Special note: This title will be graciously set to rest following this final use… Maybe one more time.
Much to my surprise, the blogger I criticized in my The Blame Game post responded to the comment I left on the site. Jeff first resists the impulse to send me to the Feminism 101 blog (though not enough to prevent linking to it). This is worth noting as it illustrates the difficulty of discussing the way abuse issues are framed by feminists. His admission suggests that he is not really inclined to acknowledge the issues I raised. I do not doubt that what he states about his concerns for male victims is genuine. However, there remains a specter of incredulity just below the surface, and shrouds any potential discussion with the air that while one’s concerns may have merit, but they need not be considered with any real seriousness.
In all fairness, Jeff admits that his presentation could be viewed that way:
After all, if we look back to any movement, including feminist movement, there are places where the thinkers involved were taken to task for not giving enough consideration to various groups. When wealthy white women try to tell poor women of color that they should wait for their issues to be addressed (or ignore their issues completely), they should be called on it.
Ultimately, the issue is whether one is being taken seriously or if one is being viewed as misguided for not accepting certain political views. Whenever a discussion must be filtered through an ideological perspective, open discussion ceases to occur and what remains is little more than circular logic. That leads to this kind of (perhaps unintentionally) conflicting and unfortunately common statement:
I think that these problems are big and complex enough that there is plenty of room for work on all fronts–and I think that pointing out, like TS is doing, that women do violence against men too every time somebody talks about violence men commit against men and women does less to draw attention to the violence women do to men and more to distract from the fact that men do a lot of violence against women, and against other men.
Acknowledging male victims, providing services for them and seeking to better understand the rate and frequency of the violence they experience does nothing to female victims–other than shifting the spotlight from being centered only on them. Oddly enough, no one advocating for male victims dismisses female victims or desires to inhibit the services and support provided to them. Their efforts are directed at providing males with the same things given to women. But perhaps this issue is goes back to the ideological views that drive feminists. They have no means of addressing female violence, and it is easier to ignore it or blame it on the victims via the “Patriarchy” than reexamining their approach. That may explain this statement:
So, while I don’t agree with his general worldview, and I don’t agree with the implicit argument that his site seems to make about feminists causing all the hardships men face […], I do agree that men and boys aren’t as likely to report violence done against them (especially if it’s done by women), and are likely to suffer greatly because of the ways in which traditional masculinity influences how they deal with their trauma. (Plus: Many of the boys who are abused by their mothers will go on to abuse their wives, sons and daughters, in part because they aren’t given good ways to voice their pain.)
Before going on, that last myth needs to be addressed because it is one of the main reasons abused boys and men do not come forward and the most insidious lie feminists have promoted. Most abuse victims do not become abusers. As is stated on MaleSurvivor:
This myth is especially dangerous because it can create a terrible stigma for the child, that he is destined to become an offender. Boys might be treated as potential perpetrators rather than victims who need help. While it is true that most perpetrators have histories of sexual abuse, it is NOT true that most victims go on to become perpetrators […] Again, the majority of victims do not go on to become adolescent or adult perpetrators; and those who do perpetrate in adolescence usually don’t perpetrate as adults if they get help when they are young.
Another point Jeff brings up is that in the comment I left I did not include any links to statistics. As a technical matter, I did not expect my post to get through the moderation process. As a practical, I was simply responding to Jeff in the same fashion as he had presented his views. Nevertheless, Jeff addresses this issue:
[E]ven if ‘most child abuse’ were ‘committed by women’, […] the percentage of men who abuse children is almost as high as the number of women. We should expect […] that women would be abusers at rates around 3 times higher than men […] Instead, we find that, of people convicted of abusing children […] 58% were women and 42% were men. So, even though women are much more often [….] parents than men are parents, women who are convicted of abusing children do so at only a 10% higher rate than men who are convicted of it.
Firstly, women are not more likely to be parents than men. They are more likely to have custody than men. Secondly, while the statistics Jeff mentions are true, all the DHHS reports since 2001 have excluded listing the victims by parental status. However, when one looks at the last report to include that chart:
Mother only: 40.5%
Father only: 17.7%
Mother and father: 19.3%
Mother and other: 6.4%
Father and other: 1.0%
Nonparent perpetrator(s): 11.9%
Unknown or missing: 3.1%
According to those numbers, mothers abuse 2.3 times by themselves and 6 times with the aid of someone else more often than fathers in the same situation. So while it may appear slightly different at first glance, when one examines each instance separately one finds the rate difference Jeff wanted. And there are similar studies demonstrating high rates of female domestic violence and sexual abusers.
That is hardly an oversimplification as Jeff claimed, and surely less so one than stating violence against males–including violence committed by women–is just an extension of “patriarchy and traditional masculinity.” Considering that just mentioning male abuse is viewed as offensive and wholly unwelcome, that kind of claim is hardly surprising. Although Jeff did not want his comments to come across as lip service, unfortunately they do. He states that male abuse should not always be the topic discussed or always be treated as most important, despite that male abuse rarely gets discussed at all. In all fairness, that is just a not-so-indirect way of saying that male victims and their advocates should keep silent.
That is most unfortunate, though hardly unexpected. But it demonstrates the need for blogs like the ones to the right, because if they were not there, male victims and their advocates would have nowhere “where [they] may be more welcome.”
Toy Soldiers 