Biden Seeks to Fund Feminist Jurisprudence

[Mr. Bad]

Good grief, on the heels of the Duke LaCrosse scandal Senator Joe Biden has the nerve to propose a program to use public money to crank-out more feminist Nifong wannabes. 

Quote:

Biden Wants Legal Brigade for Domestic Safety
Run Date: 01/11/07
By Allison Stevens
Washington Bureau Chief

Sen. Biden is drafting a bill to encourage lawyers to work on behalf of domestic violence victims. The bill would also create a network of 100,000 legal volunteers. Seventh in our "Dangerous Trends, Innovative Responses" eight-part series.


WASHINGTON (WOMENSENEWS)--When it comes to domestic violence, Sen. Joseph Biden likes to compare the federal government to a lawnmower.

"Combating violence in the home is like cutting the grass," the Democrat from Delaware is fond of saying. "You can't just do it once."

In other words, the scourge of domestic violence can't be cured with one piece of legislation or one round of federal spending, he says. It's a persistent problem that needs to be addressed year after year, one congressional session after the next.

That is why Biden--author of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which created and funded federal programs to help victims of domestic violence--keeps thinking about new ways to reduce violence against women. And now with his party in power in the House and Senate, he is in position to find more support.

His current plan involves legal assistance.

Only 170,000 low-income domestic violence survivors have legal representation each year, less than 20 percent of at least 1 million victims who experience it annually, according to a 2005 report by the Institute for Law and Justice in Alexandria, Va., and the National Center for Victims and Crime in Washington, D.C.
Creating a Legal Network

To address this need, Biden, an attorney, has written a bill that would create an electronic network of 100,000 lawyers willing to do volunteer work on behalf of victims of domestic violence. The bill would also set up a fund to help a separate group of lawyers--those who spend a majority of their time working on behalf of domestic violence victims--pay back their school loans.

The median salary for a lawyer who joins a private firm is $85,000, while the average entry-level public sector salary--such as a lawyer who works at a legal aid clinic--is $35,000, according to Biden. Most lawyers graduate with a combined debt from undergraduate and graduate school of more than $80,000, according to the American Bar Association in Chicago.

Biden's proposal comes at a time when the amount of domestic violence in the United States is dropping, although assaults and other crimes at the hands of intimates has remained at about 10 percent of all violent crimes over the past decade.

A report released last month by the Department of Justice indicated that the rate of intimate partner violence in the United States fell by more than half between 1993 and 2004, a finding that paralleled an overall decrease in violent crime during the same period. The rate of homicides, rapes, assaults and robberies against women fell from 10 in 1,000 to 4 in 1,000, according to the report.

The report is a sign of success that the VAWA programs are working, said Allison Randall, public policy director at the National Network to End Domestic Violence in Washington, D.C.

End excerpt - follow the link above for the entire story.

We need to flood the blogosphere and internet in general with articles and commentary opposing this.  Given the Duke lynchmob scandal the timing of this is very good vis-a-vis mounting a strong opposition to this, as well as adding to our efforts to make feminism as politically incorrect as possible inside the beltway.

Here's Biden's contact info:  http://biden.senate.gov/

Let's get writing!

[dr e]

Unreal! 

Maybe biden will create a branch of the armed forces to protect women from their husbands.  They could call it the DV Patrol or  the Intimate Partner Posse or just call it the SS and leave it at that.

[Men's Rights Activist]

DOMESTIC ABUSE
LAW IS A
HATE MOVEMENT

[zarbyman]

The premise itself is a lie.

At least where I am, the County Attorney will do protective orders at no cost. The Legal Services people will also. Many private attorneys will also.

The notion that women wanting protective orders don't get them is a lie. The clerk's office gives them priority. The courts sign them almost automatically.

Protective Orders is the only type of case that I know about where the filing fee is waived (regardless of the wealth of the party commencing the proceeding).

It is just a huge lie. Any woman who wants a protective order gets one.

My guess is that somewhere in the fine print for this program these attorneys' will agree not to represent men accused of DV. It is men accused of DV who have difficulty getting real representation. They are normally advised to agree to the protective order -- it is not that big of deal after all you are not going to beat her. Well, it is often a very big deal with all kinds of very real and drastic consequences.

[zarbyman]

One thing for sure is that the Biden man has not changed his colors.

I have never wanted so much for a man (or woman) to not get a political position (his Presidential aspirations). You know I would even prefer Hillary.

[woof]

This seems like a good time to post this.

Zarby, I read that Biden was looking at running for president too, do you know more about this?.......has he decided yet? This could be a play to warm up to all of his female victims, supporters.





http://www.ejfi.org/DV/dv-43.htm

The Conflict Of Theory And Data

After a period of lengthy neglect, family violence achieved heightened attention as a serious social problem in the early 1970's (Dutton, 1995; Pleck, 1987). Through a combination of activist effort and research findings showing family violence to be more prevalent than previously believed, governments began to take a more aggressive arrest policy toward the problem. Subsequently, shelter houses for female victims as well as mandatory treatment for male perpetrators became commonplace in North America. Research followed, based in many cases on samples drawn from those shelters (woman-victims) or court-mandated treatment groups (male-perpetrators). As a result of this sample selection and of the prevailing ideology of feminism, the notion evolved that spouse assault was exclusively male perpetrated or that female intimate violence, to the extent that it existed at all, was defensive or inconsequential. Subsequent research showing equivalent rates of serious female violence has been greeted with scepticism, especially by the activist-research community (e.g. Dobash, Dobash, Wilson, & Daly 1992; Jaffe, Lemon, & Poisson, 2003). Data surveys (e.g. Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980; Stets & Straus 1992; Straus & Gelles 1992) similarly met with criticism, especially by feminist researchers who were committed to the view that intimate violence was the by-product of patriarchy and, hence, an exclusively male activity (Bograd, 1988). This initial dogma has persevered despite data to the contrary, to be presented below.

This type of error in social judgment is demonstrated in research studies by social psychologists such as Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky (1982), Janis (1982), and by Lord, Ross, and Lepper (1979) that show "confirmatory bias" (also called "biased assimilation") and "belief perseverance" occurring when research subjects have a strongly held belief and are exposed to research findings inconsistent with the belief. The subjects reconcile the contradiction and maintain the prior belief by discounting the research methodology. They do not apply the same rigorous standards to research findings that confirm their beliefs.

Kahneman et al. described the tendency of humans to make premature causal judgments, often based on unconscious biases in human inference. Personal experience is an especially erroneous basis for making social judgment as we tend to give too much weight to single, salient experiences and to subsequently discount contrary data to the "confirmatory bias" we have established. Lord et al. illustrated how contradictory data sets are systemically discounted. Janis (1982) further demonstrated how social groups evolve a social reality called "groupthink" where group ideology is protected by and serves to self-sustain through rationalizations for discounting contradictory data. A conjunction of the social psychological phenomena of groupthink and belief perseverance appears to account for the "paradigm" (or "worldview") and ensuing urban myth surrounding domestic violence often found in academic journals specifically focused on domestic violence.

Lord et al. (1979) and Janis (1982) focused on "lay judgments" not on academic studies. In fact, the notions of scientific objectivity and falsifiable hypotheses act, at least in principle, against the formation of "groupthink." However, social scientists frequently become aligned with contemporary notions of social justice and attempt to fit their enterprise to the objectives of achieving social change. In so doing, they increase the risk of straying from objective reporting of data. In domestic violence research, the sense that a greater good for women's rights and the protection of women should prevail over scientific accuracy has provided this function of directing the search, data reported, interpretations, and applications of the data. In concert with value-laden theories, the focus of attention has been on male violence and simultaneously has deflected study and acceptance of female violence. In effect, a "paradigm" (cf. Kuhn, 1965) has developed in the domestic violence literature in which perpetrators are viewed as exclusively or disproportionately male. Any and all data inconsistent with this view are dismissed, ignored, or attempts are made to explain them away. The function of the gender paradigm originally was to generate social change in a direction that righted an imbalance against women (see Dobash & Dobash, 1978, 1979; Dobash, Dobash, Wilson, & Daly 1992; Patai, 1998; Walker, 1989; Yllo & Bograd, 1988). The result, however, has been to misdirect social and legal policy, to misinform custody assessors, police, and judges, to disregard data sets contradictory to the prevailing theory, and to mislead attempts at therapeutic change for perpetrators (see also Corvo & Johnson, 2003; Dutton, 1994; George, 2003).

The radical feminist paradigm


In an earlier paper, Dutton (1994) described feminist theory as being a "paradigm," roughly translated as a set of guiding assumptions or worldview, commonly shared within a group and serving to ward off recognition of data that are dissonant with the paradigm's central tenets. This theory views all social relations through the prism of gender relations and holds, in it's neo-Marxist view, that men (the bourgeoisie) hold power advantages over women (the proletariat) in patriarchal societies and that all domestic violence is either male physical abuse to maintain that power advantage or female defensive violence, used for self protection.

The feminist paradigm supports the notion that domestic violence is primarily a culturally supported male enterprise and that female violence is always defensive and reactive. When women are instigators, in this view, it is a "preemptive strike," aimed at instigating an inevitable male attack (see Bograd, 1988; Dobash, Dobash, Wilson, & Daly 1992; inter alia).

In contrast, male violence is not similarly contextualized and is always attributed to a broader social agenda. As a result of this perspective, feminists tend to generalize about violent men, about men in general, and to ignore female pathology. As Dobash and Dobash (1979) put it, "Men who assault their wives are actually living up to cultural prescriptions that are cherished in Western society -- aggressiveness, male dominance and female subordination -- and they are using physical force as a means to enforce that dominance" (p. 24). Bograd (1988) defined feminist researchers as asking the fundamental question "Why do men beat their wives...Feminists seek to understand why men in general use physical force against their partners and what functions this serves in a given historical context" (p.13). In fact, the data demonstrate that while feminists are accurate in portraying abuse in intimate relationships as rampant, the reality is that most often both parties engage in aggression (Stets & Straus, 1992a, 1992b; Kessler et al., 2001, Nicholls & Dutton, 2001). Feminism favors strong arrest policies and "intervention" rather than treatment (since treatment implies that society is less to blame) (Pence & Paymar, 1993). It is not clear how men are held individually responsible by feminism when patriarchy is to blame, nor how feminists account for differences in male populations in attitudes and acceptance of violence.

Disconfirming research data appear to have had little impact on supporters of this perspective over the past two decades. For instance, speaking to intimate partner homicide, Serran and Firestone (2004) recently asserted we live in "a society where almost every major institute accepts or ignores the problems of gender inequality" ...and "The law and the patriarchal hierarchy have legitimized wife beating and control, resulting in unequal power relationships between men and women" (p. 12). In fact, considerable evidence suggests that there are strong social prohibitions inhibiting men from aggressing against women (e.g., chivalry; Arias & Johnson, 1989, Archer 2000a), legal sanctions against men who transgress (the U.S. Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA); Brown, 2004) and fewer social prohibitions inhibiting women from aggressing against men (for reviews see Brown, 2004; George, 1999). These legal and social policies, well intended though they might be, are based on erroneous information both about the causes and incidence of most intimate violence. They have evolved based on the needs of the small but significant proportion of women who experience chronic "wife battering," they do little to serve the much larger majority of men, women, and children coping with the more frequently encountered "common couple abuse" (Johnson, 1995; Stets & Straus, 1992b).

Among the data sets cited by Dutton in 1994 as contradictory to the feminist view were the following:

1. Unidirectional "severe" female intimate violence was more common than male unidirectional intimate violence (Stets & Straus, 1992b);

2. Lesbian abuse rates were higher than heterosexual male-female abuse rates (Lie et al., 1991);

3. Only a small percentage of males were violent over the life course of a marriage (Straus et al., 1980);

4. As many females as males were violent (Straus et al., 1980);

5. Very few males approved of the spouse abuse (Stark & McEvoy, 1970); 1

6. Only 9.6% of males were dominant in their marriage (Coleman & Straus, 1986); and,

7. Male violence was not linearly related to cultural indicators of patriarchy across U.S. states (Yllo & Straus, 1990).

Each of these data sets, available by 1993, has routinely been ignored by the feminist paradigm.

The initial effect of the feminist paradigm in practice was to focus so exclusively on male intimate violence that female violence was ignored. Corvo and Johnson (2003) outlined the bedrock view of feminist thought

"that battering (by males) is NEVER... provoked, hereditary, out of control, accidental, an isolated incident. It is not caused by disease, diminished intellect, alcoholism/addiction, mental illness or any external person or event. It is a means for men to systematically dominate, disempower, control and devalue women...it is greater than an individual act, it supports the larger goal of oppression of women."

Conversely, Dutton (1994) asserted that intimacy and psychopathology rather than gender-generated relationship violence are responsible for intimate partner violence. In societies where violence against women is not generally accepted, such as North America, violent men are not living up to a "cultural norm." That norm may exist in patriarchal societies such as Korea (Kim & Cho 1992), or Islamic countries (Haj-Yahia 1998; Moin 1998, Frenkiel 1999; as cited in Archer 2002) but data do not support its existence in North America. Archer (in press) cites a negative correlation between social-structural factors empowering women and frequency of wife assault across 51 countries (called the Gender Development Index). However, in the U.S., Canada, Britain, and New Zealand (nations supplying the bulk of data on spouse assault) gender empowerment for women is the highest of all 51 countries and structural factors have the least impact on wife assault.

It is because of intimacy that lesbian and heterosexual rates of abuse are similarly high; the impact of attachment and related anxieties produce anger and abuse. Dutton (1998, 2002) further elaborated the psychological phenomena that would increase an individual's propensity to experience such anxiety and react with abuse. The "intimacy problem" explanation constitutes an alternative to gender explanations and posits that abusiveness in intimate relationships occurs for both genders and that certain psychological features increase risk for individuals independent of gender. Dutton (1994) cited data from a study on lesbian relationships by Lie, Schilit, Bush, Montague, and Reyes (1991) that showed, for women who had been in past relationships with both men and women, abuse rates were higher for all forms of abuse in relationships with women: physical, sexual, emotional. Hence, Dutton argued, intimate violence is not specific to men and cannot be explained on the basis of gender or gender roles.

An alternative would be to view intimate violence as having psychological causes common to both genders. Psychological explanations for intimate violence have come from numerous sources. One good review by Holtzworth-Munroe, Bates, Smuztler, and Sandin (1997) cited psychopathology, attachment, anger, arousal, alcohol abuse, skills deficits, head injuries, biochemical correlates, attitudes, feelings of powerlessness, lack of resources, stress, and family of origin sources for male intimate violence. Follingstad et al. (2002) found anxious attachment and angry temperament predicted dating violence in both sexes. Feminist "intervention" discounts all of these as "excuses" despite empirical support for the relationship of each to marital aggression and the utility of these risk factors for prevention and intervention.

[Men's Rights Activist]

Woof:

Thank you very much for that. Anorther excellent document to confront our corrupt legal system with.

[FP]

Hmm, I've been long convinced that Biden was hit/abused by his sister enough to cause brain damage. This seems like further proof. 

[K9]

someone named kangaroox over at Mens News Daily posted this response to an article by David R. Usher.

Radical feminism is just one of many fronts in the elite conspiracy to promote global Marxism around the world. Women are being used and manipulated as pawns by the world's elite to achieve this end, with sexual liberalism as the bait. The domestic violence issue is just one of several standard divide and conquer tools to have everyone, including women, at the mercy of a totalitarian world government. Unfortunately, many politicians, like Senator Biden, as well as, industrialists like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, have become so ideologically driven in their pursuit of global Communism whatever the cost that they are psychopaths in the vein of Lenin, Hitler, and Stalin. To support that theory, I would now like to offer a few quotes by Nancy Levant, author of the book, "The Cultural Devastation of American Women," from her most recent column.

"The one-world government scenario is dialectically based upon economics, environment, and equity - known as the Three E's. These Three E's involve global control of the common man's labor and money, "sustainable" nature, and forcing all commoners into financial sameness.

The feminist movement was crafted by the one-world political initiative and invented to create and sustain global depopulation goals. That is and remains the primary mission of the feminist movement.

Women's "rights" are disallowed definition by culture, religion, personal opinion, or any other social definition minus the feminist movement. In today's world, we have no choices as women, whatsoever, but to agree to the think tank morality written and coded by this global movement. The feminist movement is no different than the global environmental movement, the global healthcare movement, the global education movement, or the global economy movement. All are social re-engineering tactics used to forward the take over of all world governments, economies, and cultures, and to force all commoners into the custom-made livelihoods and service of corporate-based governors. According to this government, we have no choices but to accept them all.

The "governors" are the world's wealthiest industrialists and bankers. Their one-world government hands all power and control of people, land, water, food, human health, children and education, employment, militaries, and economic potential directly to themselves and their personal fortunes. Over and over and over again, when you tie corporate wealth and power to governing agencies, you have Fascism. However, the long-term goal of a one-world government has always been to bring Communism to fruition on a global scale. So, today, we see a hybrid Fascist-Communist system by Three E design, and it is bitterly obvious in every nation on the planet. Almost all global economies are crashing by design, and particularly America's economy. Note that America's elite pulled their investments out of the U.S. years ago.

The feminist piece of the global puzzle deals specifically with depopulation through women's "healthcare," big pharma, and the "mental health" industrial complex. Women's rights are now defined by the right to abort, the right to be drafted, and the right to take drugs that will render women and children incapable of bearing children. And just as many women worldwide earned the right to own property, that right has now fallen to other plans, which state that no "individual" may own private property.

Also, one must note that the industrial and banking powers that be are mostly men - the men whose dynastic families created their one-world government of choice. And these same men also created the feminist movement in order to curb the tendencies of commoners to breed and out-number them billions to one. The feminist movement is based upon political lies and the control of reproduction. "Sustainable" nature is also based upon enforcing a remarkable decline in birth rates.

Today's "liberated" women are still raising children - many of which are raising children alone - and they are working one or two jobs to make end's meet. Today's "liberated" women are obsessed with weight, beauty, divorce, money, spending money, and careers to make money. They are far less concerned with their children, who are now raised in state-controlled (government) daycare centers, federally controlled (government) public schools, and state controlled (government) universities. In other words, the government is raising our children in ways that the government sees fit - the government of the world's industrialists and world bankers. Your children are being raised by and into the new world order, while you are working to support the new world order rather than your children. Truth hurts, doesn't it?

Let me give the women of the West a clue -"liberation" means that you are free - free to think as you choose and free to create your life according to your efforts and your beliefs. I suggest to you that the "liberation" you have achieved through the misguidance of the feminist movement is false. I suggest that Westernized women are often miserable, overworked, and suffering due to separation from their children. Think of it this way - the feminist movement actually believed they could change the fundamental meaning and purpose of womanhood, biological and instinctual gendering, and that they could culturally remove children from mothers, and call it "liberation." You are equally liberated to destroy any children that you don't want. Wow. I guess that means that you have a great deal of power. Congratulations. It is far greater to be a drugged laborer than a mother. Let us thank the feminist movement for making this clear to us dim-witted females.

And to the world's feminists - I say this: You are the dumbest women who have ever walked the face of the Earth. Week by week, day by day, you are losing every right you thought you invented. You fell hook, line, and sinker into the dialectic, and you are nothing but dictator pawns to the larger mission of total control over people and freedom. What a shame when arrogance literally beats brains useless. What a crime and a shame when you brutally victimize the very people you claim to represent - much like all other destroyers of human freedom. The day will come when you and your brothers in crime will be fully understood for your true missions. The day will come when YOU finally comprehend what you actually stood for - the total denial of rights and freedom for all."

Are we, as a society, ready to do whatever it takes, including junking our sexually liberated lifestyles as well as applying the necessary political pressure to restore the family as the basic unit of society or do we just sit back and become serfs and slaves to the totalitarian state?

MRAs are just fighting one Hydra Head of many.