Beware of an angry female

[chef]

Word!

Regards,
Vicki

[Bill Glasheen]

Thanks for your commentary, Ian.

There's a fine line between fighting for justice and loathing those who do injustice to you. We all should be champions of justice. Men AND women should stand up against domestic violence - no matter from whence it came. No good comes of a situation where one family member attacks another.

I was born Catholic, and now I'm an American (with apologies to George Carlin ). So while I don't consider myself a practicing Catholic, I very much value my Judeo-Christian training and teaching.

The problem as I see it is separating justice from love, understanding, and forgiveness. In Judeo-Christian teachings, we are led to believe it is a good thing to forgive those who do you wrong. Is this a weakness of Christianity? Hardly. Grossman (On Killing, On Combat) talks about the power of forgiveness. Not to forgive is to carry a heavy burden with you. It is a disease that - like cancer - can eat you alive from the inside out. At some point we must let it go. By forgiving and walking on in life, we ultimately commit a selfish act. It is the same paradoxically selfish benefit that we see comes from philanthropy.

Does it mean we don't seek justice? No. Justice must be served. Does it mean there are no consequences to bad behavior? No. Newton's laws prevail. If you cause harm, there must be consequences.

And justice MUST be blind in these situations. There can be no gender bias. It ultimately is self-defeating to do otherwise.

Ultimately this thread, as Ian stated, was about the dangers of ignoring Zanshin. Wherever we are in life, we must constantly be aware. We must never be so arrogant as to believe that harm cannot fall upon us - even and sometimes especially when we have the advantage.

Sometimes that advantage can be used against you. The more you know, the more you have, the more vulnerable you may be. How ironic!

- Bill

[Valkenar]

Men committed 88% of the murders. 8x the female rate.
"For the years 1976-2005 combined, among all homicide victims, females are particularly at risk for intimate killings and sex-related homicides."

Nono, see in Akil's world it's just that the world is 8X more biased against men. So men and women commit an equal number of crimes, but men just get punished more because society is just so unfair and prejudicial against men.

[Akil Todd Harvey]

Ian,

I guess you never heard of the battered women's syndrome, the excuse that allows women to KILL their husbands and later claim Self defense (they are NOT included in stats of Killings since they have been determined to be self d).

We assume men to be more violent and thus attribute more violence to men.

A woman could be found next to a dead body and they will look for the nearest man since they assume the woman couldn't hurt a fly.

How many women were found to have poisoned multiple husbands?

Dead body always means homicide? Death reasons are never attributed wrongly? Our system of justice is so perfect, it never convicts the wrong person, right? I may be messed up in the head, but me thinks that many of you have seen too many episodes of CSI....Study the history of criminal justice in this nation....you'll see that it has always been fubared, but we assume that it is so perfect today.


What was it Ghandi said, first they ignore you, then they attack you and then you win.........

[Bill Glasheen]

We assume men to be more violent and thus attribute more violence to men.

There is no assumption involved.

It's a matter of the data, and of biology. Testosterone makes both males and females more aggressive. Men usually have more of it than women. And the data reflect the first-principles understanding.

But this is a stochastic and not a deterministic issue.

I don't feel comfortable commenting on the rest of what you wrote, Akil. There is too much bitterness for my taste.

We can agree on justice. This is what we all seek. That is good for both men and women.

One final comment... Please don't hijack the thread. Go back to the first post and see the reason why I started it. If you have a different issue to discuss, then start a new thread. And if it's a contentious one, try the Tough Issues Forum.

- Bill

[Akil Todd Harvey]

from http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=3467&cp=all#comments

26 metalman Says:

Reliable studies show that the majority of SEVERE DV injuries sustained by men and women occur when the DV is reciprocal - in other words, when two losers are habitually beating the crap out of one another. In that kind of situation, there is usually a long history of strife - to the point where it doesn't matter who started what particular fight. All cops know this, which is one of the reasons why they wince at answering DV calls - because in addition to tending to and subduing angry and violent people, they are forced to listen to hours of he said/ she said from people who are drunk and/or high.

In such situations, if one party is severely injured, the cops figure the other person just got the upper hand that time. They fully expect to be called back again and see the reverse. It tends to happen over and over again with the same perpetrators.

When I look at the Chris Brown - Rhianna issue, my guess is that there's a history of reciprocal violence in the relationship, where she starts it, he starts it, etc, until the point where it doesn't matter. What does matter, though, is that in those situations, someone eventually winds up getting badly hurt or killed. In this Brown - Rhianna case, it was Rhianna this time around. Not only are most cops not surprised that Rhianna went back to him; they're waiting for Chris's turn in the hospital.

If I am outraged at media coverage, try not to assume I am outraged at you personally unless you yourself are mindlessly spouting the same mythology that women need protecting and men do not


From what i have seen and read, the cb rihi fiasco is more of a reciprocal event than anything else. she may have lost this battle, but i am sure she will win the next or has won the last or more likely they will both lose....in dv, both are losers if they both participate........

the mythology of dv that i have discussed on the whole ignores reciprocal violence (where thy run back to each other after beating each other to a pulp).......

rihi runs back to cb.....everyone acts as if he is the only abuser in the relationship (some who posted on this thread as well although no one would admit believing th hype and all pretend to be rational except me, who dares admit his outraged i am mad as hell and i refuse to take it anymore.....imo.....they are both abusive........

i did not address anyone specifically for some time (my first few posts) cuz i am giving folks a chance to grow out of their preconceived notions and prejudices.....i did not bother calling anyone out specifically for prejudiced comments cuz folks can correct themselves, I merely have an isue that concerns me........

I said it before and i will say it again......

"Domestic Violence is NOT a gender issue, it is about inappropriate use of violence"




what concerns me, what outrages me, is the myth that DV IS a gender issue (and some here MAY have implied such either as an attempt at humor and I MAY have misinterpreted such)......

while you wonderful (seriously) folks do seem rational and faiminded, are you ignorant of much of the media's attempt to conflate DV as a gender related crime and cn you imagien that i might find it outrageous that DV is treated as a gender crime, NOT one of violence.

[Akil Todd Harvey]

I beg to differ with you, sir, but we as a society do treat DV on the whole as a crime that men commit and women are victims of.

This is a simplistic statement, but then again, only a simplistic statement can be made into a single sentence.

I cannot express my gratitude sufficiently that you HAVE taken the time to point out female violence, but if it was so well known, there would be no need to do so.

Just because I did not intend to hijack the thread, does not mean I did not have that result. In my defense, I tried to avoid polemics and ideology on the whole. Thanks for providing this forum our esteemed moderator.

I have tried as hard as I can NOT to hijack the thread (I see this as a serious concern). I have waited days between postings, for example, to make sure others had a chance to say their piece and not feel drowned out.

When others changed the subject, I merely responded to the subject matter that they posted.

This is a tough subject and i cannot thank everyone enough for their patience and fortitude in discussing it in a reasonable manner

[IJ]

ATH, I gather that you doubt the best available data on this subject because it doesn't suit your beliefs. Did the graphs specify that women who were acquitted by means of after the fact declarations of self defense were excluded? Do you have any data on how often that occurs? Nothing is cited, and I suspect those events are actually quite rare. But you are perfectly happy to (again without numbers or citations) raise the issue of black widows who sequentially poison male partners as if this were meaningfully common in our society. And you take at face value, or at least some value, the claims ("reliable studies show...") and pure speculation ("my guess is") of "metalman." So the POTENTIAL of a small component of squishy data in the best available source makes you discount it, whereas any squishy data in support of your hypothesis merits close attention.

Hmmm.

Listen, you are correct that we largely look at DV as a man on woman phenomenon. That is how things are largely cast. True (and most stereotypes have their roots in the truth and/or homicide stats). But perhaps you've noticed that the "media" in general broadcasts soundbites and superficial commentary about EVERYTHING. I could quibble about every word they say about medical news, for example. If you want to get gendered on that, think about how breast cancer is "conflated" with female sex by the antimale media cabal while in fact, some (<1%) occurs in men. It REALLY bugs me how they report on medical error. But, they want to make news and they have 30 seconds. I keep that imprecision in perspective as a result. I wonder if you're so burned up about this you mistake some of their general lousiness as a personal / gendered attack?

[IJ]

http://www.dearzachary.com/

Excellent and disturbing movie about the exceptions to male on female DV and the pathetic response of Canada's judicial system. ATH: take an ativan before watching this film!

[Jeff Cook]

As a follow-up to the original article, she apparently didn't do "quite a bit of damage." His wounds were superficial; he was treated and released within a few hours. Sounds like her choice of weapons was sub-optimal as well, but still somewhat effective: a pair of scissors and a "kitchen knife."

I can't help but wonder if he was pussy-footing around trying to disarm her without hurting her, when in fact he should have knocked the crap out of her due to the nature of her attack.

As an interesting side-note, he was tazed and arrested back in '07 for a violent confrontation at a bar. He was tazed while resisting arrest.

No telling what really happened; can't find the police report. I did know a hoodlum once who was "attacked" by his own wife, who damn near killed him with a steak knife. While questioning him, I found out that he was "slapping her around 'a little'" when she decided to stick said steak knife in his throat. Larger man attacking a much smaller woman, she equalized the situation with a weapon. She was still arrested, by the way. Don't know if she was convicted or not.

Jeff Cook

[chef]

Hmmm....sounds like notching up the 'continum force' when a woman might have been in fear of her life and overwhelmed by a stronger adversary, be it her boyfriend, husband, or other.

If I was being hit, threatened, or hurt, I might likely even the odds by using one of my kitchen knives as well...that's fair in my book.

FWIW,
Vicki

[Glenn]

What sometimes becomes 'fair' in these situations is using whatever means possible to increase your odds of being judged by 12 members of a jury rather than carried by 6 pall bearers. Given those are the most likely outcomes of true self-defense situations, I'd rather take my chances with the former.

[chef]

Ditto on that, Glen.

Vicki

[Glenn]

(deletion of accidental duplicate post)

[Jason Rees]

26 metalman says...

Please stop using anonymous blowhards as authorities on the subject.