Feckblog

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Feminism blamed for ‘erosion of manhood’

Straight out of Manila onto your screen:

Feminism blamed for ‘erosion of manhood’

By Lito Zulueta
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:58:00 01/24/2009

MANILA, Philippines—A high-ranking Vatican official currently in Manila has warned of the erosion of manhood and the “crisis in fatherhood” that have resulted in millions of children worldwide without a father or enjoying emotionally healthy relations with one.

German Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum,” the Vatican dicastery (or administrative agency) on charity, aid and relief, blamed “gender mainstreaming” and “radical feminism” for attacking biological manhood and insisting that “sexual roles are learned.”

He said men are demeaned and what is held up as an ideal is a man who is feminized and emasculated, one who, in a European study, is held up to be “a sweeter man.”

“Is male identity then nothing other than a product of a special culture and the consequences of social circumstances?” Cordes asked in his speech, “Fatherhood-An Auxiliary Role?”, which was his doctorate address Friday after receiving an honorary doctorate in theology from the Pontifical University of Santo Tomas.

[...]

He said a Catholic Charities survey in the United States showed that 24 million children are living in homes without a father. He said “fatherless boys are twice as likely to be in prison; they are more likely to drop out or be expelled from school; they account for 63 percent of suicides, and 90 percent of those who run away from home.”

[...]

“A bill passed recently in Britain (‘Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill of 2008’) allows two lesbians or single mothers to conceive a child without a father; all that is needed is ‘supportive parents.’

Some newspapers hailed this as ‘the end of fatherhood.’”

He said a survey of German universities recently showed that while there were 98 university chairs “for deepening questions on womanhood,” only one existed for men.

“In Europe, psychologists and anthropologists have labored to diminish masculinity,” Cordes said. “New investigations such as that published by the Council of Europe in 1998 claim that the ‘new man’ is ‘sweeter.’

Men and fathers should be led to become more like women and mothers in their behavior and reactions. They also advocated ‘flexibility of the sexes’ in the education of children.

Cordes said the erosion of manhood and fatherhood has a negative impact on “boys’ self-understanding,” adding that even girls form their self-understanding by their relationship with fathers and men.

Fathers are “an anchor for us in cases of loss and danger,” said the German prelate. When children try to carve out their own autonomous existence from their parents, it is the father they look up to.

“From the presence of the male body, something is transmitted to the ‘I’ that makes the child blossom,” Cordes said. “Whoever as an individual has never been generated or raised in the way by his father or his fathers will have a limited self-esteem.”
- from here

Monday, May 4, 2009

Sheltered

The last few days I was researching shelter studies. I was in need of a number and learned some useful stuff about shelters one has to consider when talking about shelters in the context of domestic violence.

First of all something about the shelter service. Most DV-shelters offer emergency shelter (the average stay here is 36 days) and transitional housing. Transitional housing means after the stay in a shelter one can stay up to 24 months (average stay is 300 days) until permanent living arrangements are made. That is usually the place (including hotel rooms) where an american shelter puts men who need shelter. The percentage of men who actually stay in an emergency shelter is below 1%. A real surprise to me was the sheer number of children who stay at a shelter. Arround 51% of shelter inhabitants are children, for transitional houses it are arround 60%.

Another important thing to keep in mind is the organisation of the 2,000 DV shelters in the USA. Most of them are small shelters and it seems to me there isn´t a huge network and there is not much information on the number of sheltered women (the number I was searching for). What I did find though was snapshot data from the National Census of Domestic Violence Services (Census). This survey calls every DV-shelter available and asks about the inhabitants for that day. With this number I was able to calculate a number which is of course not accurate. It should however be good enough to give us a rough overview.

To clarify the table below. During the Census not every shelter gave out information (or couldn´t be reached). The return rate tells us how many shelters answered and again how accurate this information is. The number I used for this table is the number of sheltered adults (no children) as well as requests for emergency shelter that couldn´t be met. I didn´t include transitional housings as this would include previously sheltered women as well and screw up my calculation. The estimated total should give us information on sheltered adults if the respons rate was 100%. This guess shouldn´t be that inaccurate. I included all 3 snapshots there are to see if there is a huge fluctuation in that number. It is not. (Information taken from the Census Data of the National Network against DV found here)

Estimate for the daily snapshot:

_____Return_____Adults_Unmet__Adults/_Est.
Year___Rate__sheltered_Requ.__shelter_Total
--------------------------------------------
2006____62%______7,103_+1,740___7.1___14,313
2007____69%______8,249_+2,923___8.3___16,176
2008____79%______9,922_+3,286___8.5___17,000

I really hope blogger doesn´t screw my table up. Anyhow my second estimate the projected number for a year will be a more inaccurate guess. I am using the average shelter stay (36 Days) with the number of days in a year to create a factor I can multiplicate my Estimated Total with. The factor is 10.1. The closer the shelters were to an average day the better my guess is.

The last column takes the following information from a different study into account:

Study is based on a survey of 3,410 people served by DV shelters in eight states during a six-month period in 2007/2008.

One in four (24%) had stayed in a shelter before that visit during which they took that survey [...] the mean length of time participants had stayed in shelter was
33 days, and the median was 22 days (27 days for mothers)

from here

I just subtracted the quarter to avoid double counts.

Year___Estimated / Year___Without multiple visits
2006____________144,561___________________108,420
2007____________163,377___________________122,532
2008____________171,700___________________128,775

2006 from here
2007 from here
2008 from here

The intersting question now is, how inaccurate is my guess. I found some information for the state of Texas for certain years which I can compare with the detailed state information from the 2008 census.

Validation of Data from Texas:

Services Received In Texas by Family Violence Victims
2001 - 12,581 Adults served

Compared to 1179 * 10.1 = 11,907

(I did not use the unmet request number here and had to calculate the number from the study as the responded rate was not 100% ( 71% - 1675 -> 100% = 2359) I took into account that 50% of those should be children)

from here

The difference is not that big. It wouldn´t surprise me though if my guess is in the +/- 50% range.

Why is this number important? I have seen a number used to give an "at least" rate of horrible DV cases, badly battered women. But can we asume that all those women stand for the worst DV cases there are? We can´t and sadly there is not much information I could find for the USA. Canada has a similar Census report with more interesting information:

Shelters for abused women
2003/04

Nearly one-third of all women who had sought temporary accommodation in a shelter for abused women on April 14, 2004 had stayed there at some time during the past, according to a new report.

[...]

Of all women who had stayed in shelters previously, 40% had been there once in the previous year, 38% had been there two to four times, and about 1 in 10 had been to the facility five times or more during the previous year.

The largest proportion of women staying in shelters, just over one-third, were between 25 and 34 years old.

The report is based on data from the Transition Home Survey, a biennial census of residential facilities that provide shelter to female victims of domestic violence. The survey provided information on the facilities and their services for the full year between April 1, 2003 and March 31, 2004, as well as a one-day snapshot of activities and clients served on April 14, 2004.

[...]

According to the one-day survey snapshot, taken on April 14, 2004, of the 6,109 women and children residing in shelters, about 5,000 had escaped an abusive situation representing about three-quarters of all women residing in shelters. Women also turned to shelters for other reasons such as problems with housing, addictions and mental health.

The vast majority of the women staying in shelters to escape abuse were fleeing psychological or emotional abuse. Almost 7 out of 10 reported physical abuse, 50% threats, 46% financial abuse, 31% harassment and 27% sexual abuse.

[...]

Women using shelters for reasons other than to escape abuse constituted about one-quarter (24%) of shelter residents. Over two-thirds of these women sought shelter because they were unable to find affordable housing.

Seven out of 10 women with parenting responsibilities brought their children with them to shelters. Children accounted for about half of shelter residents and two-thirds of these children were under the age of 10.

from here

Looking at the above for the situation in Canada, about 1/4 are not abused (most of them just unable to find a house and using the shelter as a social service) and about 1/3 are not physically abused. I do not want to marginalise emotional abused women here, but this just shows us however that it is not so simple to say something about the situation of women in shelters so it is only faulty to equal shelter inhabitants with severly beaten women.

By the way the number that was given to me by a feminist was 380% higher than the number I calculated.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Recently on feministing...

It is always interesting when something that goes in the direction of men´s rights comes up on feministing:

The bumbling man and/or dad---if you've watched a sitcom chances are you know him. He almost always does something wrong during any given episode; his most common offenses include lying, forgetting, breaking, ruining dinner, or saying the wrong thing. The wife or woman is often smart as a tack, well-balanced and all-knowing. She comes through the door with kids in tow and groceries in hand to find that "dad" couldn't even handle the simple task of putting the lasagna in the oven to heat up (the stupid male let it sit out on the counter, fed it to the dog, used it as a chair cushion---the more absurdly moronic the better). He is chided, belittled, and given a kiss---she still loves her husband even if he is a stupid man.

Now of course, I'm generalizing. There are sitcoms out there where the man isn't a complete moron, or the wife is a bit dumb as well. But I see a disturbing proclivity of men who simply cannot handle a task if it doesn't involve sports or drinking. This is a direct reciprocal of the stereotype that women can't handle anything that is outside of fashion or caring for the home. The airhead wife has been replaced by the bumbling dad. And the problem isn't restricted to the realm of sitcoms.

Through my own personal experiences, I have seen women echoing the male stereotype message conveyed on tv---men are dumb, shallow slobby simpletons who can't be relied upon to do something right. At best, men are just a little more dull-minded, possessing a mind that is permanently stuck to one of four channels: sports, sex, cars or video games.

Many women would likely agree to the bumbling man stereotype with a laugh and a nod of the head. I sense an air of righteous retribution in the smirking agreement that follows around the stereotype, and it is disheartening to think that a turn-of-the-table has been packaged and accepted as a step forward.

Ultimately, that the bumbling man stereotype is not sternly denounced by the feminist movement only feeds into the problems they aim to fight. For if the feminist movement and women in general are seen as belittling and divested of the positive male, there is little incentive to meet in the middle.

[...]

Maybe I'm naive, but I believe that if the feminist movement was seen more as an safe-haven for progressive males as much as it was for women---that they had the same support-system---that we would see improvement in greater numbers. Males need to bring about the change themselves as well, of course, but when other males celebrate the stereotype and women are seen to validate and reinforce it, the room can feel pretty empty.

From here

What I found more interesting (or revealing) are the comments. It is often said feminism is for everyone and one of the comments give us a similar description:

feminism is about gender equality and ending harmful gender stereotypes of both men and women.

bell hooks definition of feminism: "Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression."

Honestly after reading a whole lot of feminist blog entries I can tell you, this is not the case. But I´ll let the feminism101 clarify this for me:

No one is saying that discussions on men and masculinities shouldn’t go on. It is absolutely important to have dialogue on men’s issues, including discussions on violence done towards men. The thing is, a feminist space — unless the topic is specifically men’s issues — is not the place to have that discussion and neither are spaces (feminist or otherwise) in which the topic is specifically focused on women’s issues.

[...]

What it boils down to is this: Men, not women, need to be the ones creating the spaces to discuss men’s issues.

here

Many men are entirely comfortable with calling themselves feminists, and many feminist women are very happy to accept them as fellow feminists working for the end of sexist oppression.

[...]

However, there are also men and women who are ideologically uncomfortable with men calling themselves feminists, because it seems to be a co-option of movements built by and for women.

here

From my own understanding and from reading more feministing in the last few days, the tenor of feminists is usually "empowering women" and discussing men´s issues usually doesn´t empower women much.

If you are interested in a discussion about men´s issues or MRAs with feminists, the feministing post is open for comments.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Why don't more women call themselves feminist?

I found this in a porn discussion on feministing and it was just to good to ignore. Kudos to the writer, known as Steve:

I am going to try and answer the question "Why don't more women call themselves feminist? for you as best I can. It might be off topic, but so has much of the conversation on this thread. The following is based off of conversations with and observations of female feminist and female's who believe much the same as feminist, but decline the label.

The reason so many women decline to call themselves feminist is because so many feminist are dogmatic, sexist petty and hypocritical. petty. Non-feminst women do not see themselves as dogmatic, sexist, petty, and hypocritical so they decline the title.

Lets take each in turn.

KSM appears to be the embodiment of a dogmatic feminist. She has decided that all porn is uniformly bad, and any attempts at discussion or to articulate one's point is met with more impenetrable dogma. Dogmatic thinkers like KSM see the world in black and white terms, and igmore gray, yellow, orange or anything more complex. I think it is becuase they lack the ability to think any other way.

And the groupthink in feminist circles is suffocating, sometimes even for moderate feminist. And feminist actually seek out groupthink. And despite many feminist being college educated, and presumably intelligent, they lack the perspective to see that they engage and thrive on group think.

Many of you would do yourselves a great service if you read Irving L. Janis' Groupthink: The Desperate Drive for Consensus at Any Cost, published first in Psychology Today 5 (November 1971). One story therein relates how a meeting with the president Johnson's staff during the Vietnam was was planning to use bombing to soften up the North Vietnamese. They thought that six weeks would be enough to break the North Vietnamese spirits. When someone asked what they would do if the bombing did not work they were met with the reply that another four weeks would certainly do the trick.

That kind of groupthink has found its home in feminism, and it gets to the point that you cannot see why so many people don't agree with your propositions. You are just continuing the bombing campaign.

Feminist are constantly confronted with the claim that they themselves are sexist. As it has been discussed on other threads, there is being sexist, and acting sexist. Absolutely I think many feminist act sexist. When KSM goes off on one of her sarcastic rants, she shows that she has prejudiced views of just about every man. She does not respect their opinions enough to have an actual conversation. When you eat up her hateful rhetoric you show your sexism.

When at least five women post a comment about returning the conversation to civility and you imply the one male who also says there should be a return to civility gets his shit jumped then you show how sexist you are.

When the voting and comments on this site shows that when a man and a women have the same view but the males responses are attacked, or the women's comments are receive more votes for the same thought you show how sexist you are.

And many of you are so suffocated in group-think and dogmatic thinking that you completely lack the self awareness of how sexist you are. And you still have the gall to say that "men just need to be made aware that some of their actions are sexist." The lack of self-awareness is staggering, and it is one reason I swing by here from time to time.

Next up is the pettiness, which once again can be displayed in the sarcastic dismissiveness of anything that does not coincide with your dogma, or when men point out what they think is an injustice you say "TEH PORRR MHENZ!!!!!!!!!!.

Most people don't undertand the pettiness of feminst. Most women would understand how a parent, a father would feel hurt that the mother of his child refuses to let him see his children. And many feminist mock that man, and others that think the system can be unjust.

That is disgusting behavior on the behalf of those feminst, and it is no wonder that other women do not want to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. Absolutely disgusting.

Once again dogmatic group-think and sexism has reared its head. Many feminist spend so much time 'othering' men and self identifying with feminist (and don't forget many feminist don't believe a man can truly be a feminist, even if he believes the exact same dogma) that they think that behavior is acceptable.

The combination of the dogmatic thinking, sexism and pettiness is the general hypocrisy of many feminist. They argue for equality but whenever someone makes a valid arguement that women have a some benefit or privilege the common response is a refusal to correct the inequity. Either it is not their problem to fix, or they are not going to give anything for equality.

So, by all means, enjoy KSM sarcasm. Just don't wonder "Why don't more women consider themselves feminist" or wonder "why more men are involved in feminism". Don't wonder why you cannot convince the main stream to go along with you when you cannot even convince your target audience to take the same title as you.

Peace out.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Women should be hit for wearing sexy clothing in public, one in seven believe

Another awful article that uses sleight of hand and rhetorics to turn data, that isn´t even that bad, into a call for action. But let us start dissect the article:

We start with the headline, which is probably one of the "facts" people will keep in mind:

Women should be hit for wearing sexy clothing in public, one in seven believe

This is the shocker. Reading the study we find out that that is actually a lie. The Times article corrects itself in the first sentence.

One in seven people believe it is acceptable in some circumstances for a man to hit his wife or girlfriend if she is dressed in “sexy or revealing clothes in public”

Which is far closer to the truth. But let me continue before I focus on the actual data, because there is another lie presented in a similar way than the headline:

A similar number believed that it was all right for a man to slap his wife or girlfriend if she is “nagging or constantly moaning at him”.

Which is again wrong as the headline. What does the data say:

Acceptable is something only a very small minority agree with in (1-6%). The 14% (or 1 in 7) said "it is acceptable in some circumstances but not in other". Which is a big difference to saying it is (always) acceptable. The overwhelming majority (79-90%) agreed that it is not acceptable to hit women at all in those cases. But let us illustrate the data in another way. Imagine you are asking 10 people, 5 men and 5 women. Eight will answer it is never acceptable and 1 man and 1 woman will say, "Well I can think of some circumstances where it would be okay to hit a woman". The minority that says it is acceptable doesn´t even fit in my definition. Shocking data?

We continue with the lies:

The findings of the poll, conducted for the Home Office [...] 1,065 people over 18 questioned last month [...]

I guess this tidbits should help convice us that we are talking about rock solid data. Reading the study that the article linked as well makes us wonder if the author read that piece:

- Please note that this research is not part of the Home Office National Statistics programme but is exploratory work. Results should be seen as indicative and directional rather than absoulte. It is not recommended that exact percentages are used outside the context of this document
- Telephon survey in Wales and England asking 915 people age 18+
- Please note that statisitcal reliability tests work on the basis of a pure random sample. This survey uses quotas to obtain a sample that is closely represantative to the population so our survey does not use a completely random sample. Statistical differences should be used only as a guide.

Adjusting the numbers a bit (I guess 1.000 is a magic line that makes surveys more reliable), fantasizing a connection to the Home Office Statistics programme and worst of all presenting us numbers as absolutes that should be seen as directional in a survey that does not even use a completely random sample. And do we see a direction? Yes, an overwhelming majority say violence against women is never acceptable with some men and women saying, well maybe in such a case.

So what follows is a call for action, there should be something done about the violence some people may find acceptable:

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said: “Violence against women and girls is unacceptable in any form no matter what the circumstances are.”
Ms Smith said that more needed to be done to challenge attitudes that condoned violence against women and girls.
She was speaking as she launched a police lead review of whether new laws are needed to tackle serial domestic violence abuses and whether there is a link between the early sexualisation of young girls and violent abuse.
One idea being considered is to allow women to ask police if a new partner has a record of domestic violence. A pilot scheme that allows women to request information on whether a new partner has a history of child sex abuse is currently underway in four police force areas of England and Wales.
But Ms Smith was confronted at a working breakfast at which she launched the campaign by a veteran domestic violence campaigner.
Sandra Horley, chief executive of Refuge, accused Ms Smith over breakfast at the Cinnamon Club in Westminster of using “gimmicks” and “spin”.
She said that government action so far had been “piecemeal” and condemned plans for a database of serial domestic abusers.
Ms Horley said: “We have had enough talking – we need action. As for the perpetrators’ register, it is a gimmick and doesn’t address the root problem.
“The majority of violent men don’t come to the attention of police and it won’t keep women safe.
“Police can’t be expected to monitor relationships and love lives of offenders.”
She went on: ”The Government is hoping to get away with useless initiatives like this register and it is hypocritical to sound tough and do little.”
She said that the cases of Sabina Akhtar and Katie Summers showed that not enough was being done.
Ms Smith tried to interrupt the tirade but was shouted down before Vera Baird, the solicitor general, stepped in to argue the Government’s case.

Well it seems both don´t seem to agree what should been done, but agree that something has to been done.

As someone who is against all kinds of violence, not just violence against women, let us see what another poll tells us about the acceptance of violence against men:

Survey finds male abuse approval

Morethan half of women questioned at a Glasgow university said they approved of wives hitting their husbands.

The Glasgow Caledonian students were among 6,500 women surveyed from 36 universities for an international study into attitudes on domestic violence.
Of the 200 women, 60% said it was acceptable for women to hit their husbands while 35% admitted assaulting their partner.

A total of 8% admitted injuring them - the highest rate in the study.
The injured men suffered bruises, cuts or broken bones.

Among European students, only English women were more likely to have carried out assaults, with 41% admitting that they had punched or kicked their partners.
However, those inflicting injury was less than in Scotland, at 5%.

Just under a quarter of those in Scotland admitted there were occasions when it would be acceptable for a husband to slap his wife.

Worldwide, more than 4,800 female students approved of assaulting their partner and 2,000 admitted to pushing, shoving, slapping, throwing objects and twisting their partner's arms or hair.

The findings, printed in the Sunday Times, will be published next month in the European Journal of Criminology.

'Bottom line'
Professor Murray Straus, co-author of the study, told the paper there was a need for better rehabilitation programmes for women with violent tendencies.

"This study raises questions about why there's so much violence between partners whether they're married, cohabiting or dating," he said.
"The bottom line is that we need make the same 'big deal' about violence by women as we do about men who behave violently."

In recent years, the Scottish Executive has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on raising awareness of domestic abuse, including a helpline for victims which received more than 20,000 calls in 2005 -- an increase of 38% on the previous year.
David Smith, honorary professor of criminology at Edinburgh university and editor of the European Journal of Criminology, said he found the results "surprising".
"The number of women who admit to assaulting men is interesting as it's well known that men are more violent than woman." - from here

Nothing more to say.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Yep, that is the reason....

I came across that bit on a feminist site (I am not going to name) and that just speaks for itself:

I've never considered running for office. That might seem kind of normal, except I was a political science major in college and follow electoral politics very carefully. I'm a feminist who cares deeply about the lack of female representation in politics.

And reminds me of a joke I heard before:

For 10 long years, every night Susan was praying to win the lottery. One night after a prayer the room is suddenly embedded in light and angelic choirs can be heard. Then a deep voice says: "Give me a chance Susan and buy a damn lot!"

Oh, the irony...

Monday, March 2, 2009

Abortion in Numbers

I came across some statistics and really was shocked. I didn´t knew that abortions (especially in the US) were so common. Here are the facts:

Each year, women have an estimated 46 million abortions worldwide. Of these, 20 million are clandestine abortions and are generally unsafe. More than three-quarters of all abortions occur in developing countries. (The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), Sharing Responsibility: Women, Society and Abortion Worldwide, New York: AGI, 1999, Chart 1.1.)

In 2003, 1.29 million abortions were performed in the United States. From 1973 through 2003, more than 43 million legal abortions occurred in the United States. (Finer LB and Henshaw SK, Estimates of U.S. Abortion Incidence in 2001–2003, 2006, , accessed Nov. 29, 2006.)

The abortion ratio is the proportion of pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) ending in abortion. In 2003, the abortion ratio was 24%, meaning that about one-quarter of all U.S. pregnancies ended in abortion. (Finer LB and Henshaw SK, Estimates of U.S. Abortion Incidence in 2001–2003, 2006, , accessed Nov. 29, 2006.)

On the basis of current abortion rates, one in three American women will have had an abortion by age 45. (AGI, State facts about abortion, 2003, , accessed December 6, 2006.)

- from here

Nearly half of all pregnancies to American women are unintended; four in 10 of these end in abortion.

About half of American women have experienced an unintended pregnancy