From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Violence Against Women Act
Date: 22 Nov 1992 01:14:49 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

goid@zooid.guild.ORG (Will Steeves) writes:
| ...
| Please do not consider this as a flame, but as an indication that
| "gender bias" does not exclusively pertain to women...

| csulaima@titan.ucc.umass.EDU (CYNTHIA R SULAIMAN) writes...
| CRS> As part of the Education Bill in June 1992, four provisions were
| CRS> inacted to help women in this country.
|                 ^^^^^^^^^^
| CRS> 1.  Promoting arrest of abusive spouses.
|                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| You have stated that the Bill is intended to "help women" by promoting
| arrest of "abusive spouses".  Since you did not originally state that
| the Bill was intended to help *any* abused spouse, but only "women,"
| it appears as though you have a clear bias that only men can be
| abusive spouses.  Naturally, I take a certain amount of umbrage at
| this suggestion.
| 
| CRS> 2.  Tripling the funding for battered women's shelters.
|                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| ...again
| 
| CRS> B.  Creates federal penalties for spouse abusers who follow the women
|                                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| CRS> across state lines to continue the abuse.
| 
| "Spouse abusers who follow the women".  Since you have basically
| assumed away the idea of "spouse abusers who follow the men," you may
| as well have just said "abusive husbands who follow the women," which
| would of course reveal beyond a shadow of a doubt that many of those
| who talk of "spousal abuse" are only thinking of women as "legitimate
| victims".  ...

I think the issue is one of handling the worst problems
first.  For instance, while the initiation of combat in the
home is about evenly distributed between the sexes, since
men are generally larger, stronger, and more experienced in
fighting, the men generally wind up creating more damage to
their opponents than the other way around.  Hence, if we are
interested in the suppression or remedy of such damage, we
must inhibit the male participants first, and provide for 
those who do not have private means to escape the still
uninhibited.  

If you were to observe, however, that the virtual impossi-
bility of obtaining shelter quickly and inexpensively may
contribute to domestic violence, I would have to agree with
you.  Many people are thrown together who should probably
be able to escape one another.  This situation is at least
partly a result of the public policies approved by a 
majority of the American electorate in 1980, 1984, and 1988
and will not be overcome soon or easily.

In regard to the pursuit of escaping spouses, in those 
cases I have heard about the pursuer has always been male.
Here, we are moving from violence in the home to violence
in the outer world, in which male humans, just like male
cats and dogs, definitely predominate.  No doubt some
women have done this, but how many?  Is it a public
problem?

(Note that I have left off material about defining sex
crimes as bias or hate crimes; this is another issue.)

-- 

 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )



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