this editor firmly believes:
Women are far too delicate to vote, make big decisions or be held accountable for their actions. It's just common sense.
Women are far too innocent to ever commit a sex offense or to murder anyone, unless they "deserved" it. This includes the children that women are three times as likely to abuse, I suppose. It's just common sense.
Women shouldn't be expected to venture out of the kitchen or the maternity ward. It's just common sense.
THANK YOU FOR BEING THE PROBLEM FACED BY BOTH SEXES, BEN.
People like him are the reason why both sexes continue to suffer needlessly. His primitive, knuckle-dragging view of gender roles is far more dangerous to men AND women than radical feminists could ever hope to be.
Holden, battered spouse.
Holden needs help. "I always figure if your wife beats you up, you probably deserve it. That's the way it works in my house." That's classic battered spouse syndrome.
--
Silence is the voice of complicity.
Just Another Disenfranchised Father
PATHETIC!!!!!!!!!!!!
This man is really quite pathetic.
He and other pathetic malelike creatures like him make it possible for the femifascists to spread their domestic violence against men by the the enablers that are essential to make it happen.
The dude is just stone cold to the bone PATHETIC!!!!
No, I'm serious, he needs
No, I'm serious, he needs help. He's abused and thinks it's right, just like the battered wife who doesn't leave because she thinks she deserves it. She is, in the literal sense, pathetic, but still needs help. So does Holden.
--
Silence is the voice of complicity.
Just Another Disenfranchised Father
stop feminist domestic violence arrest quotas!!!
...Gentleman. take note because this is very important!!
..Actual domestic violence is perpetrated about 50% male..50% female!!
...feminist.."funding hogs"....need to manipulate these numbers to meet their much more sensational and hysterical figures of 98% male violence...2% female perpetrators!!
..They do this by "feminist run Domestic violence sensitivity training to police officers"
The feminist propaganda girls go into police stations..(and not unlike a mother scolding her children) she tells officers that if they are arresting more than 2% percent women in domestic violence calls...THEIR DOING IT WRONG!!!
..So in order to make the feminist domestic violence arrest quotas...police will manipulate who did what, and who hit who, ect. ect.....And innocent men goto jail and are held until they plead guilty to a lessor charge!!
...And there you have it folks..the new domestic violence wheel of perpetual missinformation, lies, hysteria, and more state/federal funding for the girls!!
..By the way..no-one is suppossed to know about this...Anything to do with the new domestic violence wheel of funding is ...TOP SECRET!!
Sent him an email
Sent him an email, let's see if he replies back.
http://petepatriarch.blogspot.com - Old, phased out due to Google's policies. Archives here.
http://petepatriarch.wordpress.com - Current.
If he's being beaten then
If he's being beaten then his wife needs to be prosecuted, whether he wants them to or not. Maybe someone should report this.
Perhaps we could enlighten him a bit...
...beyond what Marc's already tried. Mr. Holden might enjoy some of Murray Straus' work. In this piece which will soon appear in a refereed periodical dealing with criminology, he discusses seven of the ways in which feminists and other ideologues lie about, distort and conceal evidence of the prevalence and severity of male victimization/female perpetration of domestic violence. Unlike the "Ledger-Enquirer", which relies only on editorial opinion and advertising revenues to determine its content, Straus' work has already survived a gruelling, critical review by the author's peers and competitors. But I digress, there is a more serious matter that needs to be addressed.
As several others have already commented in this thread, Mr. Holden is reporting that he is being assaulted in his home, and that he feels he "deserves" it. This is the classic call-sign of a battered spouse, and should be reported to his local police force at once. Unfortunately they'll arrest him and give his abusive wife his house and kids, but you know, that's the process his paper supports.
In any event, as disgraceful and disrespectful as his attitude towards people suffering violence in their homes might have appeared, it now makes far better sense in the context of a victim of domestic violence, many of whom remain deeply in denial about the horrible betrayal they've suffered at the hands of a spouse or partner (particularly male victims, who also suffer the impact of the social stigma propagated by publications in the mainstream media), even as they seek treatment for their physical wounds. I've counselled abused men and women before, and this sort of deflection, bravado and self-loathing is almost universally observed in victims of domestic violence who are having trouble accepting the reality of their situation.
Mr. Holden, despite the best efforts of publications like your own to convince governments to withhold services from abused men and boys, there are still one or two privately-funded shelters and other resources available to abused men, and you needn't suffer abuse at the hands of your spouse any longer. In all sincerity, and as a former victim of domestic violence and abuse at the hands of four different women over the course of my life, I would like to remind you that as a man, you are still a human being, and that no human being ever "deserves" domestic violence. There ARE people who can assist in finding you (and your children, if you have any) a way to utilize those resources if you need them, assuming you were brave enough to venture in and read this thread as I requested in my email.
A clear refutation in 8" letters
"We didn't mention it because anyone with an ounce of common sense (and without a meanspirited private political agenda) knows that as a general proposition, men hurt women in domestic situations, not the other way around. Besides, I always figure if your wife beats you up, you probably deserve it. That's the way it works in my house. Regards, Ben"
There's a bumper sticker on the bumper of each and every LAPD patrol car in Los Angeles, that makes a liar out of every police officer who ever sits in the car. Clearly, female batterers are treated with misandrist, unconstitutional, unAmerican treatment when police excuse their violence. When this happens it's not "common sense," it's actually a hate crime committed against men by vile, gender feminist, toady goons - evil cowards who are too lacking in integrity not to acquiesce to the evil, gender-feminazi agenda. There was no excuse for the "just being a good German soldier defense" used at Nuremberg after WWII and there's no excuse for anyone who uses such tactics now.
Anyone who excuses the abundant crippling and killing violence that females commit has no sense at all, IMO. They do, however IMO, appear to be so masterful of mean spirited behavior, that they actually project their own mean spiritedness onto innocent people who are not mean spirited, just trying to stop domestic violence equally for all. What could be more mean spirited than not providing equal protection for all as our Constitution is supposed to guarantee? Are some corrupt Americans embracing worse than Jim Crow laws in the area of domestic violence, where men are separate and in no way equal? How mean spirited is that?
There's No Excuse For Domestic Violence
No Excuse For Abuse Even If You're A Woman
But they rationalize it by
But they rationalize it by imagining that they are the fearless do-gooders rescuing the poor, stupid wimmins from themselves. And the abused men just don't exist, from their diseased perspective.
....An excellent slogan for
....An excellent slogan for a poster would be....
..No man anywhere for any reason should ever allow a women to hit him!!