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Right to incarcerate opposite sex by simple accusation
Right to lower criminal sentencing in courts of law
Right to female specific societal-wide and government services
Right to be get emotional and receive sympathy and hearing
Right to publicly belittle the opposite sex and be celebrated
Right to reproduction
Right to parenting
Right to shelter from abusive partners
Right to justice and protection from abusive partners
Right to demand special services and receive them
Right to be paid for on a date
Right to expect to be protected by opposite sex
Right to exemption by selective service
Right to receive office or position without as stringent entry requirements Right to be seen as progressive and empowered simply for being female Right to hold men in contempt for imagined past crimes or debts
Right to undermine traditions and institutions by fiat of sexism
Right to loose their own sense of humor and make other people pay for it Right to be held innocent while blaming the opposite sex for everything Right to "ladies first" and chivalrous preference by society
Right to be brought up by the belief that females are superior:
"snips and snails and puppy dog tails..."
- Burden of getting verbal consent (unprovable in court) and humiliating to both parties.
- Burden of being publicly defamed across society as a rapist after a simple accusation.
- Burden of facing conviction as a rapist with only a hair of evidence beyond 50% certainty.
- Burden of being forced to ask for sex, but now if you ask in the wrong way are legally punished
- Burden of initiation in chivalrous courtship rituals.
- Burden of constant threat of arbitrary false accusations from sexual assault to sexual harassment to stalking etc etc.
- Burden of living against a court system bias (gynocentism).
- Burden of living against a law bias (gynocentrism).
- Burden of living under constant threat of imprisonment unless can prove sex as consensual (virtually unprovable in court)
- Burden of marriage robs men of property rights and civil rights
- Burden of divorce industry easily lures the most righteous women into violent divorce battles destroying mens lives.
- Burden of ladies nights at bars, universities, etc.
- Burden women only retailers.
- Burden of the shutting down of women's prisons, because culture no longer thinks women should be put in prison for anything.
- Burden of universal approval and awe for women while only regretful resentment for men.
- Burden of UN Food Aid only going to women
- Burden of Women only Parking
- Burden of Women only Busses, and cars in Japan, India, Iran, Taiwan, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Dubui. Men found on such transport will be beaten and thrown off on the the street.
- Burden of Women Only Hotel Floors:
- Burden of Female gender pepped enthusiastic egocentric clothing (love pink)
- Burden of harsher sentencing and punishment in courts
- Burden of providing for misandrist female only government services
- Burden of no reproductive rights
- Burden of no domestic violence shelters
- Burden of protecting women
- Burden of paying for dating women
- Burden of Selective Service
- Burden of Higher institutional entry requirements (police etc)
- Burden of being held in contempt by every minority collective.
- Burden of death for women's survival (titanic etc)
- Burden of Victims of most crime
- Burden of victims of most death in war
- Burden of most deaths in industrial accidents
- Burden of most suicide
- Burden of lower life expectancy
- Burden of unfaithful spouse (women initiate most divorce)
- Burden of loosing child custody (84% of time goes to female)
- Burden of Paternity fraud (and movement to outlaw paternal testing)
- Burden of most of Homless
- Burden of near exclusive victims of capital punishment.
- Burden of no Domestic Violence prevention services
- Burden of Healthcare discrimination
- Burden of Wage and salary discrimination
- Burden of contempt for male hormones. (testosterone, erroneously linked by "scientists" to crime)
- Burden of never being allowed to express a single critical thing or feeling about women without being censured.
-
Sources:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7995844/Judges-told-be-more-lenient-to-women-criminals.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-442113/Womens-prisons-close-decade.html
http://www.avoiceformen.com/mission-and-values/about/
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-10/travel/ct-taking-off-womenonly-hotel-floors-20120110_1_women-business-travelers-floors-travel-trends
http://asiancorrespondent.com/23378/women-only-parking-spots-in-iksan/
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/31/haiti.food.aid/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-only_passenger_car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zxJRxFMjDUk
Miguelito Wachs : The aesthetics of these might be alienating to people who support the movement but aren't into crust punk.
Yesterday at 10:17am · Like
#OccupyPhoenix There are some other designs as well, and more will be posted soon.
Yesterday at 11:01am · Like
Craig J Slomin : Aesthetics aside, I like the message!
Yesterday at 11:21am · Like
Beucy Williams : so on feb 29th were all going to start our protest of alec at the usual spot cesar chavez park my brothers?
Yesterday at 11:29am · Like
Eleanor Rigby : Everyone should feel free to make their own fliers as well, Some will like this, others won't. The more styles of fliers the better
22 hours ago · Like · 2
Joya Scott Beucy Williams: There will be a noon rally/press conference at the Capitol, followed by a 3pm march from Chavez Plaza to Freeport McMoran, and then a 5pm march from Freeport to other ALEC corps downtown. Everyone is welcome to attend all of the above or whichever they can! F29: OPhx & AZ Stand Against ALEC! CALL TO ACTION is the event page.
22 hours ago · Like
Sean-Michael Gettys : So far there have been 3 design styles for this particular event because 3 artists have created flyers. The more people create flyers for every event the better! I don't know what crusty punk is LOL but if you click on the folder and not on one of the few pics it shows you might find the text only style more your liking, or the style based on portland's flyer. OR Just make your own
17 hours ago · Like · 1
Zachary Trey Morris : So you use a Male figure because you think it's OK to demonize a male figure in denouncing corporate greed. But you wouldn't think ever of making that into a female figure, would you?
16 hours ago · Like
Zachary Trey Morris : Ur just perpetuating the problem, Misandry is really the root of all this social upheaval.
16 hours ago · Like
Eleanor Rigby : Umm Zachary Trey Morris, make your own fliers than. Like Sean-Michael Gettys this is just one of many fliers and not all of them have men on them...but a lot of the 1% certainly is male...more men in congress than women, more men in CEO positions than women. I'm not saying that to demonize men, just an interesting little tid bit
14 hours ago · Like
Zachary Trey Morris : Eleanor Rigby, Yes you are saying it to demonize men. You say it because it excuses your Misandrist bigotry, you feel justified in demonizing the male sex from your egotistical perspective because it serves you personally, in whatever way it does. You think that since men outnumber women it means men are guilty, but in fact you are quite a spoiled parasite who has no responsibility or contribution.
14 hours ago · Like
Zachary Trey Morris : Why don't u "man up" and get elected yourself princess? Oh thats right, the evil patriarchy...Were just holding u down... thats how u justify your mediocrity. So you have unlimited freedom to blame and demonize others.
13 hours ago · Like
Zachary Trey Morris : http://www.amazon.com/Pocketbook-Power-Hearts-Coveted-Consumer/dp/0071418601/sr=1-1/qid=1167804358/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-6478055-3977644?ie=UTF8&s=books
Pocketbook Power: How to Reach the Hearts and Minds of Today's Most Coveted Consumer - Women
www.amazon.com
While women make up 52.1 percent of the U.S. population, they control two-thirds...
See More
13 hours ago · Like ·
Joya Scott : Everyone, in case you bump into him again: Zachary is a leader of the "Men's Rights" group at ASU. He likes name-calling and denouncing feminism, and his group makes really offensive posters and puts them around campus. Well, everyone gets their jollies somehow... :-/
13 hours ago · Like · 1
Zachary Trey Morris : Thats right lady, your offended probably because you have a hateful ideology towards men yourself. As well it seems for the rest the rest of you Occupiers. You say you represent the 99% you are totally wrong.
11 hours ago · Like
Zachary Trey Morris : All you feminists do is name call and hate men, such hypocrisy.
11 hours ago · Like
Zachary Trey Morris : You teach men are to be feared and reviled over at your "Women and Gender Studies Department" promote Misandry through "Vagina Monologues" "V-Day" and False statistics. And then when someone gets up the courage to stand up against you you call it offensive??
11 hours ago · Like
Tio Che : Funny, I've worked for five major corporations over the last 15 years, and all of the executives were men. There is no gender bias here, Zachary, you're punching at shadows in the dark.
2 hours ago · Like · 1
Zachary Trey Morris : Really, it doesn't matter that men are preponderant in the areas of corporate executives. What you are doing is still demonizing men in those fliers, which is a gender issue not a corporate political issue.
about an hour ago · Like
Zachary Trey Morris : It's called misandry.
about an hour ago · Like
Eleanor Rigby : Wow Zachary, those are quite a lot of assumptions you made about someone you don't know. And by your language, it seems clear that you either don't know anything about, or understand, the theory of feminsism, of which there are many branches. If you are so offended, make your own damned fliers man. And you know what, I usually don't do this. BUT FUCK YOU. Your language certainly paints the image of you as a woman hater. Perhaps take a look at yourself and see where all this woman hating comes from. I have nothing else to say in this conversation.
41 minutes ago · Like
Zachary Trey Morris : So there are more black men in prision than any other demographic. While one may be technically accurate in depicting blacks as criminals in a flyer like yours as more are in jail than any other demographic, it would nonetheless be a racist stereotype to do so. Not all blacks are criminals, and it would be racist even if most criminals were black or if most blacks were criminals. It's called a racist stereotype, and yours is a sexist one. I wish I did not have to explain that.
Zach:
I read about your group from a link to a story sent by a friend. I have done a lot fo research on campus-based men's groups, mostly on the other side, of course. But I'm trying to understand all perspectives and would like to ask for a few minutes of your time, either by phone or in person, to find out about the Men's Rights Movement Group you've organized. I'll be in the Phoenix area in late February.
Or I can call you any time that is convenient to you.
Thanks.
Michael Kimmel
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Micheal Kimmel,
I've heard about your work, in fact saw a film with you in it called "tough guise" I think it was. I'm honored, that you would have an interest in my group, I would be both willing to meet on campus and or talk over the phone. In fact near the end of February we have a meeting if you would like to attend. It's on the 23rd at 7:00 - 8:30 PM. Let me know which you prefer, if not all.
Regards,
Zachary Trey Morris
MRMg President.
http://asu.orgsync.com/org/mrmg/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Kimmel wrote:
Thanks for getting back to me. I won't be arriving in Phoenix until the 28th, so I would hope to meet you on the 29th sometime. Would that work for you? Looking forward to talking with you.
Michael
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Micheal Kimmel,
What time did you want to meet on the 29th of Wednesday? How about 12:00 noon - 1PM or so? Or perhaps at 3:30? I suggest we meet on campus, at the MU.
Regards,
Zachary Morris
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi.
I will arrive in Phoenix on the afternoon of the 27th and speak at Brophy College Prep on the morning of the 28th. I'm free right after that talk, and need to get to the airport by around 1 PM. I'd be really happy if you wanted to come give my lecture; we could talk afterwards. I won't have a car, so it will be hard to come to campus.
Michael Kimmel
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Micheal Kimmel,
Looks like your schedule is pretty tight. As is mine. I don't think i'll be able to meet you. If you have any questions about the Men's Rights Movement Group at ASU, please just send me an email, i'll be happy to answer them. Thank you.
Regards,
Zachary Trey Morris
MRMg Presdient
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah, true. Okay.
First, some background. How old are you? Where are you from? What is your major?
What was your first clue that something was wrong and that men were discriminated against?
What does "men's rights" mean to you?
Can you give me some idea about why you formed the group? In what ways do you feel that men are discriminates against at ASU (i.e. not child custody issues)? I mean regular ASU guys.
In the research for Guyland, I found out, for example, that nationally recognized sororities are prohibited from serving alcohol at parties but that nationally recognized fraternities are permitted to do so. That would seem to indicate a structural inequality that favors men (men have the party, decide which women are admitted etc.) Are there any corollaries at ASU that favor women?
What's the mission of the group? How many members do you have? What exactly do you do: meet, protest, newsletter? If you've produced any materials -- online newsletter, manifesto, etc., please send it to me.
Thanks. That's my first thoughts about what I wanted to know about. As questions come to me from your replies, I'll let you know.
Thanks again.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Kimmel
Dear Michael Kimmel,
One way you can find out about some the group goals is by looking at this page:
http://asu.orgsync.com/org/mrmg/About
Also you might check some of these men's advocacy sites or publications which discuss mens rights.
As it is mainly those topics which we focus on.
As of now we have 6 people total including myself, on the group roster.
You can also take a look at the photo album where I share all of the presented presentations in photo format for anyone to look at (note: these presentation photos upload in reverse order). Also there is a archive of used and posted flyers, as well as one giving some examples of misandry.
http://asu.orgsync.com/org/mrmg/Pictures
You may also look at our Video Feed:
http://asu.orgsync.com/org/mrmg/Videos
Here is our Calendar of Events:
http://asu.orgsync.com/org/mrmg/Calendar
Here is the main page:
http://asu.orgsync.com/org/mrmg/home
Thanks for your interest.
Regards,
Zachary Morris
MRMg President
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks. These are your public documents, helpful but not what I asked . I want to understand YOUR experiences, how you got into this, how you feel you've been discriminated against. I want your story as it were, not the arguments bug how you came to them. Okay?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Michael Kimmel,
I would like to keep my personal life, personal.
Thanks,
Zachary Morris
MRMg President
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Kimmel wrote:
I'm sorry, you misunderstand. I'm not interested in personal details about your personal life. I want to understand how you, a college student, came to the analysis you did. I'm trying to understand how you see the world, not delve into your personal life. Public statements about this are fine, but what I want to try and understand is "why you?" Why not your roommate, or some other guy? What do you think has been decisive in how you see the world? I hope that's not being too personal.
Michael Kimmel
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Micheal Kimmel,
Those questions border on where I draw the line.
I would only suggest to you, that gender warfare is perhaps the major cause of all social problems. That conflict between man and woman, cause conflict in the family (if they have one), that then seeps into all sectors of society, tainting all human relationships, and psychology, and eventually cause problems, and may therefore be the root of pathology. But if cured, will benefit all of society, both collectively and individually . That is pretty much my motivating world view: End Gender Warfare. I would also suggest that I think all people should be equal under the law, without making the assumption that each and everyone of us is the same.
Regards,
Zachary Morris
MRMg President
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Are you willing to do the interview on the phone?
Michael Kimmel
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Michael Kimmel,
I think i'm going to stick with email at this point. It allows a greater time to carefully choose my responses.
Thanks,
Zachary Morris
MRMg President
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fine.
So let's start off with some easy questions.
How old are you?
Where are you from?
What is your major?
Can you recall what the first time you figured out the men were discriminated against?
Have you ever taken a Gender Studies or Women's Studies course? If so, which?
Have you ever been discriminated against because you are a man?
These should be relatively straightforward.
Thanks.
Michael Kimmel
Michael Kimmel
SUNY Distinguished Professor
Department of Sociology
SUNY at Stony Brook
Stony Brook, NY 11794
Members of the University Community,
I am writing to you today in the wake of the events that have taken place at Penn State University. Events such as those provide opportunities for reflection and a reaffirmation of our commitment to provide a safe and secure learning and working environment. I wanted to remind you about ASU policies regarding the obligation to report misconduct by ASU employees and inappropriate conduct towards minors.
ASU recognizes that our students and employees will perform their best work when the learning and work environment is safe and secure. ASU prohibits any act of intimidation, including any menacing and harassing behaviors, threat of violence, and acts of violence against any person in the workplace. All incidents and allegations of violent or threatening conduct by an ASU employee or student must be reported to the ASU Police Department or the Employee Assistance Office (480/965-7721) immediately.
On September 30th you received, electronically, the University's Annual Campus Crime Awareness Report describing university policies and resources that exist to protect the safety and well-being of you and other members of the university community. I encourage you to review this report again.
http://www.asu.edu/police/PDFs/Campus_Security_Policy_edited.pdf. Additionally, complaints or concerns of possible sexual discrimination or harassment should be brought to the attention of the university's Title IX Coordinator, Kamala Green (480/965-9695).
Safety and security does not stop with just our faculty, staff and students. On any given day, there are hundreds of minor children present on university property. Some minors are enrolled students at ASU. Others come to participate in a variety of educational programming offerings.
If you observe inappropriate conduct being directed towards a minor or if a minor tells you that he or she has been the victim of inappropriate conduct, notify the ASU Police Department (9-1-1 or 480/965-3456). [If you wish to do this anonymously, you may do so through the ASU Hotline (1-877-SUN-DEVL and http://audit.asu.edu/asu-hotline ).] This course of action is proper and it is also consistent with established University policy addressing violence in the workplace. (SPP 814, ACD 204-09 and SSM 104-02)
Michael Crow
President
Arizona State University
http://president.asu.edu
• As a female, avoid parties where males greatly outnumber females.
R.A.D. is a 12-hour training course designed to maximize the physical defensive abilities of women."
Campus Men's Rights Group Kicks, Screams
Students at Arizona State University have been noticing flyers for an organization called the Men's Rights Movement Group. And the group's website claims that "Women have NEVER been systematically oppressed." We talked to the MRMg's president to find out what these collegiate men's rights activists are all about.
Full size
The flyers, visible on the MRMg's website, bear a variety of men's rights messages. One (at left) lists a variety of "privileges and rights that ONLY WOMEN get in society," including "right to incarcerate opposite sex by simple accusation" and "right to be brought up by the belief that females are superior." Others say "Society Has Daddy Issues" and "All Male Students At ASU Are Guilty Until Proven Innocent." They also advertise a series of meetings, beginning September 1. A fuller statement of MRMg's purpose, also available on its website, reads in part,
This is to clear the name of my father and my father's father and my great grandfather and on up the line. Women have NEVER been systematically oppressed by any of my ancestors or their institutions. I take great offense to the defamation of the name of my paternal ancestors at the hands of feminist lies. It is offensive to suggest that men have systemically oppressed women and everyone is offended by it. My ancestors never conspired to hold down and oppress women in any way shape or form, no majority of any human paternal ancestors did so. On the contrary women were tirelessly protected and nourished. Because it was the man who went outside in the morning to do the manual labor only to return at dark. The man held the responsibility of bringing home the bread in a cut throat deadly wilderness. While she stayed indoor with the kids, churned butter and baked biscuits, my forefathers were out there getting attacked by robbers, getting attacked by wild animals, natural disasters, plagues, mental and physical exhaustion you name it. Who was inside sitting next to the fire reading a book? Women. Who was it who risked his life to save the woman and children? Men. Who is it who fends off wild animals of fangs and claws, fends off roving bands of barbarians? Men didn't have time to oppress women. They were themselves oppressed.
When I contacted MRMg president Zachary Morris via email, he explained his motivation for starting the group thus:
I believe gender warfare is the root of all societal problems, and a keen lens from which to understand all human affairs. While there are many women's groups and gender focus on women in college courses and on campus there are none for men. So I decided to start one to give this perspective and knowledge-base a voice.
The group's mission, he says, is "to offer an alternative to feminist party line dogma, open up people's minds to knowledge-base outside the normal conventions of society in lieu of gender and feminist ideological doctrine, allow that it may better serve men, boys, and their own self-image; promote a more male-friendly environment, institution, and world by correcting destructive and false self-serving feminist propaganda and speaking against societal and institutional forms of misandry." Specifically, MRMg advocates for the establishment of a Male Studies Dept. at ASU, and against new standards for prosecution of campus sexual assault cases, which the group feels unfairly favor the accuser. Morris said his group doesn't consider any specific campus women's groups its enemies -- "however, since much of feminism is built on top of falsities and half truths in order to manipulate, women, men and society, and promoting the adoption of an aristocratic vengeful victim mindset against males, natural man, or masculinity, testosterone (you name it), the Men's Rights Movement Group at times will be targeting the feminist political power base and rhetoric in effort for reformation for the benefit of all."
I talked to Prof. Georganne Scheiner, head of ASU's Women & Gender Studies Department, who disagrees with the notion that women's rights on campus come at the expense of men's. She notes that her department serves men as well as women:
- ur introductory courses are hugely popular with over 1000 students a year (both in live and on-line classes) and attract a diverse following from members of the Greek community, to LBGTQ students, to feminists, to members of the ASU football team (in fact, we are very popular with a range of student athletes). We attract a wide proportion of male students as well and our surveys are now about 40% male. We have at least 10 male majors and approximately 20% of our minors are male.
Scheiner is aware of the MRMg, but says,
Their understanding of what we do in WGS [...] seems limited. For example, they argue that in WGS we teach that because we live in patriarchy, women are automatically oppressed and men are not. Of course we don't believe that and our critique is much more nuanced in that we tend to talk about a hierarchy of oppression and that men can be oppressed by patriarchy as well. They complain about the lack of focus on men in our classes, but they fail to see that we changed the name of our program (as have most Women's Studies) programs to Women and Gender Studies because we are committed to looking at gender, not just women, as a category of analysis.
And she adds,
We don't believe that equality is a zero sum game -- that it's us against them -- that in order for women to succeed, men have to fail; that in order for women to have political power, men have to lose theirs. As Mary Wollstonecraft said, "I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves."
Her argument is a far cry from the "aristocratic vengeful victim mindset" Morris describes. However, his rhetoric is in line with that of many men's rights activists online and elsewhere. Though he told me "we are not officially attached to any off-campus men's rights groups, our master is simply the good, the true, and the beautiful," MRMg's website includes a quote from noted MRA Paul Elam and links to AntiMisandry.com and Reddit's Men's Rights subgroup. The Men's Rights Movement Group could be evidence that MRA ideology is trickling down to the college level. On the other hand, it's not trickling very fast -- Morris says his group has "only 3 brave members not including myself."
The Capitol Hill paper Roll Call is reporting on the need to reform VAWA. Read the article here (Roll Call, 7/28/11).
That's important. For almost 50 years, Roll Call has been the source for news about what's doing in the U.S. House and Senate. It's read by essentially everyone on the Hill including elected officials and their staff.
So the article, by Natasha Spivack, who's Secretary of Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) is a unique opportunity to acquaint everyone on Capitol Hill with the need to reform VAWA.
And the need is great. Indeed, it's far greater than anyone in the Senate Judiciary Committee that recently held hearings on VAWA reauthorization realizes. For starters, the law should be made gender-neutral. You'd think that would have happened a long time ago, but it hasn't yet. Male victims continue to be ignored en masse.
Earlier this month, Catherine Becker, 48, allegedly drugged her estranged husband and tied him to a bed. As he awoke, police said, she took a 10-inch knife to his penis, severed the appendage and tossed it into a garbage disposal.
Bail has been set at $1 million as Becker awaits arraignment on multiple felony charges.
Given the timing and the particularly gruesome nature of the attack, one would have expected that a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Violence Against Women Act would have featured heart-rending discussions about how similar incidents of gender-motivated violence could be avoided in the future.
But the Becker case was not deemed worthy of mention...
Many studies suggest female-on-male violence has become equal to, or even more prevalent than, the male-initiated variety. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 10 percent of high school girls had hit, slapped or physically hurt their boyfriends in the previous year. In comparison, only 9 percent of boys had been physically aggressive to their female partners.
The name should be changed, but far more importantly, VAWA funding must be changed to reflect gender-neutral policies.
As things stand now, essentially all VAWA resources are directed at female victims and male perpetrators. As everyone who follows the politics around domestic violence knows, there are some 1,500 shelters for women and not one for men in the entire country.
Hewing closely to the narrative of the DV establishment for which there are no male victims and no female perpetrators, VAWA does essentially nothing for either. Given that reauthorization is likely to carry a price tag of about $550 million, you'd think that there would be funding for treatment for women who can't control their anger and lash out at husbands, boyfriends and children. But there won't be.
And speaking of money, there's little information about how VAWA funds are spent and if programs are effective at combatting domestic violence.
Citing a probe by the Department of Justice inspector general that unearthed shoddy accounting practices at 21 of 22 VAWA grantees, Grassley commented tartly: "Simply put, in today's economic environment, we cannot tolerate this level of malfeasance in federal grant programs."
In addition, according to the Office of Management and Budget, VAWA grantees have never promulgated any criteria by which they can be judged. Stated another way, we don't know much about what they're doing or whether it works. And we don't know how they're spending our money.
Given that lack of government oversight of VAWA funds, if the system isn't rife with incompetence and corruption, it's the first in history. Standards, regular reporting and oversight are necessary when the government funds anything, but so far the DV establishment has gotten a pass on all that.
Still on the subject of money, if we defined "domestic violence" in a sensible way, we'd be able to do a lot more with what we spend. The simple fact is that much of what we call domestic violence is completely non-injurious. One government study found that 61% of women and 75% of men said they'd received no injury in the incident inquired about. Other data show that, even when there's an injury, it's usually a minor one, like a small cut or bruise.
That's the type of domestic violence that the vast majority of couples sort out on their own, as they should. We don't need to spend taxpayer money on incidents of that sort. What we should spend money on is addressing what's come to be called "intimate terrorism," in which serious injury is done for the purpose of controlling the behavior of the other person.
So VAWA as well as state laws, and the practices of police and prosecutors should be tailored to stop intimate terrorism via treatment and jail time where warranted. That'll mean narrowing the definition of domestic violence in VAWA in order to deal with truly dangerous situations and not with those that aren't.
Coincidentally, narrowing the definition of DV in VAWA is just what Texas Congressman Ted Poe endorsed shortly after the Judiciary Committee hearings.
Then there's the problem of false accusations of DV by aliens applying for residency. That program is riddled with corruption as the Roll Call article says.
Much of the problem arises because the Citizenship and Immigration Services deems a person accused of domestic violence to be a "prohibited source." So the CIS, in Kafka-esque manner, refuses to accept any documentation that might reveal the immigrant to be a criminal, welfare cheat or perjurer.
It's that old "guilty until proven innocent" problem again. If your wife tells the CIS you're an abuser, you can't produce evidence to the contrary because any information coming from you is "prohibited." It's an open invitation to fraud.
Those are scarcely the only problems with VAWA or our approach to domestic violence generally. We started by conceiving of the problem in ideological terms. That political ideology ignored the science on DV and predictably got it wrong on what DV is, who does it, why, and how to fix it. We've been marching in lockstep ever since toward a future that contains much more funding, but little improvement in our DV statistics.
With any luck, the worm is starting to turn. We may be reaching a tipping point at which tight budgets, the science on DV and popular discontent with our current approach combine to move us toward dealing effectively and fairly with a problem with which we've so far done neither.
To make the law gender-inclusive, we are proposing the law be renamed the Partner Violence Reduction Act. Our changes retain 95 percent of the existing Violence Against Women Act provisions that have done incalculable good, while incorporating the lessons learned since VAWA's original enactment in 1994.- http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_14/hearing_reveals_gaps_domestic_abuse_system-207705-1.html?pos=oopih