From: garry@rice.edu (Garry C. King)
Newsgroups: soc.women
Subject: Violence Letter (was Request - Violence Info)
Date: 16 Sep 92 03:52:27 GMT
Followup-To: soc.men
Organization: Rice University

Thanks to Bronis Vidugiris, Ed Matz and Michael Rivero for answering my
request for information on violence and to Stewart Schultz for his
suggestion (which unfortunately can't be implemented since the article in
question is pretty much just polemic). 

I've posted a working draft of my Letter to the Editor resulting from a
close culling of the provided information below (after all, this might be
the only place it gets published). We're dealing with a newspaper letter
here, where briefer is better, and it's already on the long side.  I've
tried to touch several points without using statistics, which is pretty
difficult to do, but please let me know if anything I've said is
unsupportable or too weak [he says, unashamedly getting others to do his
work for him :-) ].  No style points please.

I've also cross-posted to soc.women in case we're suffering from our own
gender bias.



Violence - Men vs. Women ?

	In her article "Women and the raging storm" (Sept. 13), Beverly McPhail
firmly embraces the conventional wisdom on violence: men are beasts and
women their victims. Unfortunately, this comfortably reassuring concept is
poorly supported by the available facts. 

	Ms. McPhail is unintentionally correct when she asserts that "the chance
of being a victim of violence depends ... more on which body you reside in,
male or female". Nationwide, white men are three times more likely to be
murdered than white women, with black men five times more likely to be
murdered than black women. The frequency and severity of marital violence,
including murder, perpetrated by men and women is about the same.  In fact,
in several states with laws which require police to make an arrest during a
family violence call, women have been arrested almost as frequently as men.
 For unmarrieds, about one-half of both men and woman report engaging in
unwanted sex during dates.  Women are victimized only half <or is this
one-fifth ?> as frequently as men in other types of personal crimes.  When
the elderly are abused, about half the victims are once again men. 
Finally, more mothers kill their children than fathers, a situation which
is unlikely to result in calls to protect children from women.  The
available information makes some people uncomfortable, but is easily found
in Federal Government publications or sociology journals.

	Frightened by their growing sense of womens' political power, Congress
will probably soon pass a Violence Against Women Act.  Political movements
which seek to protect only one gender from violence are both sexist and, I
hope, doomed to failure. 

Garry King
Houston


Garry.

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Garry C. King                                 
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry & Cell Biology                       
Rice University
Houston  TX.  
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Garry.

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Garry C. King                                 
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry & Cell Biology                       
Rice University
Houston  TX.  
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