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Eminent Domestic Violence researcher Richard
Gelles, in his article Domestic
Violence: Not an Even Playing Field, criticises what he claims are
inappropriate uses to which his research data have been put.
He explains what he means by saying;
"The statement that men
and women hit one another in roughly equal numbers is true, however,
it cannot be made in a vacuum without the qualifiers that a) women
are seriously injured at seven times the rate of men and b) that women
are killed by partners at more than two times the rate of men."
He does not cite any sources for these
dubious statements. By contrast, there is evidence that the contrary
is the case:
- Professor
Fiebert's Annotated Domestic Violence Bibliography*
reports: "McLeod, M. (1984). Women against men: An examination
of domestic violence based on an analysis of official data and national
victimization data. Justice Quarterly, 1, 171-193. (From a data set
of 6,200 cases of spousal abuse in the Detroit area in 1978-79 found
that men used weapons 25% of the time while female assailants used
weapons 86% of the time, 74% of men sustained injury and of these
84% required medical care. Concludes that male
victims are injured more often and more seriously than female victims.)
"
- Professor
Fiebert's Annotated Domestic Violence Bibliography*
also reports: "Maxfield, M. G. (1989). Circumstances in supplementary
homicide reports: Variety and validity. Criminology, 27, 671-695.
(Examines FBI homicide data from 1976 through 1985. Reports that 9,822
wives & common law wives <57%> were killed compared to 7,433
husbands and common law husbands <43%>)."
Either Professor is against domestic violence, or
he is not against domestic violence. If he is against domestic
violence per se, then he will admit that the statement that
men and women hit one another in roughly equal numbers is important
-- even in a vacuum -- as indicating that
equal resources should be devoted to preventing violence by women and
violence by men.
If Professor Gelles thinks that the context
is important, he should think about the context in an intelligent and
thoroughgoing manner. Why is it that (as he admits) men
and women hit one another in roughly equal numbers , yet it is overwhelmingly
men who are arrested for domestic violence, rather than men and women
being arrested in equal numbers?
The answer is that the Feminist movement was what brought such a lot
of university (but not necessarily "academic") focus on domestic
violence, and that movement has only been interested in portraying women
as victims. Meanwhile, most male academics have been too cowardly or
incompetent to force our politicised Western universities and governments
to take a scientific -- as opposed to a political -- approach to this
issue. Professor Gelles, for all his faults, has actually been one of
the best and fairest researchers in this area.
You can see from the website
of the University of Rhode Island , where Dr. Gelles was working
at the time, that it has:
- a President's Commission on the Status of Women;
- a Women's Center; and
- a Women's Studies Program; but
- no President's Commission on the Status of Men;
- no Men's Center; and
- no Men's Studies Program.
No wait! -- I didn't say that was different
from most other Western universities. If you think intellectual oppression
is normal, then that is quite normal -- but it is also not academic
freedom. Both the mentality of the administrators and professors who
allow the above situation to exist at that university and of the students
who attend that university must necessarily be such as to make the
free and unbiased research into and discussion of Domestic Violence
(amongst other topics) totally impossible. Students, after all, don't
usually know any better than to believe what their lecturers tell
them.
Wait -- it gets worse! Academic publishing
on Domestic Violence is often dishonest and sexist and Feminazi
academics bully academics who they disagree with. On top of that,
Feminist students are organised bullies,
as well.
So many Western universities are now little
more than Feminist seminaries -- constructing cohorts of brainwashed
Femi-priests, ready to go out into the world and convert and dominate,
So it is not surprising that Dr. Gelles has caved in under the pressure.
* last accessed on 21 November 2007.
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