$100 Prize Offered for Best V-Day Parody
V-Day Spoof Asks How a Man's Life Might Be Better "If I Only Had a V"

A group of men and women in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia is staging a lyric writing contest to satirize the growing campaign to convert Valentine's Day into V-Day, a day of false and sexist portrayals of domestic violence as a crime perpetrated only by men against women.

According to the official V-Day website, "The 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina." (See http://www.vday.org, especially http://www.vday.org/ie/index2.cfm?ArticleID=6.) Accordingly, the satirical lyric contest seeks entries entitled "If I Only Had a V" in parody of "If I Only Had a Heart," the Tin Man's song in the classic 1939 American movie "The Wizard of Oz." Women as well as men are invited to submit entries that speculate on how a man's life might be happier if he only had a vagina. Are there any traditional and customary benefits that women enjoy because they are women? Are there any disadvantages men face by virtue of being male? Does sexism operate only against women and never against men?

Moreover, the organizers of the contest ask, if the intent of V-Day is not to drive a wedge between men and women -- to shame and blame men for problems women face -- why is V-Day attempting to supplant Valentine's Day, the traditional celebration of love between the sexes?

The judges in the contest include twenty-one men and three women (see http://www.RulyMob.com/judges.htm). One of the judges is Erin Pizzey, generally recognized as the founder of the modern movement against domestic violence. Another of the women is the former president of the Dallas, Texas chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW). One of the men, Warren Farrell, served three terms on the board of directors of New York City NOW. All of the judges want to put an end to domestic violence, but assert that this cannot be achieved by characterizing domestic violence as a male problem, rather than as a human problem in which women, too, are involved as perpetrators.

The vast preponderance of the scientific data, they say, suggests that domestic violence is essentially a 50-50 proposition. Studies dispel the claim that when women are violent against men they are acting only in self-defense. Research shows clearly that in about one-fourth of violent relationships only the woman is violent, in about one-fourth only the man is violent, and in about half of violent relationships the violence is mutual and initiation of violence is shared.

Also, the popular notion that women are unable to hurt men because of physical size and strength is a misconception. Researchers have found that women are much more likely than men to use weapons and to attack while the man is sleeping, sick or otherwise defenseless or unguarded.

Finally, the mere existence of female violence against men refutes the highly ideological notion that domestic violence is a product of "patriarchy" or "phallocentric oppression of women."

See http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm for a bibliography of 133 scholarly domestic violence investigations compiled by Professor Martin S. Fiebert of the psychology department at California State University, Long Beach.

The prize for the winning entry in the "If I Only Had a V" lyric contest is $100 cash.

Deadline for entries is 9:00 P.M. United States Eastern Standard Time on February 6, 2003. Entries can be submitted via the form at http://www.RulyMob.com/ifionlyhadav.htm. They can also be e-mailed to entries@rulymob.com or mailed to PO Box 18236, Halethorpe MD 21227 USA. Interested parties should see the official Rules at http://www.RulyMob.com/rules.htm.

The winner of the contest will be announced and his or her winning entry will be posted on the morning of February 13, 2003 at http://www.RulyMob.com.