Resolution 590: Is Congress Not Aware of Male Victimization?
To see, to hear, means nothing. To recognize (or not to recognize) means everything. And what I do not recognize I shall continue not to recognize.
Andre Brenton (1989-1966, French Surrealist)
This is an online open letter to the members of the 110th U.S. Congress.
I agree with the 110th Congress Resolution 590 about raising the awareness of domestic violence in the United States and the devastating effects domestic violence has on families and communities. The Resolution can be viewed online at http://thomas.loc.gov/ and then enter HRES 590 in to the search engine block. A critical analysis by http://www.mediaradar.org/ of House Resolution 590 is available online at http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/RADARanalysis-HRES590.pdf.
Although the 110th Congress Resolution 590 claims that Congress wants to raise awareness of domestic violence, Resolution 590 accomplishes just the opposite concerning male victimization; i.e.: “Whereas one in four women will experience domestic violence sometime in her life” and “Whereas 13 percent of teenage girls who have been in a relationships report being hit or hurt by their partner.” No awareness of male victimization there!
The “one in four claim,” is probably from the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS) that documents nearly 25 percent of women report their victimization. Resolution 590 makes no attempt to raise awareness about the fact that NVAWS also documents that 7.6 percent of surveyed men are domestic violence victims. And perhaps Congress is not aware that the NVAWS clearly documents that women are twice as likely to report their victimization as are men.
The 13 percent victimization of teenage girls is probably from the Liz Claiborne Inc. Topline Findings Teen Relationship Abuse Survey (Conducted March 2006). On the very same page just above the victimization of girls, the survey documents 17 percent of teenage boys report their victimization. Is the 110th Congress not aware of that data or has Congress chosen to raise awareness of the victimization of our daughters while ignoring the victimization of our sons?
Unawareness
House Resolution 590 also makes it clear that the 110th Congress ignores or is unaware of a report that Congress asked for, paid for and received: Advancing the Federal Research Agenda on Violence Against Women. Page 48 and 49 documents the victimization of both males and females. Resolution 590 ignores the fact that domestic violence is a problem for both males and females.
This above report has been online since 2004 at http://books.nap.edu/catalog/10849.html and this report must be read by the members of Congress if Congress intends to become aware of and make others aware of the context, circumstances and the multifaceted complexities of domestic violence.
Congress also needs to become aware of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) report, Controlling Violence Against Women: A Research Perspective on the 1994 VAWA’s Criminal Justice Impacts. This report is online and has been available to the members of Congress since 2002 at http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/197137.pdf.
On page 75 of the above report it notes:
But strong evidence that one policy is more effective than another in addressing recidivism is elusive. We still have much to learn about the differences in offenders and differences in populations of victims to justify advocating one policy over another without qualification. [And on the next page it also concludes that:]
Above all, they [public policy makers] need to know that their policies and practices will not endanger women [emphasis added]. Unfortunately, there are too few preventive impact evaluations of policies already in place and fewer still that approach methodological standards ensuring sound data for shaping policy.
Perhaps Congress is unaware that there are no evaluations in place, no methodological standards and no data that documents mandatory domestic violence policies and practices will not endanger some victims. This admonition has not prevented public policy makers from implementing policies that clearly lack impact evaluation and methodological standards.
The members of the Congress also seem to be unaware of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Intimate Partner Violence (IPV): Overview that was available to them online at http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/ipvfacts.htm before they sponsored Resolution 590. On the first page of the above CDC report the CDC notes:
Most IPV incidents are not reported to the police. About 20% of IPV are rapes or sexual assaults, 25% of physical assaults, and 50% of stalking directed toward women are reported. Even fewer IPV incidents against men are reported [italics added]. Nearly 5.3 million incidents of IPV occur each year among U.S. women ages 18 and older, and 3.2 million occur among men.
In the United States every year, about 1.5 million women and more than 800,000 thousand men are raped or physically assaulted by an intimate partner. This translates into about 47 IPV assaults per 1,000 women and 32 assaults per 1,000 men.
Conclusion
The lack of awareness in House Resolution 590, documents that Congress should become more aware of domestic violence victimization and that Congress has to begin recognizing the victimization of all of domestic violence victims regardless of age, gender or sexual orientation.
As the father of three daughters and two sons I ask; are the Congressional members unaware of male victimization – as House Resolution 590 demonstrates they seem to be – or has Congress simply chosen to exclude or minimize male victimization?
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Richard L. Davis is the Vice President of FamilyNonViolence.org. | More from Richard L. Davis
Stumble It!
If 2 percent of men had 1/10 the knowledge that is available from men like RL Davis, or the staff at Radar, or read Christian Hoff Sommers or Warren Farrell, they could see the damage being done to our children by teaching them that men are to be disrespected and feared, while women are always kind and gentle. If most men were not so chicken shit to speak up we would not be seeing politicians “caving” in to women’s groups that take a “men are pigs” approach to treating the issues of Domestic Violence.
I asked a woman one why black women from the inner city had crime rates equal to white men. She didn’t want to be racist or classist so she didn’t say black women are not as good as white women or that the lower classes were inferior. She discussed issues of poverty and race and excluded any possibility that being black was part of the problem. I told her that was a good start and now would she extend that same courtesy to men. She couldn’t. She knew that boys and girls are brought up differently but for her Testosterone was the basis for male violence in our out of the home.
Feminists are ever so careful about using words that might make girls feel inferior or that might prevent girls from trying to reach goals that are traditionally male. One female hero or soldier is given the same value as 1,000 male soldiers. But when it comes to family violence they insist that it’s necessary to suggest only a male face because males “are statistically so abusive” that a male face is the only fair representation. The rare female face, they know, is likely a result of violence from a father or boyfriend, and it’s likely self defense. End of story, send money so we can continue to teach our lies.
So therefore we have a thousand commercials reaching out to women discussing “The Goddess” and no men being told they are Gods. We never hear any feminist quarrel with the devil being male. I think they are doing this on purpose at this point because those women most involved with DV programs know that they are MS.Leading the public and they do it anyway.
SD
“are the Congressional members unaware of male victimization – as House Resolution 590 demonstrates they seem to be – or has Congress simply chosen to exclude or minimize male victimization?
The answer is No, they are not unaware, they are not stupid. What they are more aware of though is PC, which means to always favor females over males, no matter what.
The Constitution is dead, unless it can be used to promote PC. It has been replaced by PC, which is, in part: male=perpetrator, woman=victim, truth, justice, facts, and children are irrelevant. Group membership matters, facts do not.
Our Founding Fathers are no longer Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, et al. The Founding Fathers of contemporary America are from the Frankfurt School, such as Erich Fromm, where “Critical Theory”, a.k.a PC, was founded. PC has clearly supplanted The Constitution of The United States of America. The evidence is inescapable.
Oddly enough, but routine for PC, politicians, such as all of the leading candidates for President of the United States from either party, with the possible exception of Ron Paul, and effectively all of the 110th Congress, promote and adhere to PC over The Constitution. But part of being PC is to pretend The Constitution has not been replaced by PC, and so they therefore pretend they still give a damn about the Constitution, when in fact their loyalties are to the founders from the Frankfurt School.
Apparently Congress believes that the ACTUAL nature of domestic violence is irrelevant and that contrary to our Constitition, equal protection under the law is NOT relevant, irregardless of gender.
And the feminazis apply tremendous pressure on individual politicians to ensure that they continue to ignore domestic violence committed by women on men, fostering the “violent man” image as the sole perpetrator of domestic violence.