Soon... I hope.

Oversight and Abortion: The skeleton in Feminism's closet

Pro abortion activists repeatedly claim that their advocacy is about keeping the procedure safe. However, as a group, particularly among those identifying as feminists, they respond to efforts at applying standard medical and legal oversight measures to the clinical practice of abortion as if proponents are suggesting an atrocity. For example, Rhode Island's chapter of the National Organization of Women protested proposed 2011 legislation (H5505) requiring that abortion clinics provide patients with information on the procedure's risks, on the risks of continuing the pregnancy, the probable gestational age (information relevant to the risk level,) and access to the name of the doctor performing the procedure. During a discussion on feminists and abortion, upon bringing this protest up, I was asked why the patient needed to be informed of risks, and why the patient should need to know the physician's name.

The answers to both are related. Abortion is a surgical procedure performed on a human body by an individual ruled by a human brain. It is as risky as any other surgical procedure of the same complication or simplicity. No matter which side of the fence you fall on, failing to acknowledge that fact is dishonest and unproductive. Opposing the requirement that the patient be given the chance to determine the level of risk she's willing to take completely undermines the argument that one supports legalized abortion "for the benefit of women." If you don't want women to know they're taking medical risks, so that they can be ready to seek treatment for any complication which might occur, or decide another option is a better choice for them, you're not really supporting the legal status of abortion because you're pro-woman. You're supporting it because you're pro-your-pet-political-party, which happens to have pro-abortion in its platform. If it upsets you to think that learning the risks of the procedure might cause women to choose not to avail themselves of it, then you are not just overly loyal to party politics, you're an ideologue.     
 
The second part requires a bit more attention in order to be understood. First, remember what I pointed out about the surgery - it is performed by an individual ruled by a human brain. The significance is that at the very least, this will sometimes lead to errors in performance. Because it's being performed on a human body, errors can be damaging, and egregious errors can be permanently damaging. It is possible for an injury to occur which would lead to temporary disability, or the need for surgical repair. While this is not an expected result of the surgery, if it occurs, the patient has the right to the same recourse as any other patient having any other procedure done. She has the right to sue for malpractice.

Again, if it upsets you to read that an abortion patient might sue her doctor for malpractice, should the doctor mistakenly injure her, your advocacy is not for women. It's for politics. If you're advocating for the rights of women, then you understand why these patients deserve as much right as any other patient to protection from unscrupulous or careless physicians.
   
Political proponents of abortion, from those simply defending its legality to those advocating government funding, have fought tooth and nail to prevent oversight of any kind from being legally mandated for providers. These groups argue as if everyone involved in the industry is there out of magnanimity, these angels of mercy whose only desire is to help poor, desperate women escape the burden of unwanted pregnancy, and therefore oversight is simply unneeded.

Occasionally, personal stories emerge which paint another picture. Abortion advocates are quick to claim that those are "pro-life" influenced, or to call them outright fabrications.

I wonder how they're going to rationalize this:

The Philadelphia Abortion Doctor Trial Will Sicken You  

Worse were the alleged practices of Gosnell and his staff: late-term abortions conducted with minimal anesthesia, high-school students working in the operating room. After his arrest, one former patient described her horrifying experience at the clinic:

Reid said she planned to tell Gosnell that she didn't want the abortion and was going to sneak out of the clinic.

"When I said no, the doctor got upset and he ended up taking my clothes off, hitting me, my legs were tied to the stirrups," Reid said.

Clicking on the link in the quote will take you to an ABC news page, where the story is paired with video from a broadcast report on the shooting of Dr. George Tiller, followed by a report on Roe vs Wade, despite the lack of relevance of either story to the events in the one being reported. The story on that page goes on to describe the assault in more detail, including the fact that Gosnell drugged Reid, and performed the abortion against her will.

Also From the abc link:



Alleged Victim Calls Philadelphia Abortion Doc Kermit Gosnell a 'Monster'

Nicole Gaither, 38, was five months pregnant when she said she visited Gosnell in 2001 . Her cousin and others that she knew had used the clinic.

Since it was Gaither's first and only abortion, she didn't know what to expect.
Following the abortion, Gaither said that she was in excruciating pain.

"When I finally went back to work I could barely sit down at the stool," Gaither said. "The pain started to get worse."

Gaither returned to Gosnell. He did an ultrasound and told her that he had left fetal remains in her, Gaither said.

and

"There were scores more. At least one other mother died following an abortion in which Gosnell punctured her uterus and then sent her home. He left an arm and a leg of a partially aborted fetus in the womb of another woman, and then told her he did not need to see her when she became sick days later, having developed a temperature of 106 degrees. He perforated bowels, cervixes, and uteruses. He left women sterile," Williams said in the grand jury report. 

Where is the magnanimity in this story? Where is the benevolent doctor, working tirelessly to provide a safe, clean environment for a procedure that has been touted as safe because it is legal? What really is the procedural difference between Dr. Gosnell's clinic and a back alley abortionist?

According to the stories of his patients victims, nothing of great significance.

Gosnell's defense against the murder charges he faces has been the claim that with the exception of the woman he drugged to death, the murder victims were "not viable," and that the prosecution is racist for pursuing the case.

His stated reasoning for the claim of racism is the location of his practice in a poor neighborhood, and its clientele, who were mostly minorities. According to prosecutors, Gosnell wasn't generously helping these women, but capitalizing on their desperation.

Gosnell catered to minorities, immigrants and poor women, and made millions of dollars over 30 years performing illegal and late-term abortions in squalid and barbaric conditions, prosecutors said.

It was reported in the Atlantic Wire story in the first link that $240,000 in cash was found in his home at the time of his arrest. 

More on Gosnell's clinic:

Worker Describes Gruesome Practices Inside West Phila. Abortion Clinic

Worker admits cutting 10 babies at abortion clinic

Grand Jury Faults State Agencies in Abortion Case

Grand Jury recommendations from the Investigation of Women's Medical Society

Probably the creepiest aspect of the story, even though it is by far not the worst accusation, is a bit of information mentioned in passing in several reports.

Gosnell kept severed little baby feet in jars of fluid in his office.

This is the hidden side of the abortion industry. This is what you're talking about when you protest the promotion of oversight in the name of "safe, legal abortion;" the ability of practitioners to spend years secretly using and abusing the desperate and the afraid, capitalizing on the culture of combined loyalty and shame which keeps women from coming forward to complain following the commission of such an atrocity.

And that is the nature of feminist advocacy; claiming human rights as a motive while concealing and fostering the perpetration of atrocious human rights violations. Feminist groups are much more concerned about furthering their political agenda than they are about advancing the protection of human rights.

Single custodial parents - some facts and thoughts

Source and further demographics: Here (excel) and Here (csv)

Of note in analysis: Percentages given in diagram appear to be rounded. Rounding could cause some numbers to not add up correctly, but be off by plus or minus .1%. Numbers below differ from the chart in the same amount.

85.3% of ALL custodial single parents are mothers. Only 14.7% are fathers.

80.7% of all custodial single fathers are at or above the poverty level. 19.3% of all custodial single fathers are below the poverty level.
74.1% of all custodial single fathers are employed. 25.2% are not employed.

88.8% of employed custodial single fathers are at or above the poverty level, while only 11.2% of employed are below the poverty level.
8.4% of all custodial fathers are working poor.

63.9% of unemployed custodial single fathers are at or above the poverty level, while 36.1% are below it.

50% of custodial single fathers who are not in the workforce are at or above the poverty level, and 50% below it.

56.8% of total nonworking custodial single fathers are at or above the poverty level, while 43.2% are below it.

10.9% of all custodial single fathers are nonworking poor.
3.7% of all custodial single parents are fathers who do not have a job, approximately 2/5 of whom are under the poverty level.

62.6% of all custodial single mothers are at or above the poverty level.

37.4% of all custodial single mothers are below the poverty level. 

65.0% of all custodial single mothers are employed. 35% are not employed. 

76.4% of employed custodial single mothers are at or above the poverty level, while 23.6% of

     employed are below the poverty level.

15.3% of all custodial mothers are working poor.

42.6% of unemployed custodial single mothers are at or above the poverty level, while 57.4% are below it.

33.8% of custodial single mothers who are not in the workforce are at or above the poverty level, while 66.2% are below it.
36.7% of total nonworking custodial single mothers are at or above the poverty level, while 63.3% are below it.

22.1% of all custodial single mothers are nonworking poor.
29.8% of all custodial single parents (more than 1 in 4) are mothers who do not have a job, approximately 4/5 of whom are under the poverty level. 

In raw numbers, there are more custodial single mothers who are not in the workforce (no job) than the total number of custodial single fathers.
The percentage of all custodial single mothers who are nonworking poor (22.1%) is higher than the total number of custodial single fathers who are poor (19.3%)

88.9% of nonworking custodial single parents are mothers. Only 11.1% are fathers.

91.9% of custodial single parents living below the poverty level are mothers. Only 8.1% are fathers.

92.7% of custodial single parents with an income under $10,000 a year are mothers. Only 7.3% are fathers.

91.8% of custodial single parents with an income under $20,000 a year are mothers. Only 8.2% are fathers.

91.4% of working poor custodial single parents are mothers. Only 8.6% are fathers.

92.2% of nonworking poor custodial single parents are mothers. Only 7.8% are fathers.

95% of custodial single teen parents are mothers. Only 5% are fathers.

Only 4% of custodial single parents have 4 or more children at home.
91.6% of custodial single parents with 4 or more of their own children in the home are mothers. Only 8.4% are fathers.
However:

61.5% of custodial single fathers with 4 or more of their own children in the home are employed.

52.3 of custodial single mothers with 4 or more of their own children in the home do not have jobs.

Only 3.1% of custodial single parents have a family group with 6 or more people.
91.2% of custodial single parents with a family group of 6 people or more are mothers. Only 8.8% are fathers.

Custodial fathers make up only 14.7% of total custodial single parents, but they account for 21.3% of custodial single parents with an income over $100,000 a year. They only make up 7.3% of custodial single parents with an income under $10,000 a year.


So what we're seeing here is a pattern... a higher percentage of single custodial mothers than single custodial fathers

• Don't have jobs
• Earn low income
• Do not have enough non-employment income to be above the poverty level without being employed
• Have custody of four or more children
• Combine joblessness with multiple child custody
• Become custodial parents as teens

On the other hand, a higher percentage of single custodial fathers than single custodial mothers

• Have jobs
• Earn high income
• Have enough non-employment income to be above the poverty level without being employed
• Have custody of only one child
• Maintain employment when they do have custody of multiple children

The raises the question of why fathers are not given primary custody more often. Given their greater likelihood of a supporting income, and the importance placed on financial stability during child support disputes, wouldn't it be in the best interests of the child to be placed in the more financially stable home to begin with? Certainly, whenever the mother is unemployed or low income, and the father works, and/or has a higher income, that should weigh heavily in his favor in a custody dispute.

Unfortunately for the family, there's a pretty big incentive in the form of federal funding for courts to award  child support payments in divorce cases and states to collect that money. Paternal custody where paternal income is high can reduce or eliminate the need for child support awards, and state involvement in collection. This may be one reason which would explain the higher percentage of custodial single mothers under the poverty level, as opposed to the lower percentage of custodial single fathers in that circumstance.

VAWA is not like that? (3)

Section 40241 designated federal funding for Battered Women's Shelters established in the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act of 1984.

Yep - there was a law before VAWA.

Title III: Family Violence Prevention and Services - Family Violence Prevention and Services Act - Authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make demonstration grants to States to assist in supporting the establishment, maintenance, and States to assist in supporting the establishment, maintenance, and expansion of programs and projects to: (1) prevent incidents of family violence; and (2) provide shelter and related assistance for victims and dependents of victims of family violence in order to prevent future violent incidents. 

VAWA's section 40241 increased funding for battered women's shelters through the year 2000.
FVPSA's grant eligibility requirements are simple:

Eligible entities

To be eligible to receive a grant under this section, an entity shall be a local agency, a nonprofit private organization (including faith-based and charitable organizations, community-based organizations, and voluntary associations), or a tribal organization, with a demonstrated record of serving victims of family violence, domestic violence, or dating violence and their children.

States had a longer list of requirements in order to obtain an allotment of funds to distribute to these agencies;
They had to prove the funds were being used for their designated purpose, that the state give "special emphasis" to community-based support, primarily in the form of shelters, but also for treatment of conditions contributing to an abuse victim remaining in an abusive relationship. States had to prove that urban and rural areas were both represented, with representation not limited by income, and victim information kept confidential. States also had to demonstrate having a process in place for eviction of abusers from shared residences. States were barred from gender discrimination in the application of policy related to this funding.

The 1994 act did not create these programs. It increased funding for them, and contained wording which imposed the gender restrictions which the original law forbade, referring to the domestic abuse shelters as "battered women's shelters" and describing domestic violence as "violence against women."

VAWA also established additional assistance for victims, which was backed with still more federal funding.
From the original bill, section 40114, Authorization for Federal Victim's Counselors:

There are authorized to be appropriated for the United States Attorneys for the purpose of appointing Victim/Witness Counselors for the prosecution of sex crimes and domestic violence crimes where applicable (such as the District of Columbia)--

(1) $500,000 for fiscal year 1996;

(2) $500,000 for fiscal year 1997; and

(3) $500,000 for fiscal year 1998.

While the funding and maintenance of shelters for abuse victims is a benevolent action, when it is combined with the rest of the bill, this adds incentive to find victims to the already existing incentive to find perpetrators. And while this doesn't mean that all allegations are false, it does create an environment conducive to the support and promotion of false allegations through the system. Last but not least, while gender-neutral terms like family, domestic, and partner were used in the original FVPSA law, VAWA is peppered with instances of the use of the word "women," indicating to the reader that certain services, policy, and law laid out by the text are designated strictly for the benefit and use of women.

Moving forward: The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (yes, the stimulus bill - remember when Republicans said there were items hidden in that bill which had nothing to do with economic stimulus?) established Violence Against Women Formula Grants to fund female-based initiatives.
Text copied from the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance and placed into an image with all instances of the word "women" tinted red:
    

This clearly establishes a mandate for the entire legal system to treat domestic violence as a crime committed by men against women. Funding for this program is in Section 101 of the 2005 re-authorization of VAWA update: Stop Grant Improvements, which establishes funding for Jessica Gonzales Victim Assistants, whose job it is to advocate for women who have obtained restraining orders, and for the Crystal Judson Domestic Violence Protocol Program, which is charged with influencing law enforcement response to domestic violence allegations.

Now, we have a program which initially provided incentives separately to the branches of its authorities of execution - money to law enforcement and judicial systems to fund their activities, and money to victim's services systems to fund their activities. In the 2005 re-authorization of VAWA, the federal government decided to cross the streams, resulting in a system wherein victim's advocates had the government-sanctioned ability to influence the legal system in favor of accusers and against the accused.

That is the system which led to the events in this case.

Following that update was the 2012 re-authorization bill, which contained still more changes, including one which would have given tribal courts limited jurisdiction to oversee domestic violence offenses committed against Native American women by non-Native American men on tribal lands. When the controversy over that stipulation was presented to reddit's /r/mensrights, my comment was:

That whole issue is quicksand. There is no wining that discussion for the Republicans, or for NOW. The more both sides maneuver on this, the more wrong they're both going to be.
On one hand, you have the home court advantage issue on both sides. Because of the circumstances, either side of a domestic case in which the woman is tribal and the man is not will be able to claim that the other side's native legal system will be biased. In both cases, that claim would probably be right.
On the other hand, there is the issue of timeliness. When there is an arrest over an allegation of criminal violence on a reservation, and it's going to take a month or two for anyone to get in there and handle it, what is the community's law enforcement to do? Keep the accused imprisoned the whole time? Allow bail-bought probational freedom? What if they keep an innocent man locked up for two months, unable to work*, and then he is acquitted? What if they let a guilty man out, and he goes home and kills his wife?
And that's not even taking into account the sexist nature of VAWA, and American law enforcement's handling of it. What if the perp is a woman? When she's arrested for beating, raping, or otherwise harming her partner, will American law enforcement back tribal law enforcement up on that arrest?

*meaning, of course, the question of will he be employed when he gets out, and still able to support himself, or will being falsely imprisoned leave him broke and homeless, too?

The update sought to slap a bandaid over the edge of a gaping wound on the face of American interaction with tribal populations; our government cannot make up its mind whether Indian Reservations are U.S. territory, subject to U.S. law and with their people benefiting from U.S. policy, or whether they are independent territory, and the people there are on their own. When it benefits politicians to claim tribal people as American folks and American responsibility, they're fully willing to interfere in tribal culture, community, and government. When it benefits politicians to turn their heads and ignore tribal issues, then that is what they do. The VAWA update argument is no different than that.

The 2005 and 2012 renewals also included several areas where text specifying application of policy as being to various types of crime (sex crimes, dating violence, assault) expanded to include the broadly defined term "stalking."
An individual may be accused of stalking if the accuser claims that the accused repeatedly followed or harassed the accuser, having made an expressed or implied threat with intent to make the accuser fear death or serious bodily harm. As VAWA is written, however, charges of stalking can be leveled based on the alleged victim's feelings of fear, regardless of the alleged perpetrator's intent.

To recap: VAWA contains sexist, female-specific language, funding for research designed to justify its policies, and further funding designed to influence law enforcement, prosecutors, and the judicial system by incentivizing arrest, conviction, harsh sentencing, and sentence enforcement. It also contains funding to incentivize identification of victims and pursuit of action against accused perpetrators. Updates have introduced funding for female-oriented victim's advocacy programs designed to further influence law enforcement, and expanded the definition of domestic abuse. This is not a gender-neutral law, with problems caused at the law-enforcement end. This is a gender-specific law with problems written into its design, so that no part of the legal system has any choice but to apply it in an entirely sexist fashion, and the recently defeated update demonstrated in its text that if politicians have their way, that trend will only continue.

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VAWA is not like that? (2)

Retracing again, we

1) Establish a claim of rampant male-on-female domestic violence.
2) Train law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges to accept that bias.  
3) Incentivize arrest.

What next?

That would be established in sections 20102, 20103, and 30208 part 5.  

Section 20102, Truth in Sentencing Incentive Grants

(a) TRUTH IN SENTENCING GRANT PROGRAM.—Fifty percent of the total amount of funds appropriated to carry out this subtitle for each of fiscal years 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 shall be made available for Truth in Sentencing Incentive Grants. To be eligible to receive such a grant, a State must meet the requirements of section 20101(b) and shall demonstrate that the State—

(1) has in effect laws which require that persons convicted of violent crimes serve not less than 85 percent of the sentence imposed; or
(2) since 1993—

(A) has increased the percentage of convicted violent offenders sentenced to prison;
(B) has increased the average prison time which will be served in prison by convicted violent offenders sentenced to prison;
(C) has increased the percentage of sentence which will be served in prison by violent offenders sentenced to prison; and
(D) has in effect at the time of application laws requiring that a person who is convicted of a violent crime shall serve not less than 85 percent of the sentence imposed if—

(i) the person has been convicted on 1 or more prior occasions in a court of the United States or of a State of a violent crime or a serious drug offense; and
(ii) each violent crime or serious drug offense was committed after the defendant’s conviction of the preceding violent crime or serious drug offense.

 
By itself, 20102 looks justified, as it provides incentive to back up criminal sentencing after conviction, by increasing sentence time and mandating that time given be served. It is less innocent, however, when seen in conjunction with section 20103, which incentivizes inflation of conviction rates for "part 1 violent crimes," described in section 30208 part 5 as including aggravated assault, which may be leveled for the attempt to cause serious bodily injury. Any domestic abuse allegation involving an assault can be defined as an attempt to cause serious bodily injury, whether injury occurred or not.

Section 20103, Violent Offender Incarceration Grants Program

(a) VIOLENT OFFENDER INCARCERATION GRANT PROGRAM- Fifty percent of the total amount of funds appropriated to carry out this subtitle for each of fiscal years 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 shall be made available for Violent Offender Incarceration Grants. To be eligible to receive such a grant, a State or States must meet the requirements of section 20101(b).

(b) ALLOCATION OF VIOLENT OFFENDER INCARCERATION FUNDS-

(1) FORMULA ALLOCATION- Eighty-five percent of the sum of the amount available for Violent Offender Incarceration Grants for any fiscal year under subsection (a) and any amount transferred under section 20102(b)(2) for that fiscal year shall be allocated as follows:

(A) 0.25 percent shall be allocated to each eligible State except that the United States Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands each shall be allocated 0.05 percent.

(B) The amount remaining after application of subparagraph (A) shall be allocated to each eligible State in the ratio that the number of part 1 violent crimes reported by such State to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 1993 bears to the number of part 1 violent crimes reported by all States to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 1993.

(2) DISCRETIONARY ALLOCATION- Fifteen percent of the sum of the amount available for Violent Offender Incarceration Grants for any fiscal year under subsection (a) and any amount transferred under section 20103(b)(3) for that fiscal year shall be allocated at the discretion of the Attorney General to States that have demonstrated the greatest need for such grants and the ability to best utilize the funds to meet the objectives of the grant program and ensure that prison cell space is available for the confinement of violent offenders.

(3) TRANSFER OF UNUSED FORMULA FUNDS- On September 30 of each of fiscal years 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000, the Attorney General shall transfer to the discretionary program under paragraph (2) any funds made available for allocation under paragraph (1) that are not allocated to an eligible State under paragraph (1).

From section 30208, Definitions:

(5) The term `part 1 violent crimes' means murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault as reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for purposes of the Uniform Crime Reports.

Section 20103 establishes with the 1993 numbers a standard of measurement which incentivizes continual increase in the reporting of "part 1 violent crimes," and includes one with criteria which can be applied (especially in conjunction with biases the law has imposed upon law enforcement and prosecutors) to any domestic dispute which progresses beyond a simple shouting match.

So now... we establish the claim, create a bias in all three steps of enforcement (arrest, prosecution, judicial hearing,) then incentivize conviction, harsh sentencing, and adherence to that sentencing. This is the establishment, by VAWA, of the legal equivalent of a giant Rube-Goldberg device designed to funnel men through the criminal justice system into the prison system, for the alleged benefit of women.   


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VAWA is not like that?

This isn't what I was going to write about today, but in light of recent discussion, I think covering the topic is imperative.

I'm seeing repeated presentation of the notion that VAWA itself is a gender-neutral piece of legislation, and that all of the problems with it are caused by law-enforcement, administrative, and judicial response. That notion is a blatantly false representation of both the letter, and the intent of the law.

Let me start by saying that VAWA is hard to search online. That is because its official title is the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. (This link goes to the complete text of that law, in PDF form.) Title IV (sec. 40001) of the act states, "This title may be cited as the `Violence Against Women Act of 1994'."  
A section by section breakdown of the bill (the version which passed into law) is available on the Library of Congress's website, via THOMAS.

Going on, the discriminatory effects of the law occur in part due to gender-specific wording which indicates for the entire system that the intent of the law is that it apply to the protection of women, not the protection of everyone. However, the bulk of gender discrimination is caused by the way the law's funding is designed.   
   
VAWA's stipulations included funding to contract research done with the express goal of justifying the continued application of enforcement aimed at benefiting only women:

SEC. 40291. RESEARCH AGENDA.

(a) REQUEST FOR CONTRACT- The Attorney General shall request the National Academy of Sciences, through its National Research Council, to enter into a contract to develop a research agenda to increase the understanding and control of violence against women, including rape and domestic violence. In furtherance of the contract, the National Academy shall convene a panel of nationally recognized experts on violence against women, in the fields of law, medicine, criminal justice, and direct services to victims and experts on domestic violence in diverse, ethnic, social, and language minority communities and the social sciences. In setting the agenda, the Academy shall focus primarily on preventive, educative, social, and legal strategies, including addressing the needs of underserved populations.
(b) DECLINATION OF REQUEST- If the National Academy of Sciences declines to conduct the study and develop a research agenda, it shall recommend a nonprofit private entity that is qualified to conduct such a study. In that case, the Attorney General shall carry out subsection (a) through the nonprofit private entity recommended by the Academy. In either case, whether the study is conducted by the National Academy of Sciences or by the nonprofit group it recommends, the funds for the contract shall be made available from sums appropriated for the conduct of research by the National Institute of Justice.
(c) REPORT- The Attorney General shall ensure that no later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the study required under subsection (a) is completed and a report describing the findings made is submitted to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.

 This creates a system of self-perpetuation, wherein VAWA funding goes toward the purchase of academic "proof" that VAWA is necessary and right.

Also contained in the bill were grants to fund the funneling of that propaganda effort into law enforcement policy, prosecutor policy, and judicial policy.

Section 40121 created grants specifically focusing only on violence against women, which funded:

• Training for officers and prosecutors
• The creation of special units to focus on domestic violence (specifically) against women
• Changing precinct, prosecutor's office, and court policy to reflect the intent of the law
• Developing communication and tracking systems around the concept of addressing specifically violence against women
• Providing additional crime victim's services to female accusers

VAWA also established the barring of admission of an accuser's sexual history from rape cases - which can prevent the admission of false accusation history if it is deemed that doing so violates the law. It also effectively prevents the defense in a rape case from refuting an accuser's claims that the defendant should have known information which is contradicted by her history... and today, feminists are using terms like "meaningful consent" and "enthusiastic consent" to justify the use of "should have known" as evidence in a rape accusation.

So far: Section 40291 establishes an effort to prove a pattern of male violence against women. Section 40121 establishes an effort to train law enforcement and prosecutors to look for male violence against women. Next, section 40231 establishes a financial incentive for arrests, offers state-funded legal advocacy for accusers in domestic violence cases, and funds influence of judicial handling of cases:

PART U--GRANTS TO ENCOURAGE ARREST POLICIES

`SEC. 2101. GRANTS.

    `(a) PURPOSE- The purpose of this part is to encourage States, Indian tribal governments, and units of local government to treat domestic violence as a serious violation of criminal law.

    `(b) GRANT AUTHORITY- The Attorney General may make grants to eligible States, Indian tribal governments, or units of local government for the following purposes:

        `(1) To implement mandatory arrest or proarrest programs and policies in police departments, including mandatory arrest programs and policies for protection order violations.

        `(2) To develop policies and training in police departments to improve tracking of cases involving domestic violence.

        `(3) To centralize and coordinate police enforcement, prosecution, or judicial responsibility for domestic violence cases in groups or units of police officers, prosecutors, or judges.

        `(4) To coordinate computer tracking systems to ensure communication between police, prosecutors, and both criminal and family courts.

        `(5) To strengthen legal advocacy service programs for victims of domestic violence.

        `(6) To educate judges in criminal and other courts about domestic violence and to improve judicial handling of such cases.

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Can't We All Just Get Along?

If you read that in a whiny, angsty voice, you're reading it right. It's the way I see the latest in the series of responses which feminist activists and writers have had to men's rights activism.

If you're expecting the answer to be a resounding no, you're probably right. After all, the question is not even genuine.

The stages of a winning strategy of nonviolent activism are described as follows: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

And, they ignored us, right up until fathers' rights groups began making international news, and even for some time after, until the number of men's rights activists began to visibly grow.

Then, they laughed, writing about the movement with condescending language like the mock-lament "what about the menz?" Use of this response ranged from simply making fun of the movement to using that mockery as a springboard for revisiting old and reiterating current feminist claims of discrimination and abuse by male society.

First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then... they try to absorb you like a sponge and shape the direction of your activism?

The easiest place to point it out is on Reddit.com's /r/mensrights, where at least once a week there's a post by someone with a day-old account asserting in some way or another that the men's rights movement should really just be an arm of feminism, or trying to persuade "the guys" (because all MRAs are guys, right?) to be more politically correct. Sometimes they're posting to tell "the guys" what to terms and tone to use. Sometimes they're posting to tell "the guys" not to submit certain items.

Lately, it's been variations on the question, "Can't we all just get along?"

I've heard it among my friends, seen it on a few blogs, and on reddit, post after post during the last few months have demanded answers to questions like "Why aren't MRAs feminists" and "Aren't we working toward the same goals? Why aren't we working together?"(Don't feel bad if you read that in the Glenda the Good Witch of the North voice.)

The replies vary, with opinions including the assertion that MRAs could work with some feminists (the writers going on to describe egalitarians who call themselves feminists.) Others are unsure, not wishing to seem confrontational, but still not able trust the group that advocated for the laws we're protesting. Then there are the flat denials by MRAs who have spent their lives watching feminist-advocated legislation chip and cut away at the civil rights of men. I tend to side with the latter due to the nature and advocacy of the feminist movement. Many (or even maybe most) who wear that title don't really have any clue what the leadership of their movement has done in their name.

Whenever I see one of these posts, an admonition that we should all just get along, it's accompanied by one or both of two appeals. The first is Not All Feminists Are Like That. The second is I'm one of the Nice Feminists.

To be honest, the majority my own argument against that line, as I have said before, has already been articulately and most effectively voiced by Girl Writes What, speaking her own and John the Other's thoughts on the topic for A Voice for Men Radio. Since I don't have a better way to say what she said - in fact, I don't think there is a better way to say it, I would encourage the reader to listen to that statement before continuing on with this post. That statement leads right into my objection to the repeated questioning of why the Men's Rights movement has to be at odds with feminist advocacy.

To the Nice feminists, the Feminists who Are Not Like That, who feel compelled to ask MRAs why we can't all just get along: Take a moment, and think about what you are asking.

For decades, the civil rights of men have been attacked, beaten down, and cut away by the mainstream, politically active, in-power, established feminist movement. For decades, the movement has dominated the female activism scene, with the public image of a struggle to wrest equal treatment of females to males from a male-dominated world. That makes the title feminist attractive. It sounds positive when you call yourself a name that folks around you associate with women's rights activism, defenders of the downtrodden, rescuers of the damsels of the world. The emotional attachment to the name is understandable. You have been described an admirable history of fighting for the rights of women to vote, to drive, to be considered full, independent adults with equal rights and equal responsibility to those of men. Of course you would want to associate yourself with that name.

But now, after reading post after post on men's rights blogs and in reddit's /r/mensrights, after wisely reading the links in the subreddit's sidebar, (you did read the sidebar, didn't you, before asking your question?) and comparing what you are learning to the lives of the men you personally know, you have become aware of the true nature of that movement. You can no longer feign ignorance or innocence of the feminist-lobbied legislative attacks on the civil rights of men in the western world. You can no longer turn a blind eye to the hypocrisy of the movement with respect to bodily autonomy and human violence. You have nothing left to shield you from the reality of established feminist bigotry against males. Your eyes have been opened, and you have no excuse to consider the label "feminist" a fit for the altruistic ideology you claim for yourself.

Put yourself in the place of the men to whom you are asking that question.

Imagine, for just a moment, if there were an equal movement among men, one which had protested, lobbied, and publicly advocated for laws and social standards which would reduce the civil rights and darken the social perception of women. Let's say the group has persuaded legislators to outlaw self-defense in male-on-female abusive relationships, redefine male-on-female rape as a lesser crime. Let's say they've successfully lobbied for laws which reduce the due process rights of women accused of violent crimes against men, laws and policy which deem women less worthy of and capable of handling the responsibility and privilege of child rearing than men due to men's superior earning capacity... and family court now bases custody decisions on those laws and policies. At the behest of this movement, lawmakers have ordered that women never get paid more than a man for any work we do, even if we do it more, longer, or better, take greater risks in the process, and make greater personal sacrifices to keep our jobs. In fact, where it's considered a sacrifice for a husband to give up time with his children to go to work, it's expected of the wife. Under legislation and court policy fought for and won by the largest contingent of this group, if your husband divorces you, he gets custody of your kids, possession of your home and vehicle, half (or more) of the rest of the marital assets, and a stipend from your future earnings, especially if he came into the marriage with nothing and built no wealth or marketable skill set while married to you... and that's just if he doesn't accuse you of abuse.

In return, you will be considered potentially violent, with perverse sexual needs and a bad attitude toward men, even after you spend your life continually disproving those assumptions of you by exhibiting the opposite in your behavior. You'll be considered irrelevant to your children, a burden on your husband (yes, the guy you financially support,) and a threat to every man and child in your vicinity wherever you are. People will be entirely tactless and insensitive to your experience in their execution of that treatment, rudely demanding that you leave public places if not accompanied by a husband or boyfriend to supervise you and make sure you don't attack and rape the men and children around you. If you go out with your kids, you'll be treated as suspect, presumed a kidnapper or molester, and questioned by other kids' fathers, possibly even the police. If you are accused of violence against a man, you will be presumed guilty, and the burden of proof that you are not will be on you... but when you try to prove your innocence by demonstrating that the allegations do not come from a credible source, instead of that being taken as proof, you'll also be guilty of blaming the victim. Even if you are acquitted, you'll be treated as if that is not because you are innocent, but because you were clever and sneaky enough to get away with it.

If a man suspects you of having unwanted sexual interest in him, whether you do or not, you're a dangerous whore, and he has the right to publicly castigate and strike you. You dare not do anything back, because hitting a man is a despicable act, even if he hits you first. After all, you're in a position to reach more sensitive, easily damaged areas on his body than he can reach on yours. Being the more powerful individual, you should have the strength to refrain from such abusive behavior.

On the other hand, if a man takes a sexual interest in you and you turn him down for any reason other than being married to someone else, you're a passive-aggressive abuser using denial of affection to hurt him, or maybe you're really a lesbian, but it certainly couldn't be because you just don't want sex with that particular guy, because sex is all we want.

If you complain about your circumstances, it's because you're a lazy, uncaring bitch who doesn't want to woman up and take responsibility for yourself and your family. You shouldn't mind working longer, harder, and under more dangerous circumstances for the same pay. You shouldn't mind being subject to violence, but considered criminal if you respond in kind. You should just accept that you're not necessary for the welfare of your children, give up on your selfish desire to show your love for, and be loved by them. And for crying out loud, pay your alimony and child support. If you can't live on the fraction of income the government leaves you, get another job. It's not like you have anything better to do with your life. You're not raising the kids. Your poor, abandoned ex-husband who left you for another woman is.

I could go on, but I think you get the gist. If you identify as feminist, if you debate gender issues from a women's rights standpoint, you should have been very uncomfortable reading that text. You should recognize your fellow feminists' behavior there. I have merely reversed the sexes for you so that you can see what your colleagues in the movement are doing to the opposite sex.

Now, back to the imaginary scenario. Let's say you've formed a discussion board, a place where women can network with each other and communicate, commiserate, and collaborate on an effort to return the balance of equality to society and the law. Your group discusses issues related to family law, protecting yourselves from being made homeless by vindictive ex-husbands, fighting to maintain relationships with your children following divorce, and creating a balance of power and responsibility between parents for the benefit of the entire broken family. You talk about ways to protect yourself from false allegations of violence, particularly sexual violence, and how you can bring to the general public the understanding that imprisoning the innocent doesn't help a single victim, prevent a single crime, or punish a single criminal, but only creates another set of victims. You voice the concern that social pandering to lack of responsibility among men may be damaging to them as much as it is to you, making them unable to achieve success on their own and hindering their ability to attain any measure of personal satisfaction in life.

When your group is discovered by the long-standing male power lobby, it is first ignored, then ridiculed as a movement of social malcontents who don't want to live by society's rules, hate men and children, and care only about yourselves.

And then, one by one, a few members of that oppressive force come straggling in to your forum and demand to know why you're not part of their movement... why, if you believe in equal rights, you cannot work with them, the folks whose advocacy has led to your civil rights being denied, to achieve equal rights for all?

How polite do you think your answer would be?
Oh, maybe the first time, or the first few times, you could be patient, assuming you were dealing with a younger guy who didn't understand what life is like under the system of oppression I have described. You explain, and he gets it. You feel successful, until the next one comes along with the same stupid question... and the next... and the next. 

If you were one of the lucky women to stay married, to live with one of the nice guys who hasn't taken everything from you, hasn't broken your heart, slandered your name or filed false charges against you to use as leverage in court, maybe you are able to be more charitable to these naive kids who keep asking.

If you're one of the unlucky gals who has been damaged by the advocacy of their group, maybe you'll feel more defensive. After all, someone just wandered into your forum and treated the people who made it possible for your ex to turn your life upside down as if they were benevolent, and argued that you should join forces with them for your own protection.

Argued, in fact, with an inane, ignorant appeal to emotion: Can't we all just get along? How can they even ask that after all their advocacy group has done to you and your family?

You might even find yourself at odds with other Women's Rights Activists who don't understand what you've been through. Maybe the repeated exposure to that question would even cause conflict within the group, as WRAs who want to see the group grow and spread, who want to believe they're so rapidly persuading the general public to accept the ideas and ideals expressed by the movement, end up arguing semantics of the nature of the current crop of male power activists with those of you who have suffered at their predecessors' hands.

Fights like that may get ugly, as younger Women's Rights Activists in relationships with men associated with some modern faction of the male power lobby try to frame their own activism within the context of a political correctness with which it does not fit. Lines may be drawn, politics discussed, and enmity insinuated where camaraderie previously stood. Some long-standing and knowledgeable members may even find themselves ostracized for their views by those who find them too harsh on men. 

Can't we all just get along?
Wouldn't it be kind of obvious to the members of a movement, the activism of which was about bringing down the opposite sex, that when posing that question to a resistance group that is in opposition to your advocacy, the answer should be no?

To the members of /r/mensrights reading this post, who are re-reversing the sexes in your minds and recognizing those fights, I have one more question.

Don't you think that maybe sometimes that infighting is the goal of popping the query, "Can't we all just get along?"

Effeminition: Equal Work

One of the more oft heard complaints of the radfem brigade is the touting of the wage gap myth in support of the "equal pay for equal work" battle cry. This continues despite the fact that said myth has been debunked. This is the highlighted by questions introduced by the Consad report, which indicates that much of the difference in average earnings can be attributed to the worker's life choices and willingness to sacrifice other perks in life for the benefit of higher earnings.

It is also especially important to note the collective effect of anything that can be considered hazard pay on the numbers used to support the wage gap myth. The hazard pay effect is attributable to the difference in job choices between the sexes. Among the higher paying items in the job market are The Most Dangerous Jobs. These are not jobs which women are being kept out of due to discrimination. These are jobs women are not actively seeking to take. On top of the prohibitive risk factors, this is in part due to the time demands. Seasonal jobs often mean daily work for weeks or months, with long hours, hard labor, and no days off in between. Further, the labor demands for these jobs require physical strength, labor endurance, fatigue endurance, and a brand of emotional toughness which is beyond what most women possess or seek to test within ourselves.

Among the results of the discrepancy in representation between the sexes in the most dangerous of jobs is what I would refer to as The Risk Gap and The Death Gap. The first thing that stands out in these statistics is the huge difference in the number of male workplace fatalities, versus female fatalities. While this accounts for only a segment of the whole workforce, it skews the numbers on both sides of the argument, creating an apparently higher average pay rate for men, and an apparently lower average injury and fatality rate for women overall.

In addition, this effect spills over into the regular workforce, including professions more evenly populated by both sexes. Higher injury and fatality rates in first responder professions can be attributed to greater risk-taking by male first responders. Higher rates in the private sector can be attributed to heavier workload requirements given to men, including higher weight assignments and riskier positions in manufacturing and construction, and even in hourly, bottom-rung positions such as retail sales and health care aide positions. Right or wrong, employers and coworkers in general do have higher performance and labor expectations for men.

Taking into account the various factors affecting women's earnings, can we honestly continue to use the phrase "equal work" to describe women's contributions in the workplace? In light of the body of work which women will not do, whether that discrepancy is caused by life choices or unwillingness to risk, or inability to perform, are we really justified in demanding legislation to artificially boost our pay? Is the feminist concept of fairness in this case not incredibly biased? How does the assertion that pay should be artificially evened out via legislation not add up to ungrateful beneficiaries of risk-takers and hard-laborers demanding to be handed undeserved recognition and rewards on the basis of sex?

Addendum: Speaking of the body of work that women will not do, I just ran across the following related article. I want to tell you a story

Effeminitions

Lately I've been thinking about the way feminism has used the act of redefining terms to favor women in order to manipulate perception of events, people, and concepts with bias in favor of female privilege and power. There are simple examples, such as the barely noticeable, but concept-changing differences between many dictionaries' definitions for the two sexual sides of the hate coin. Misogyny often gets a more complicated or detailed description which connects distrust or dislike of women to hatred of women, as if to draw the reader through to the idea that distrust and dislike are hatred. In several of these dictionaries, Misandry's definition is much simpler, often including no elaboration, just the simple definition "hatred of men."

The suggestion is so subtle, so easy to miss... that distrust and dislike are bigotry, but only when directed at women... that it is perhaps natural and acceptable to distrust and dislike men.

There are deeper examples as well, such as the act of redefining rape so that it only refers to penetration of a woman by a man. The definition excludes victims who are not women, and victims who are raped by women, thereby marking the violation of those victims as a lesser crime. Of similar depth and importance is the use of labels in the application of double standards, such as referring to women lashing out in response to emotional-only intimidation as an act of self-defense, while labeling men under the same circumstances as aggressive. This is seen in the social tolerance of women slapping in response to offense at verbal communication or in anger at non-aggressive behavior, while men who do this are condemned and penalized. The female aggression response is considered justified, while the male aggression response is considered abuse.

To my mind, this is an incredibly subversive and dishonest tactic, based in the inability to face, evaluate, and address social issues from an altruistic standpoint. When the goal is not equality in treatment of human rights, but instead, privilege and power, advocacy cannot be approached with candor. No one would follow a movement with "Give us the upper hand just because we want it!" as a battle cry.

This line of thinking moved right into my habit of analogous and pictorial consideration. It's a frequent thing for me to use comparisons, hypothesis, and imagery to cement an understanding on any given topic. This time, doing so led to the creation of political cartoons to highlight my observation of the phenomenon of deliberate term feminization and the effort in which it is done. The title, Effeminitions, suggested by my friend and fellow redditor, Mitschu, after I described to him the concept, is in reference to that phenomenon. Below are the first 3 in the planned series.

Effeminitions: Dialogue mug by BreakingTheGlasses
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