image/poster is from here

Historically in the White West, Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism are three political-economic solutions for arriving at an equal, fair, and moral society. Just one problem: none of them accomplish this, especially with regard to women. None of them, as theorised and practiced by white men--regardless of the white men's ideological identities and affiliations, factor women as anything other than beings that exist to serve men, or workers who exist to serve the State. While Capitalism typically exploits women's sexuality, encouraging sex to be paid work; Communism typically exploits women's labor, pretending her gender-class isn't subordinated to men through sex and work. Engels tried to theorise on the matter of women in society, and failed miserably. Catharine A. MacKinnon analyses what is missing from Marxist theory in her book Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. 

Ward Churchill, a white man and batterer who is seen by some as an American Indian, discusses how Marxism fails to centralise the political and social well-being and survival of Indigenous people.

I have yet to encounter white men's theories and practices that set as a priority the liberation of women of all colors from male supremacy, economic exploitation, and men's sexual terrorism. I am not pro-Capitalism, pro-Socialism, or pro-Communism for these reasons and more. I don't believe money economies will free anyone or bring about sustainable living predicated on the value of spirit, not the worth of money.

What you will read below are the mental offerings of a WHM who goes by two names on Yahoo Answers: Unisom and Die Hard PC Parrot. He either makes up or finds a made up quote [not] by Catharine MacKinnon, and believes she is a Communist. Once he makes this inaccurate statement, using a quote she never wrote or said, others weigh in on the matter of whether feminism and communism are one and the same political phenomenon.

This post examines the logical phallusy presented by Unisom, and, with supporting quotes from him, make the case that what many anti-feminism, "anti-misandrist" men claim radical feminists think and feel is, rather, what many men who are both woman-hating and man-hating think and feel.

As you can observe below and from many other posts on A.R.P., there is an abundance of actively anti-feminist men online who project their own hatreds onto radical feminists, and pretend those women are "the enemy" because they carry such awful assumptions about men. That men carry these same assumptions, and have, for centuries, well before "radical feminism" existed as we know it in the last forty or so years, appears not to matter to these men.

Below, you'll notice that it is an anti-feminist and otherwise bigoted man who carries precisely those assumptions attributed to radical feminists, except here he reveals them as his own. Whether it's being pro-rape in some circumstances, or pro-murder of women by men, or pro-murder of men by women, he reveals what most men have learned to not so overtly display in many-gender social environments that pretend to value being humane. Many of his views are as vile as they are obnoxious. They reveal a person who seems to have little grounding in reality, little understanding of feminism, and a gross contempt for most for humanity generally. The only group of humans he seems to show repeated compassion for is heterosexual men who are under six feet tall. (I'm not kidding.)

When this particular anti-feminist does get around to quoting a radical feminist, he gets the quote very wrong, and shows that he hasn't even read the one page of text he's quoting from (and he cites the misquote!). We begin with a series of comments from this woman-hating and man-hating person called Unisom, also known as Die Hard PC Parrot, on Yahoo Answers.

Unisom asked a question "Gender difference: Most educated women live on the cloud while their male counterpart live on the ground?"

"Some men (over 6 feet or rich) get much more than average man share of women. Or some women are serial polyandry by being hookers" -- Die Hard PC Parrot, aka Unisom

Toto is once again engaging with silly if determined-to-make-all-men-look-bad men on Yahoo Answers. Thank you Toto for alerting me to the latest clear case of "a misinformation campaign" designed to discredit feminists who are, in fact and in practice, human rights activists trying to alleviate the suffering of women who are oppressed by men in grossly and abusively male supremacist societies.

The answer to "Who in the world is Die Hard PC Parrot?", with many examples of his racist, anti-Semitic, anti-gay, misogynist, and anti-feminist questions, answers, and colleagues on Yahoo Answers, appear below. But first, let's get right on with his recent question, which Toto answers in a way that makes the questioner look like a Die Hard Patriarchally Correct Parrot.

• 
  
  by In With a Meh

  why does you always say one IN the same? it used to be AND. that makes more sense. think about it.

  • 15 hours ago

  
  
• 
  
  by peterdou...

  Well, obviously she is/was a Marxist Feminist, and can't be taken to be speaking for all Feminists, most of whom do not link Feminism with Socialism or Communism.
  
  Even so, she got it wrong: Socialism, according to Marxist theory, is just a stage on the road to Communism, which you don't get until the State "withers away." With Socialism, you still have a State.
  
  Marx and Engels worked together on the Communist Manifesto, and Engels was a Feminist. So it is not surprising that some modern Feminists are Marxists.
  
  Any social structure in preexisting society (such as marriage or the family) is likely to be seen by revolutionaries (such as Marxists or radical Feminists) as an obstacle that needs to be abolished, so that new structures can be set up.

  
  
• 
  
  by Rio Madeira

  That's what she thinks. I can combine feminism and libertarianism.

  
  
• 
  
  by Toto Gotawa

  Below I describe exactly how your entire argument is built on a house of cards, cards loaded with great inaccuracies, at the most basic level, including the spelling of her name.
  
  First of all, the top quote above is not on page 10 or any other page of Catharine MacKinnon's book Towards A Feminist Theory of the State. Instead, in that very book, MacKinnon harshly critiques Marxism, including how it devalues women's work in the home as not actual work. (Quotes provided below in this reply.) Have you read the book? Because that's so clear it puzzles me how you could miss that. Anyone can do a phrase and word search of the entire text at the URL provided below. You may also read all of page ten there. I'll offer quotes to support my argument, from page 10:
  
  "Feminist observations of women's situation in socialist countries, though not conclusive of the contribution of marxist theory to understanding women's situation, have supported the feminist theoretical critique. [If you read the whole chapter, or even the entire page, it is extremely clear she is saying that marxism is inadequate to remedy the oppression of women by men: marxism, in practice in Communist or in Socialist countries, fails to accomplish this. She goes on:] In the feminist view, socialist countries have solved many social problems--women's subordination not included. The criticism is not that socialism has not automatically liberated women in the process of transforming production (assuming that this transformation is occurring)."
  
  [Also on page 10:]
  "The basic feminist criticism is that these countries do not make a priority of working to change women's status relative to men that distinguishes them from nonsocialist societies in the way that their pursuit of other goals distinguishes them. Capitalist countries value women in terms of their "merit" by male [supremacist] standards; in socialist countries women seem invisible except in their capacity as "workers." This term seldom includes the work that remains distinctive service to men, regardless of the politics of those men: housework, prostitution and other sexual servicing, childbearing, childrearing. Sexual violence is typically barely mentioned."
  
  [Also from page 10:]
  "When women's labor or militancy suits the needs of emergency [of men's military emergencies, such as in the U.S. during and following WWII], she is suddenly man's equal, only to regress when the urgency recedes. Feminists do not argue that it means the same to women to be on the bottom in a feudal system, a capitalist regime, and a socialist regime. the commonality is that, despite real changes [and real differences in each] bottom is bottom." [The point is that in societies that are or have been feudal, capitalist, or communist, none have ever valued women as equals to men and have all treated women as inferior.]
  
  [Also from page 10:]
  "Where such attitudes and practices come to be criticized, as in Cuba or China, changes appear gradual and precarious, as they do in capitalist countries, even where the effort looks major." [End of quotation of C. A. MacKinnon's writing on page 10.]
  
  Second, Catharine MacKinnon was never a president of N.O.W. Where did you get your very easily verified information, and can you get back to the person or website to tell them it's grossly inaccurate? Here is a list of all the presidents of NOW from start to present, from NOW's own website. (URL provided below)
  
  Betty Friedan, Aileen Hernandez, Wilma Scott Heide, Karen DeCrow, Eleanor Smeal, Judy Goldsmith, Molly Yard, Patricia Ireland, Kim Gandy, and currently Terry O'Neill.
  
  Third, taking quotes out of context, and including misquotes--making up things that someone never wrote or said--is a poor way to build a case that what you're discussing has any validity, merit, or is worth engaging with in any serious manner. Arguments prepared this way make someone appear to be very ignorant rather than knowledgeable on the subject at hand.
  
  Fourth, Lenin ruled a very large country. Catharine MacKinnon rules no country, state, or organisation--including NOW. She commands no military or police forces, governs no land, and has no authority to do anything that State commanders can do. To compare a past totalitarian Communist leader of Russia to a contemporary U.S. feminist writer, lecturer, Constitutional law professor and attorney, and human rights activist, is to not understand the meaning of the term "fair comparison."

  Source(s):

  http://books.google.com/books?id=Shn5xHywtHIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=mackinnon,+toward+a+feminist+theory+of+the+state&hl=en&ei=GuxvTKC1AsKC8gb6yNTxDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
  
  http://www.now.org/history/past_presidents.html

Here is some information about the Parrot of Patriarchal Correctness, only using information he himself provides on Yahoo Answers. Absolutely no "digging around in the dirt" was required to unearth what was found. Just click on his name on Yahoo Answers: it's all there.

• 45 - Male - Montreal, Quebec
  
  
  2 months ago

And here are many more of his questions and answers to life. Some of what follows has been copied and pasted above, to highlight some of his preposterous views.

• 
  

  Unisom answered a question "what is some of the feminist biggest fear?"

  
  

  Masculist Revolution.
  Posted at 7 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Are women tamed by the type of beeting and ownership you give them in bed.?"

  
  

  Yes, esp. Masochistic women like you.
  Posted at 8 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Are mesomorphic women least desired?"

  
  

  It's the Misandristomorphic type that is. (a.k.a. Andrea-Dworkinomorphic type)
  Posted at 10 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Why is it that when two drunk adults have?"

  
  

  Brilliant, yet I think it's more than Kafkaesque nighmare, rather, it's feministed Stalinism comes to United Soviet of Anti-Men (USA), where at anytime a man can be thrown to jail. Few years ago, I've heard a black man on TV rant that "…
  Posted at 10 hrs ago Posted to
• 
  
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Okay fella's, don't you think that's enough?"

  
  

  No, it never enough, manginas as you have been one of the main culprits of Draconian Oppression of Men . Wait till the Masculist Revolution, baby! The reason you get laid easy because you are 6 feet tall or more, please admit it! You have more than your …
  Posted at 10 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Men wear Bras so women can go topless: Can you be more feministed than these men?"

  
  

  http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/men-wear-bras-so-women-can-go-topless/19590056 Excerpt: ".... male supporters of the cause will show their support by wearing bras and bikinis...........…
  Posted at 12 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Opinions... Are women by nature monogamous while men are polygamous?"

  
  

  Since ratio of men/ women are 49/51, mathematically it is impossible for such conjecture to happen, except that : Some men (over 6 feet or rich) get much more than average man share of women. Or some women are serial polyandry by being hookers or have m…
  Posted at 12 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Ladies, do you enjoy showing cleavage?"

  
  

  Ha ha ha, the fervent Jewish feminist Rio now have a change of heart & confess to being dependent on Patriarchy Approval! Ha Ha Rio, get back to the Synagogue & be a good Orthodox Judaist Ashkenazim woman! Now march!...Thy shall pray G_d for being the C…
  Posted at 12 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Which Women Do You Find To Be The Most Gold Digging? Asian? White? Black? Hispanic?"

  
  

  Depend on her morality & the depth of her swallowing of Misandry Propagandas.
  Posted at 12 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Feminist: do you know who pay for the US war in Iraq?"

  
  

  Guess what? The hated "Patriarchy China", to the tune of 1 TRILLIONS DOLLARS! Uncle Sam , after years of Anti-Male Laws & Policy, now no longer capable of funding its own war, even its side effect is to liberate Oppress Muslim Sisters! In the …
  Posted at 13 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Viagra or Meat protein, which one is more effective?"

  
  

  Ladies, don't feed your spouse too much meat, lobsters or shrimps...after a good night sleep, in the morning, his gun would be at 3' o'clock position all day long. That's my experience. Viagra, IMO, is only for men who suffered from Heart…
  Posted at 13 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "is PMS a mental illness?"

  
  

  It's a temporary insanity for some women. It produce 2 problems: -If a women on PMS get hallucinated, she may claim Sexual Harassment, Rape, Violence against any Man unlucky enough to be near by, most likely her spouse. The guy AT LEAST would spend a…
  Posted at 13 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Which man is more likely to win in a fight?"

  
  

  Gays would generally win, since Aspergers is a debilitating disease, further more there are many kinds of Gays, some of them have as good Coordination as straight. Some even have very high Visual-Spacial Intelligence (though in a much smaller population…
  Posted at 13 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Gender difference: Most educated women live on the cloud while their male counterpart live on the ground?"

  
  

  At least, that's true for readers nowadays (keep in mind that most readers have good education, fools rarely read ): Excerpt: "...If it's even metaphorically true that men and women hail from different planets, it seems safe to assume that …
  Posted at 14 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Men: Don't you dare walking alone with your daughter in Gynocratic Republic of Canada?"

  
  

  You may end up in the Slammer! , because the Public Witch Hunt for "all Male are pedophiles" has reached a climax: http://www.thestar.com/article/223150 or here: http://petepatriarch.blogspot.com/2007/06/don-go-walking-with-your-daughter.html
  Posted at 15 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Is this the future of our Western Anti-male educational system?"

  
  

  “Our culture, including all that we are taught in schools and universities, is so infused with patriarchal thinking that it must be torn up root and branch if genuine change is to occur. EVERYTHING MUST GO – even the allegedly universal disciplines of log…
  Posted at 15 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Dear GS members, what do you think about this former N.O.W President Catherine MacKinnon's claim?"

  
  

  “Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism.” - Catharine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (First Harvard University Press, 1989), p.10 ============================…
  Posted at 15 hrs ago Posted to

photo of Dr. Mehmet Oz is from here

photo of Dr. Phil McGraw is from here

These are two white het male doctors who owe their fame and great financial success to Oprah Winfrey: Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. (We get to Dr. Laura shortly.)

The first man, who has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, supported her during a trial the commercial/atrocity-protecting meat industry put her through for simply stating her own point of view on the subject of burgers. The second is am M.D. who is a heart surgeon and is a proponent of complimentary medicine, to promote several less invasive methods of treating heart disease. He's also more infamously known for showing Oprah's audiences deceased humans' diseased organs and talking about healthy pooping. He's got some very good things to say--generally I like him and his style, and he's got a good bed-side manner, unless you're a battered woman in a hospital bed, that is. I also sometimes like Dr. Phil, when he isn't using his television series to exploit conditions and people and instead sincerely tries to alleviate human suffering, usually in the context of personal relationships. While I've seen Dr. Phil hold men accountable for the violence they do to women, I've never seen Dr. Oz do this.

I realise he didn't study sociology, social psychology, or the sexual politics of psychopathology, but Dr. Oz couldn't be more clueless about the reality and dynamics of men's war against women. He actually discusses inner brain structure to explain why it may be that some women kill their terrorist husbands or battering boyfriends. He doesn't seem to get that women who are terrorised and sadistically abused do not usually kill anyone, while the terrorists often kill a whole lot of people: most commonly the women in their lives, the women who leave them, and their children, in disgustingly horrid ways. But Dr. Oz's brain structure discussion isn't about THE TERRORISTS. He's concerned about the brain structures of the TERRORISED WOMEN who [usually don't] kill. What are the sexual politics of THAT?

In a case linked to below, he tries to explain to the audience why a woman guest may have killed the male terrorist in her life. He is wrong at every turn, and fortunately he has another "expert" guest on to set the audience clear on what is really going on. Unfortunately, it is yet another white man. (To be clear: Dr. Oz's family's background is Eastern European and Turkish. Dr. Phil is all white.) How it is that white and light-skinned het men have become the people women should turn to for expert advice on anything and everything, is a trick of the trades called WHM supremacist media and education. What undermines feminist knowledge and activists, scholars and doctors, is the owners and producers of mass media talk shows refusing to make women of any color the experts in matters that impact women--and men.

Well, there IS Dr. Laura, who has a PhD in physiology--which is not at all why she's on the air. At least Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil are discussing matters that usually fall within their own educational areas of study. She gives anti-woman, overtly racist, anti-gay relationship advice. She's way more WHM supremacist than Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz in her public advice. She should be removed from the airwaves. Immediately, as she should have been years ago for calling "homosexuals" deviant.

photo of Dr. Laura Schlessinger is from here

She is in the news this week for her arrogantly privileged racist-misogynist assault against a Black woman caller who wanted wise counsel on how to deal with a white husband who, along with his friends, makes racist remarks in front of her. He obviously enjoys trying to humiliate her. Would Dr. Laura pick up on that? Well...

Dr. Laura used the question--while berating and abusing the questioner--as an opportunity to pretend that THE ISSUE is African Americans who are the problem population who uses the n-word and COMPLAIN when whites do the same. Dr. Laura managed to work the word into her radio show eleven times in way fewer minutes than that. The caller, understandably, was totally taken aback and very respectfully attempted to call Dr. Laura's attention to the problem of turning this problem back on a Black woman, which only led Dr. Laura to intensify her own vitriolic volume, utterly silencing the woman seeking wise counsel. Dr. Laura understood the caller's predicament about as well as Dr. Oz understands why [very few] women kill terroristic men. NOT. AT. ALL.

While I think Dr. Phil makes mistakes many times with regard to appropriate forms of advocacy for women-in-patriarchy, too often presuming a kind of level playing field that patriarchal societies will never let exist, I'll say this: he's way ahead of where Dr. Oz and Dr. Laura will probably ever be on the matter of understanding that far too many men terrorise and grotesquely abuse women--and that men's use of physical violence is NEVER the women's fault! Proof of this difference between the two male doctors is in very intense (and potentially very triggering) programs each recently did about the subject of domestic violence leading to murder.

Dr. Oz's show wasn't about patriarchal abuse. It was about how the brain sometimes doesn't work right so some people cannot moderate their violent impulses. And he means women's violent impusles, not men's!

Dr. Phil's program was a VERY good program, if also deeply disturbing and triggering, about the FAILURE of FAMILY COURTS across the U.S. when it comes to adequately protecting children and women from adult male terrorists. His show centered around one case, in which a woman's baby was murdered by her ex- and the baby's father, after she repeatedly went to the court for orders of protection for herself and the baby--each time she was told by the white het male misogynistic judge that she was lying and had no evidence, even when she brought evidence. But there was another interview he did with a teenaged young woman who is a survivor of incest and witnessed a court give custody of her little sister to the incest perpetrator, after she testified about his abuse of her. Yes. It happened. The audience was also filled with women who had similar stories to tell, which appeared to have a VERY supportive effect on anyone who spoke out on this horrendous issue of VIRULENT PATRIARCHAL PREDATION PROTECTIONISM in family courts across the country.

What gets revealed is that the terrorists and their attorneys, along with generally misogynistic society, have effectively convinced the courts to not believe mothers if they raise "domestic violence" as a factor in why those mothers should get custody of their children, not the fathers. Even the women's attorneys are counseling women to not bring up the fact that the ex-husband is a batterer or incest perpetrator because too many judges hear that as a big ol' lie--an allegedly sure sign that the woman is trying to manipulate the court against the interests of the fathers' "right" to have more access to their children. When it comes to court manipulation, however, look no further than the battering, raping, incesting men and their attorneys, who convince the courts that the lack of evidence presented means they aren't sadistic brutes. In this case, the rule "presumed innocent until proven guilty" cannot apply, because no one's attorney will let the proof into the courtroom to begin with.

This is the case across the white het male supremacist globe, from the U.S., to the UK, to Australia. That there are WHM organising to undermine women's credibility in the courtroom even more is despicable and evil. There's nothing loving or just about such efforts by these misogynazis (fascistic, terrorising woman-haters) at all.

To note how this impacts U.S. women, compare these two episodes of programs that, one would hope, are supporting both physical/emotional health and human rights:

Dr. Oz: http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/tuesday-dr-oz

vs.

Dr. Phil: http://www.drphil.com/shows/show/1442/ 

But I cannot write about Dr. Phil without noting this CLEAR FORM OF MISOGYNY he regularly engages in. HE REFUSES TO STOP SAYING THE B WORD WHEN REFERRING TO WOMEN, and as an adjective (b-word with a y at the end). He a conservative guy, socially-politically, in many ways, and doesn't welcome cursing on his show, generally. I'm not sure you can get away with saying ASS on his show without it being bleeped! But he says the b word like it's going out of style, which of course it won't while he and other major media personalities keep legitimising it on TV. Please write to him and ask him why that's the only derogatory curse term he allows on his show.

And visit *here* for more on the Dr. Laura story of the week. TRIGGER WARNING for OVERTLY RACIST LANGUAGE AND GROSS MISTREATMENT OF A BLACK WOMAN BY A WHITE WOMAN.

image is from here

Some days my profeminist work days are easier (and more hilarious) than others. This one is in the Top Ten Most Hilarious. And it would be even more funny if men didn't actually think using the Logical Phallusy employed here by Ross-the-Teacher.

If you think, for one millionth of one second that I believe this is a serious comment sent in earnestness by Ross to my blog, well, you must think I was born late this morning.

But, just for kicks, let's pretend HETERO/SEXIST Ross's question is COMPLETELY SERIOUS, because the truth is that LOTS of het men (AN ASTOUNDING NUMBER, ACTUALLY) do talk about themselves in relation to women in precisely this way: het men blame women for men's behaviors, so men don't have to be responsible for their own behavior and actions. The comment was submitted to an A.R.P. post that makes his question somewhat spurious. Click on the title for the post. It is titled:

"When Men Are Dickheads, They REALLY are Dickheads! See the kind of thinking dickheads do: Read these comments by AllenS and Jason, for example, and "Hoosier Daddy" (get it?), "Trooper York", and "Moose"..."

I've added a bit to my response since posting it to Ross on that other blog page.


WHAT FOLLOWS is a CLASSIC CASE of LOGICAL PHALLUSY, on the part of Ross:

Ross said...
Well I’m teaching a class of adult students and one of the female students who has a beautiful figure and very nice boobs comes into class wearing tight skimpy tops -very sexy looking. Does she not realize that it distracts me from my work. I don’t know why she dresses like that in my class. She seems like a nice girl. I want her to get her exams so she can get into university. I want to focus on her brains rather than her boobs but shes making it difficult for me to concentrate with those boobs in my face. I tried hard not to look at them - but I don’t want to ignore her either - shes a student in my class. What am I to do?
Ross
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 10:40:00 AM EDT

Julian Real said...
Hi Ross, I'll take it slow and sure here in responding to you.

I'd like you to examine your own language in what you wrote to me, because, as a teacher I'm sure you realise how important accurate communication is. So, let's have a look at what you attribute to her and to you--what you see as "her actions" and "your actions" and from there, what are "your responsibilities" and what are "her responsibilities", okay?

Your action/responsibility:
I’m teaching a class of adult students

You are the teacher, the most responsible person in your classroom regarding class conduct. Presumably, if you are teaching young people, you are also the most "mature" person in the room.

Your action/responsibility:  
one of the female students who has a beautiful figure and very nice boobs comes into class wearing tight skimpy tops -very sexy looking. 

This is about YOU determining the value of a female person's body who is a student, and your response to it. You are not owning that however. Instead you are describing what's going on as if she's "doing something to you"--arousing you, distracting you, making it difficult for you to concentrate, etc.

Ross, you're a big boy--in fact, a grown man. You can control your responses to other human beings and behave responsibly, can't you? If you cannot, you have no business being a teacher. Right?

You go on:
Does she not realize that it distracts me from my work.

So there you explicitly state YOUR action--being distracted--as HER full responsibility, not yours. That's a pretty serious error of judgment for a teacher to make. That's what we call "blaming the innocent party".

Your distractions are YOURS. You know there is meditation that can teach you how to be less distracted, right? Are you engaging in that practice? If not, why not?

Do you look at internet pornography off-hours? If so, do you realise how much more prone that makes you to sexistly objectifying women's bodies, regardless of what they are wearing? This has been demonstrated "scientifically" but all you need to do is stop looking at pornography for two weeks and you'll notice how much less prone you are to being "distracted" by women regardless of what they wear.

You then write:
I don’t know why she dresses like that in my class. She seems like a nice girl.

So now your making value judgments about her character based on her attire? That's called blatant sexism, sir. That, again, is your action and your responsibility to deal with, not hers. You wrote: I want her to get her exams so she can get into university.

Nothing you've described tells me she isn't an excellent student. In fact, you've curiously neglected to tell me anything about her except what you are inappropriately preoccupied by.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 2:44:00 PM EDT

Julian Real said...

Part two of two, Ross.

You wrote:
I want to focus on her brains rather than her boobs but shes making it difficult for me to concentrate with those boobs in my face. 

Ross, she isn't putting her breasts in your face, by your own account.

She comes into class, sits, listens, takes notes, and leaves. Right?

So at no point does she rise up out of her seat, walk over to you, and place your face into her chest, right? So, she's not "putting" her "boobs" anywhere they don't belong, is she? (I mean, they stay in the vicinity of her own chest at all times, right?) I hope you can see how you, once again, are not holding yourself accountable for YOUR actions, and are trying to put responsibility on her for things she isn't doing, that you describe her to be doing.

You wrote:  
I tried hard not to look at them - but I don’t want to ignore her either - shes a student in my class. What am I to do? 

Ross, I really don't think you're being particularly serious here. But just because other people will read this, I'm going to pretend you are asking a sincere question, based on your misperception of there even being a problem here.

There's no problem here other than your unchallenged objectification of a female students' body, and your proclivity to discuss what's happening in VERY irresponsible and sexist ways.

What are you to do? Don't stare at her breasts, stop using pornography and other media that fuse into your brain that women's bodies exist for your eyes and "enjoyment", because that's not what women's bodies exist to do: they exist as the physical part of women's beings. Just like your body doesn't exist FOR women to objectify, be distracted by, etc.

You are speaking in a predatory way, Ross, as if you really don't have control over your own actions. You are using the "logical phallusies" of work-place sexual harassers and serial rapists. As if you "cannot concentrate" enough to teach properly because there's a woman in your class who you choose to objectify in ways that are distracting for you. YOUR behavior, not hers, is inappropriate.

Please do speak to your supervisor about YOUR problem, and also the school or university counselor, immediately and I guarantee, if they are responsible adults, they will be clear with you that this is YOUR problem to resolve without involving your student AT ALL.

And I hope you know that if you approached the student and asked her to dress differently because "your boobs are distracting me too much in my classroom" that YOU would or should be served up a charge of sexual harassment, because that, too, would be inappropriate and irresponsible of YOU to do.

Are you seriously telling me that in the era of the early seventies when males wore VERY tight pants, that heterosexual female teachers should have all complained to administrators that they couldn't teach due to being so distracted? Seriously? Yes, her breasts are above the desk, not below. But she's one student among at least a dozen, yes? So how about this:

Look at her face, and look at the faces of your other students too. That's the only part of them you should be looking at anyway.

If you can't control your own eyes, and where they look, that's a self-control problem that YOU need to get help with.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 2:46:00 PM EDT

12 hours ago · Comment ·

• 6 people like this.
  
  
  
  • Rita D'Alvarez Turn away and mind our own business, eh? After all it's someone else's suffering, not yours?
    
    
    11 hours ago · 
  • April Rosendahl Ignoring an issue is in effect accepting~ Should we just ignore a person getting attacked on the streets? Afterall, its NONE OF MY BUSINESS and why should I CARE~ WOW Insensitive and ignorant a great combination~
    
    
    9 hours ago · 
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    Shadoe Sundown Price If you're actually confusing the real act of rape with a joke page, you are the one who is ignorant and insensitive. So should every joke that you don't find funny or appropriate be erased from the internet? How about I add smug and condescending to the list as well.
    

    8 hours ago ·
  • Chris Steyn what the hell is humorous about rape...have u ever treated a rape victim...and no there i s NO way that a NORMAL person would find anything funny about rape...
    
    
    8 hours ago ·
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    Shadoe Sundown Price There are plenty of normal functioning people who enjoy dark humor. I'm not the one trying to place a joke on the same level as the true, physical act of rape. All I'm saying is that it is beyond smug to say that because another person's sense of humor doesn't line up with yours that 1) they aren't normal, and 2) that they are promoting violence toward women. That is absurd.
    

    8 hours ago ·
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    Julian Real
    

    Promoting rape as "surprise sex" isn't primarily an act of humor. It's an act of hostility, aggression, and misogyny. And as we live in a rape culture where men find just about everything to do with rape hilarious, I don't see how qualifyin...g it as "humor" means it isn't harmful and ought not be opposed by humane people. Racist humor is a laugh- riot to white supremacists and racist liberals, and shall we just "not visit" the pages where whites call for Black men to be hanged, and Mexican migrant workers to be sent home, and Black, Brown, and Indigenous women being called "hos"? And, plenty of normal men rape. In fact, most of the rapists are normal men. So where does that analysis get us?

    8 hours ago ·
  • Yasmin Rebelle People can be hurt both physically and verbally. Verbal scars usually are longer lasting and sometimes life long. What you think is a joke is very hurtful to women in general and specifically survivors of sexual assault. Dark humour can be used constructively and all types of jokes or words can do just the opposite. It is not about being offended; it is about the fact that 1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime and this rape culture is one of the major factors in that.
    
    
    8 hours ago ·
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    Jane Ensell Shadoe, if you're not a rape victim yourself, you probably don't understand how awful these pages make people feel. The existence of the pages encourages more and more people to laugh at the suffering and debasement of survivors of a violent act. Why is this acceptable to you?
    

    6 hours ago · 
  • P. W.
    
    
    I am a victim of what he called "suprise sex" and it is NOT A JOKE. You take responsibility for your words. You tell me shadoe, what do you say to a woman who is a victim? You ought to explain why you think its ok for this sick "humor" to b...e tolerated by victims of rape. But then again, you are obviously not a victim or you wouldnt be so nonchalant about something that causes women around the world to commit suicide because they have been so violated their minds cannot take the soul shattering nature of the crime. And to all the women and men on here who wont stand for this, thank you. Your actions are heartwarming.Thank you so much , its wonderful to know that in this culture, there is still people who wont take jokes like these.

    4 hours ago ·

Please watch this utterly condescending, patronising video made by some white guy named "freedom0f5peech". He's super annoying. But please try and get through his little lesson for all us numb-heads on the realities of all forms of genital cutting and surgery, to infants and children, primarily:



At issue, as is so often the case, is the way "educated" "literate" men misuse a highly cultural and political concept called "logic" to argue "rationally" how some phenomena are injurious to both females and males in some kind of "equal" or "mutually harmful" fashion, as if it were true because information without knowledge is used to present "logical arguments". This is a CLASSIC Western euro-white male supremacist example.

We want to focus our logical attention on this guy: freedom0f5peech who posted on this forum--http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=28460.10;wap2
about the logic problems in how so many people discuss the matter of what he terms FGM vs. MGM, terms which, for reasons stated below, I refuse to use on this blog, other than to note it here, above.

He's not satisfied to have his rational logical argumentation presented in text. He made all of us stupid idiots that video above, so we can "get it" because, you know, if only we'd just listen to these "logical" white men, the world's suffering would all become understandable as JUST AS DANGEROUS to white males as it is for males of color and females--of all colors. (Because these white guys just never want to own publicly that they have it EASY compared to other groups of people--groups of people that white men systematically and globally oppress and mass murder.) And, as you'll note here, the white guys always kind of want to subtly--or not--suggest that the WORST of what happens is: surprise! really to THEM!

After watching the video, please see my reply to him below, published here only, thus far.

Hello Mr. Logician, aka freedom0f5peech,

What you fail to take into account in your conveniently manipulative video are a few things that humane beings who care about human cruelty might argue are important and relevant to the discussion. Things such as:

1. Just so you know, many women of color do not support the term "female genital mutilation" as they prefer not to consider their genitals "mutilated" for the rest of their lives--and out of compassion for their feelings, I don't use that term. And the term "male genital mutilation" is overtly dishonest, as the genitals aren't "mutilated" at all. The word isn't helpful in any case.

2. Compare to the number of males who experience the worst form of male genital surgery or cutting to the number of females. Personally, I've never even heard of this "top/worst" category of "MGM" you have listed wherein all the skin is removed, including the scrotum. So you're saying somewhere in the world male babies have the whole of their genitals removed? Their penises cut off at the base and their testicles cut off and their scrotal skin removed? Where does that occur and to how many male babies worldwide annually? I'd argue that since you place that form of "MGM"--which you argue shouldn't be understood as happening to males at all, isn't socially real as a human rights problem but I welcome you educating me on this as an endemic cross-cultural problem impacting millions of male babies that, thus far, seems to be going under everyone's social justice radar. (I know of NO males to whom this has happened. Not one.)

3. You very conveniently neglect to frame the discussion in the social context in which these phenomena happen. Do they happen in societies in which male are dominant over women and female sexuality and in which females are not only genitally cut but are controlled in other ways, sexually and physically, oppressively, as a group, by men? Are these cuttings and surgeries occurring in societies which also promote marital rape of girls and women and other physical and psychic traumatic violations of female bodies as natural, God-ordained and ordered, or evolutionarily inevitable?

Or, do they happen in societies in which females are dominant over men and male sexuality and in which males are not only genitally cut but are controlled in other ways sexually and physically, oppressively, as a group, by women? Are these cuttings and surgeries occurring in societies which also promote marital rape of boys and men and other physical and psychic traumatic violations of male bodies as natural, God-ordained and ordered, or evolutionarily inevitable?

Such as through dominate religious and secular institutions promoting woman-hating or man-hating as normal and natural? Do they happen in patriarchal societies or matriarchal ones? Whose interests are served by the procedures? What is the presumed gender of the god who is prayed to? Which gendered beings write the laws, predominantly? What gendered beings, primarily, enforce the laws? Which gendered beings, usually and most forcefully, punish those who break the laws?

This is relevant because no girl, woman, intersex person, or intergender person is served by having their genitals cut or destroyed when a child when there's absolutely no health-related reason to do so. But boys who are circumcised either due to religious custom (as in Judaism) or secular custom (as in the U.S.) DON'T have their penises removed or their scrotums either. And males and boys still end up with fully sexually functional genitals with plenty of sensation sufficient to enjoy happy sexual lives, including having orgasms easily. The most common forms of female genital cutting and surgery, globally, often leave females without most of the nerve endings necessary to experience sexual arousal. Why don't you organise your helpful chart according to which procedures prevent full sexual functioning as adults? Why not make that list in order of trauma to the person, over a lifetime? You show no stats on occurrence of each type. Why?

And, in case you've forgotten: What is this phenomenon you conveniently invent to make it seem like overall, some of what happens to males is worse than what happens to females, while some of what happens to females is worse, as if, overall, it's all kind of awful, but really--pssst: the worst thing that happens is to MALES?

And stop arguing it both ways: you can't keep identifying things in terms of gender and then ask us to ignore gender. And, you're going to have to back up your truth claims, such as this notion that there even is such a thing as all male genitalia, including scrotums, being cut off of male babies. Again, where does that happen and to how many males globally?

Your videos arguments may be "logical" but that doesn't make them knowledgeable or helpful, necessarily. "Logic" alone means nothing, sir. The question is this: in what social reality does the logic exist? Math problems can be logical. So what? What does that have to do with social justice? With ending atrocities? You won't even use math in ways that it could illuminate the practices of atrocity, such as by noting THE NUMBER OF FEMALES negatively impacted by the worst forms of female genital cutting and surgery compared THE NUMBER OF MALES who experience and survive the worst forms done to males. Produce those statistics if you want your video to be taken at all seriously.

Let me draw you a parallel to your "logical" but inaccurate video.

Let's say you were making the "logical" case that all heterosexual spousal murder is wrong. Using your socially well-restricted logic methodology, you, sir, might produce a video showing all the ways humans who are murdered by "the other" sex are accomplished, among heterosexuals who are lawfully wed. And you'd note: some women kill men in their sleep, which gives them no opportunity to fight back. And men beat up women, but those women at least have the chance to fight back, so let's put women killing men in their sleep as "worse" than men beating and killing female spouses.

And you'd display all the ways heterosexual spousal murder occurs. But what you'd fail to note is WHY those women kill those men and that the greatest reason for that happening is that the husbands are terrorists, threatening those women's lives daily, beating and torturing them, or "just" psychologically terrifying them and dominated them, controlling and manipulating them in oppressive and degrading ways designed to crush their wills for freedom. Because that little detail might muddy your "logic system". And men kill women because the women didn't have dinner on the table, didn't get the laundry done, and told a man he was wrong for the way he treats their children. Or she said not to sex. Or she complained that he's spending too much time away from home. So he pounds the shit out of her, and sometimes he breaks her bones, and sometimes he kills her. But, more often, if she leaves him because he beats her, he is then far more likely to kill her. The statistics are that death from battery--from men beating women routinely and regularly in escalating patterns of increasing danger, are more likely to be murdered if they leave than if they stay with the controlling, sadistic bully. So, some women know this and they stay. And for you, them staying wouldn't factor into your argument because she wasn't killed yet.

So you see, your "logic" doesn't equal "knowledge" and it certainly doesn't demonstrate the exercise of compassion or wisdom in the service of gender justice or human rights.

Julian Real

I'm glad there are a few people out there correcting the anti-feminist foolishness going on all over Yahoo!Answers.

The following news release may be seen at its Amnesty International website, *here*.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL APPLAUDS PASSAGE OF LANDMARK LEGISLATION ADDRESSING SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST NATIVE WOMEN

Tribal Law and Order Act is an 'Historic Effort to Tackle Major Challenges That Allow Crimes Against Native Peoples to Flourish,' Says Amnesty International

July 21, 2010

Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today applauded House passage of the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010, a groundbreaking piece of legislation that tackles the complex jurisdictional maze that allows violent crime against American Indians to continue unabated. The Tribal Law and Order Act, a long overdue effort to address public safety issues in Indian Country, would enhance the criminal justice system by improving coordination and communication between federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies.

"This historic, bi-partisan legislation addresses long-overlooked human rights abuses in Indian Country. It is an important effort to tackle major challenges that allow crimes against Native American and Alaska Native peoples to flourish," said Larry Cox, executive director for AIUSA. "If properly implemented, it will open the door for the U.S. government to address the erosion of tribal authority. In time it will decrease the high levels of rape and finally provide Native women with effective recourse if they are sexually assaulted. In short, this legislation stands to curtail the impunity that allows rapists to prey on Native women like vultures."

The Tribal Law and Order Act is bi-partisan legislation that was introduced by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD). The Act passed the Senate on June 23, 2010, as part of H.R. 725, The Indian Arts and Crafts Amendment Act of 2010. Today, the House passed H.R. 725 with the Tribal Law and Order Act attached. The legislation addresses disturbing rates of sexual violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women, a subject that Amnesty International drew national attention to in its 2007 report, Maze of Injustice: The Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the USA.

Maze of Injustice exposed the disproportionately high levels of rape and sexual violence that Native American and Alaska Native women suffer in this country -- 2.5 times higher than for non-native women in the United States. The complex maze of tribal, state and federal jurisdictions often allows perpetrators, 86 percent of them non-Native men, to rape with impunity. To navigate this maze, authorities need to establish whether the crime took place on tribal lands and whether the perpetrator was Native or non-Native to determine which law enforcement agency has jurisdiction, during which critical time is lost. This leads to inadequate investigations or a failure to respond.

"It is encouraging to see Congress begin to address some of the complicated jurisdictional issues that arise in Indian country," said Sarah Deer, Assistant Professor at William Mitchell College of Law and a consultant for AIUSA’s Maze of Injustice report. "The erosion of tribal authority means that Native perpetrators tried in tribal court can receive only one year per offense, while non-Native perpetrators cannot be prosecuted at all. The legislation provides beginning steps to empower tribal governments to take more direct action in cases of violent crime. When victims know that their perpetrators will be held accountable for their behavior, they will be more likely to report crimes. Empowering tribal law enforcement personnel to protect their communities is the key."

In addition to the jurisdictional morass, the lack of trained Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANEs) at Indian Health Service (IHS) facilities to provide forensic exams and gather essential evidence is a factor that leads to a failure to prosecute. The AI report raised concerns about the lack of prosecutions and the need for accurate information about prosecution rates.

"Currently there are no standardized sexual assault protocols within the Indian Health Service, meaning that victims of sexually violent crimes may not be given rape kits that obtain critical evidence to prosecute perpetrators," said Charon Asetoyer, chair of AIUSA's Native Advisory Council. "The Tribal Law and Order Act will remedy this and underscore the importance of the need for medical staff that collect forensic evidence to testify in a court of law. It is a critical step toward ensuring that Native women’s human rights are recognized."

The Tribal Law and Order Act of 2009 is in direct response to concerns raised by tribal leaders, tribal organizations, Native American and Alaska Native women and the AI report. Specifically the Act will:

clarify the responsibilities and increase coordination among federal, state, and tribal law enforcement agencies with respect to crimes committed in tribal communities;

begin to restore tribal governments with authority, resources, and information to address crimes on tribal land;
combat violence against Indian and Alaska Native women;

increase and standardize the collection and distribution of criminal data in tribal communities, including the data that establishes whether crimes are being prosecuted.

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.8 million supporters, activists and volunteers who campaign for universal human rights from more than 150 countries. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.


For more information, please visit www.amnestyusa.org/maze.

[image is from here]

File this one under "How WHM Supremacy WORKS to protect and defend rapists." Especially the rich rapists. All that follows is from YouTube and *here*. NOTE: he's not a pedophile; he's a serial raper of girls; there's nothing "child-loving" about it.

Billionaire Pedophile [sic] Goes Free
Conchita Sarnoff Conchita Sarnoff – Wed Jul 21, 12:05 am ET

NEW YORK – Hedge fund mogul Jeffrey Epstein became a free man Wednesday, five years after he was first accused of sexually abusing underage girls. After months of reporting, The Daily Beast’s Conchita Sarnoff reveals exclusive details of the investigation and the legal wrangling that saved him from a long prison term.

She reports:

• Palm Beach’s police chief objected to Epstein’s “special treatment” and gave The Daily Beast an exclusive look at his nine-hour deposition about the investigation.

• Earlier versions of the U.S attorney’s charges, including a sealed 53-page indictment, could have landed Epstein in prison for 20 years.

• Victims alleged that Epstein molested underage girls from South America, Europe, and the former Soviet republics, including three 12-year-old girls brought over from France as a birthday gift.

• The victims also alleged trips out of state and abroad on Epstein’s private jets, which would be evidence of sex trafficking—a much more serious federal crime than the state charges Epstein was convicted of.

• Epstein’s attorneys investigated members of the Palm Beach Police Department, while others ordered private investigators to follow and intimidate the victims’ families; one even posed as a police officer.

• Then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told The Daily Beast that he “would have instructed the Justice Department to pursue justice without making a political mess.”

Film director Roman Polanski is not the only convicted pedophile to walk free this month and return to a life of privilege. On Wednesday, hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein completes his one-year house arrest in Palm Beach, which has been even less arduous than Polanski’s time at a Swiss ski chalet.

During Epstein’s term of “house arrest,” he made several trips each month to his New York home and his private Caribbean island. In the earlier stage of his sentence for soliciting prostitution with a minor—13 months in the Palm Beach Stockade—he was allowed out to his office each day. Meanwhile, Epstein has settled more than a dozen lawsuits brought by the underage girls who were recruited to perform “massages” at his Palm Beach mansion. Seven victims reached a last-minute deal last week, days before a scheduled trial; each received well over $1 million—an amount that will hardly dent Epstein’s $2 billion net worth.

With that, the known victims of Epstein’s sexual compulsion have been officially silenced, and the case against him is closed unless new ones come forward. According to banking sources, he has been moving assets out of the U.S. and may well follow Polanski into a luxurious exile.

But the question remains: Did Epstein’s wealth and social connections—former President Bill Clinton; Prince Andrew; former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak; New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were just a few of the prominent passengers on his private jets—allow him to receive only a slap on the wrist for crimes that carry a mandatory 20-year sentence? Was he able, with his limitless assets and heavy-hitting lawyers—Alan Dershowitz, Gerald Lefcourt, Roy Black, Kenneth Starr, Guy Lewis, and Martin Weinberger among them—to escape equal justice?

Michael Reiter, the former Palm Beach police chief, certainly thinks so. He gave The Daily Beast exclusive access to the transcript of his nine-hour deposition for the victims’ civil suits, in which he explained how the case against Epstein was minimized by the State Attorney’s Office, then bargained down by the U.S. Department of Justice, all in an atmosphere of hardball legal tactics and social pressures so intense that Reiter became estranged from several colleagues. At the time, Reiter, who retired in 2009 and now runs his own security firm, objected both to Epstein’s plea agreement and to the flexible terms of his incarceration in the county jail rather than state prison. Asked during the deposition whether he thought Epstein received special treatment, he answered “yes.”

In March 2005, Reiter’s department, acting on a complaint from the Florida parents of a 14-year-old girl, launched an investigation that would eventually uncover a pattern of predatory behavior stretching back years and spanning several continents, knowingly enabled by Epstein’s associates and employees. Two or three times a day, whenever Epstein was in Palm Beach, a teenage girl would be brought to the mansion on El Brillo Way. (“The younger the better,” he instructed Haley Robson, a local teenager who was paid to bring other girls to the house, and who declared, on a police tape, that she was “like a Heidi Fleiss,” the infamous California madam.) Advised that she would be giving a “massage,” the girl was then pressured to remove her clothes, submit to fondling and a large vibrator, and sometimes lured into more invasive sexual contact. Each girl was paid $200 or more, depending on how far things went, by house manager Alfredo Rodriguez, who was instructed always to have $2,000 cash on hand.

The Palm Beach Police Department identified 17 local girls who had contact with Epstein before the age of consent; the youngest was 14, and many were younger than 16. And that was just at one of Epstein’s many homes around the world—he also owns property in New York, Santa Fe, Paris, London, and the Caribbean. Subsequent investigation by the FBI, reaching as far back as 2001, indentified roughly 40 victims, not counting Nadia Marcinkova, whom Epstein referred to as his “Yugoslavian sex slave” because he had imported her from the Balkans at age 14. Now 24, Marcinkova became a member of the household and is alleged to have participated in the sexual contact with underage girls.

Epstein quickly got wind of the investigation, and progress on the case got messy very quickly. He hired a squad of lawyers and private investigators and dispatched influential friends to pressure the police into backing off. Instead, local detectives pressed on and brought the matter to the attention of the FBI. The detectives asked their federal colleagues whether the fact that some victims appeared to have traveled out of state on Epstein’s planes—plus the use of interstate phone service to arrange assignations—might be violations of the federal 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which carries a minimum sentence of 20 years. (Florida enacted the federal TVPA in 2002.)

So when State Attorney Barry Krischer, who also ran Florida’s Crimes Against Children Unit, proved reluctant to mount a vigorous prosecution of Epstein, saying the local victims were not credible witnesses, Chief Reiter wrote the attorney a letter complaining of the state’s “highly unusual” conduct and asking him to remove himself from the case. He did not, and the evidence his office presented to a state grand jury produced only a single count of soliciting prostitution. (Krischer has since retired and would not comment for this article.) The day after that indictment was returned, Reiter was relieved to have the FBI step in and take over the investigation.

The details that eventually emerged were often shocking and occasionally bizarre. For Epstein’s birthday one year, according to allegations in a civil suit, he was presented with three 12-year-old girls from France, who were molested then flown back to Europe the next day. These same civil complaints allege that young girls from South America, Europe, and the former Soviet republics, few of whom spoke English, were recruited for Esptein’s sexual pleasure. According to a former bookkeeper, a number of the girls worked for MC2, the modeling agency owned by Jean Luc Brunel, a longtime acquaintance and frequent guest of Epstein’s. Brunel received $1 million from the billionaire around the time he started the agency.

The non-prosecution agreement executed between Epstein and the Department of Justice states that Epstein and four members of his staff were investigated for “knowingly, in affecting interstate and foreign commerce, recruiting enticing and obtaining by any means a person, knowing that person has not yet obtained the age of 18 years and would be caused to engage in commercial sex act”—that is, child sex trafficking. Yet the agreement allowed Epstein to plead guilty to only two lower-level state crimes, soliciting prostitution and soliciting a minor child for prostitution.

Although the police investigation was officially closed, Chief Reiter tried to stay abreast of the federal case against Epstein. He was particularly concerned that Epstein be registered as a sex offender, which was part of the final deal, and that a fund be set up to compensate his victims—which was not, although Epstein agreed to bankroll their civil lawsuits. Attorney Dershowitz says Epstein’s agreement to pay attorney fees for the victims and agree to civil damage claims—without admitting guilt—amounted to “extortion under threat of criminal prosecution.”

But exactly which crimes did the Department of Justice threaten to prosecute? The Daily Beast has learned that there were several earlier versions of the U.S Attorney’s charges, including a 53-page indictment that, had he been convicted, could have landed Epstein in prison for 20 years. Brad Edwards, attorney for seven of the victims, confirms the existence of an earlier draft of the non-prosecution agreement, officially under seal, in which it appears that Epstein “committed, at some point, to a 10-year federal sentence.” But in the end Epstein’s legal team refused that deal and threatened to proceed to trial. And that’s where the question of whether the case was “winnable” before a jury again came into play, according to a source in the U.S Attorney’s Office, which shared the state attorney’s view that the prosecution was far from a slam dunk.

For one, it was clear from the start that Epstein would spare no legal expense and that his team of veteran lawyers, whose cases ranged from O.J. Simpson to the investigation of Clinton’s relationship with an intern, would play rough. When the Palm Beach police started to identify victims, according to Detective Joe Recarey’s report, Dershowitz began sending the detective Facebook and MySpace posts to demonstrate that some of these girls were no angels. Reiter’s deposition also states that he heard from local private investigators that Dershowitz had launched background checks on both the police chief and Det. Recarey. Dershowitz denies all of that. According to Reiter, both he and Recarey also became aware that they were under surveillance for several months, without knowing who ordered it. And the Florida victims began to complain that they and family members were being followed and intimidated by private investigators who were then linked to local attorneys in Epstein’s employ. In one reported instance, the private investigator claimed to be a police officer, and Reiter considered filing witness-tampering charges.

The credibility of the victims was also an issue; they had never complained of their treatment by Epstein until they were contacted by police, and they may have voluntarily returned to the Palm Beach mansion several times. Many of the girls came from disadvantaged backgrounds or broken homes, and they were susceptible to Epstein’s cash, intimidation, and charm. Those who were 16 when they went to El Brillo Way would have been in their 20s by the time they took the stand, and Epstein’s investigators had dredged up every instance of bad behavior in their pasts. According to an exchange in the Reiter deposition, a few of the victims had worked in West Palm Beach at massage parlors known as “jack shacks.” Each new compromising detail was immediately forwarded to the State Attorney’s Office, where staff met frequently with Epstein’s lawyers.

The Florida statutes are clear: Any person older than 24 who engages in sexual contact with someone under the age of 18 commits a felony of the second degree. The victim’s prior sexual conduct is not relevant; ignorance of her age is no defense. She needn’t resist physically to cast doubt on the issue of “consent.” For a child under 16, even lewd behavior short of touching is a felony of the second degree. But convincing a jury that a sexual encounter is a heinous crime is difficult if the victim can be made to appear willing and unharmed, not to mention vulgar and mercenary. It wasn’t hard to imagine some of the victims quickly being discredited in court by Epstein’s crack legal team, who repeatedly noted that the age of consent is lower in many other states.

But that doesn’t quite explain why the Department of Justice would forgo the child-trafficking charges, which pertain regardless of a girl’s attitude or character. Epstein’s final sentence is so out of line with the statutory guidelines for that crime that it appears the department may have been influenced by the existence of his many powerful friends and attorneys. A highly intelligent man who once taught math at the Dalton School in New York without a bachelor’s degree, Epstein has been a serious and respected player in the highest reaches of politics and philanthropy. He has made substantial contributions to political candidates, served on the Council on Foreign Relations, and donated $30 million to Harvard University.

Moreover, many of his high-powered acquaintances availed themselves of Epstein’s private jets, for which the pilot logs, obtained by discovery in the civil suits, sometimes showed that bold-face names were on the same flights as underage girls. A high-profile trial threatened to splash mud over all sorts of big players, just as both Gov. Richardson and Bill Clinton’s wife were running for president. Also, a hedge fund prosecution in which Epstein offered to give evidence was heating up. Alberto Gonzales, who was U.S. attorney general throughout most of the Epstein investigation and resigned just before the non-prosecution agreement was signed, told The Daily Beast that he “would have instructed the Justice Department to pursue justice without making a political mess.” But that may have been an impossible mandate, given the players involved.

Instead, said attorney Brad Edwards, “Epstein committed crimes that should have jailed him for most of his life…he was jailed for only a few months.” And this week he walks through his door a free man.

Conchita Sarnoff has developed multimedia communication programs for Fortune 500 companies and has produced three current events debate television programs, The Americas Forum, From Beirut to Kabul, and a segment for The Oppenheimer Report. She is a contributor to The Huffington Post and is writing a book about child trafficking in America.

Watch Jeffrey Epstein Storm Out of a Deposition When Asked About His Penis

From YouTube, on Jeffrey Epstein:

That Mel Gibson has made, to date, four "Lethal Weapon" films seems fitting, except that they aren't about him being a lethal weapon to women. It is fitting, as well, that he's been in productions called "The Punishment", "Ransom", "Conspiracy Theory", "Payback", "Signs", and "Complete Savages". That he ever made a film titled "What Women Want" is increasingly frightening.

From IMDb:

Nick Marshall, Playboy and Hot Shot in advertising, thinks he's God's gift to women. After a little accident, he discovers that he is suddenly able to hear what women really think. First, Nick is pretty disappointed when he discovers that his beloved macho behaviour does not exactly contribute to being desired. Then, his upcoming dream position in the company is being given to a new team member: Darcy, not only a woman, but a man-eating one, also is a very talented ad expert. So, Nick decides to sabotage his new boss by reading her thoughts and selling her ideas as his own. Unfortunately, love gets in his way. Written by Julian Reischl

To Mel Gibson, the Homo Palien Predator who I wish would go to another planet:  

You are clearly a nut that hasn't fallen far from the tree. 

If you ever contemplate, threaten, or plan to kill any woman including Oksana Grigorieva, and your and Oksana's almost nine month old baby Lucia, and your ex-partner's adolescent child Sascha (Alexander), and then to kill yourself, please do so in reverse order in such a way that only you are injured or die. 

Thank you: you'll be doing one woman, two children, and the rest of the world a huge favor. 

You're one vicious white het man, Mr. Gibson, and one cruel, sadistic, Satanic "Christian" coward. Go fuck yourself, and recognize who YOU are: a gold digger, a f*cking pig in heat (no offence to hogs, sows, and piglets or any living being that has an estrous cycle is intended), a n*gger, a w*tback, a f*cking b*tch, a c*nt, a f*ggot, and last, but surely not least: one mean and maniacal P.R.I.C.K. 

If your Jesus does come back to Earth, I hope he swiftly kicks you and your dad in the nuts. That, surely, would demonstrate a level of compassion and love for humanity that you and your father have been lacking for many decades. Pray to your Jesus to knock some sense into you through the gonadal parts of your body you appear to be using simultaneously as your brains and your heart. And ask yourself this: How's THAT approach to life working for you?

To learn what that the acronym means, please check out these two posts: P.R.I.C.K.s and PRICKs, Sexxxism, and other CRAP.

For more posts on A Radical Profeminist about Mel Gibson, please see here, here, here, and, for portions of one of those posts in French, see here. Calling Mel a nut, a maniac, or maniacal is not meant to imply he is in any way insane, or drunk. It is meant to imply he is behaving the way far too many patriarchally entitled men behave--in such a manner as to be guilty of the crime of murdering the women they willfully, rationally, choose to be with who they later claim is driving them crazy. Men, too typically, do not take responsibility for their feelings or their actions, when directed negatively at women. They blame women instead, and in this way remain ignorant, arrogant, self-absorbed, overly privileged, and atrociously entitled and terribly normal men.

All that follows is linked to below, and is from RadarOnline.com.

Mel Gibson Punched Oksana Twice, Choked Her & Then Threatened To Murder Her & Family, She Tells AuthoritiesWORLD EXCLUSIVE: Mel Gibson Punched Oksana Twice, Choked Her & Then Threatened To Murder Her & Family, She Tells Authorities

Mel Gibson threatened to kill his own baby daughter, Oksana Grigorieva, her son -- and even himself -- during the brutal brawl that is being investigated by police, according to statements Oksana has given authorities.

In a stunning world exclusive, RadarOnline.com has obtained all the details of what authorities have been told took place on January 6, the crucial date in the domestic violence investigation against Mel, as well as the custody battle between Mel and Oksana.

And the details are far worse than what has been known up to now. Mel punched Oksana TWICE in the head, and choked her with his forearm pressing into her throat after she fell onto the bed – while holding the baby, she told authorites.

Mel is facing a criminal investigation on domestic battery charges by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and is part of a Department of Children and Family Services investigation.

Here are the complete details about what authorities are investigating:

On January 6, Oksana says she attended a basketball game for her 12-year-old son Alexander, who goes by the nickname Sascha. Gibson was furious that she left their infant daughter Lucia home with a nanny and was also jealous that she was around other men.

The nanny witnessed Mel storming around the house, slamming doors and growing furious. The nanny was so frightened that she took Lucia and hid in a bedroom, according to Oksana’s statements.

“When Oksana came home Mel began cursing her,” a source with knowledge of the investigation told RadarOnline.com exclusively. The Oscar-winning actor/director screamed profanities, consistent with what is on the audio tapes obtained and released exclusively by RadarOnline.com.

Then things took a near deadly turn.

Oksana asked Mel to calm down when she returned to his Malibu house in the early evening.

“Mel punched her in the mouth and then again in the side of the head,” the source told RadarOnline.com.

She was holding Lucia and the force of the punches caused her to fall backwards onto the bed.

Mel placed one of his forearms into Oksana’s neck and began choking her. He took his free hand and pushed it over her mouth and she struggled to breathe. She struggled and begged him to stop.

“Oksana has told authorities it was horrific and she thought she was going to die,” the source said.

The punches broke Oksana’s front teeth, as can be seen by the exclusive photo of her injuries obtained by RadarOnline.com

As she begged Mel to stop while he was choking her, Mel kept screaming for Oksana to apologize.

Oksana’s son Sascha, whose father is former James Bond star Timothy Dalton, was in the bedroom the entire time this took place, and he was scared to death and will be a crucial witness.

He was interviewed by child protective services agents last Friday.

Oksana finally was freed from Mel’s grip and jumped up to leave but she says Mel then pulled a gun from the pocket of his short, pointed it at her head and threatened to kill her, Lucia and Sascha, as well as himself, in an apparent murder-suicide plot.

He reportedly yelled “F*ck you” and called Oksana a “F**king c*nt.”

Somehow, however, Oksana was able to run out of the house, wearing her pajamas and barefoot, with Lucia and Sascha.

After Oksana fled, Mel called her repeatedly and threatened her. Investigators will be looking at those phone records.

RELATED STORIES:

MEL AUDIO TAPE #1: Mel’s Racist Rant

MEL AUDIO TAPE #2: Mel Gibson Admits Hitting Oksana, Threatens To Kill Her

MEL AUDIO TAPE #3: Another Mel Gibson Slur Caught On Tape In Crazed Rage

MEL AUDIO TAPE #4: Out Of Control Mel Gibson Says He'll Burn Down House After Demanding Sex

MEL AUDIO TAPE #5: Mel Gibson Completely Loses It: 'B*tch, C*nt, Wh*re, Gold Digger!'

EXCLUSIVE PHOTO of Oksana After She Says Mel Punched Her

What follows is a cross post from The Independent (UK) followed by another from The Times (UK) by the same writer. With great thanks to Mary Ann Sieghart for telling it like it is is this "post-feminist" West (please insert an overtly disrespectful cough) where increasingly there are delusional, bitter, scornful white, class-privileged, and "straight" men--men who are utterly clueless about what it feels like, means, and IS to be a structurally, systemically, institutionally, and culturally oppressed adult human being--are lashing out at and physically and verbally bashing women for problems created, promoted, and protected by white het men. To any and all MEN: place your disappointment, criticism, and rage where it belongs--toward WHM and the man in the mirror. You may link back to original site/source, by clicking on the title just below. And, beyond that, in this post, is another brilliant piece by Mary Ann Sieghart, as well as a link to an important analysis of evolutionary psychology--a blatantly illogical, irrational, and biased, bigoted anti-woman field of pseudo-scientific inquiry, that ought to be never been presented publicly or in the press without hisses, boos, or laughter.

Mary Ann Sieghart: Women on top? You've got to be joking
For at least 20 years, we have been fed the line that the 'Future is Female'. But the future has always failed to materialise

Monday, 19 July 2010

What a depressing week it has been to be female. A psychopathically violent woman-beater and murderer is lionised. A film director who drugs and then sodomises a 13-year-old girl is let off. A famous actor tells his ex-partner she deserves to be "raped by a pack of niggers". And the Catholic Church elevates women's ordination to the same level of offence as child abuse. Thanks, chaps.

Meanwhile, a new report has reminded us of how little progress women have made in the arts. And, as Selina Scott complained to the BBC last week, when women do succeed on TV, they're removed as soon as their first wrinkle begins to show, while men carry on till their faces look like a relief map of the Hindu Kush.

First to Raoul Moat, though. The most depressing aspect of the men (and women) defending this "legend" is the blame they have heaped on his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Stobbart. She, remember, is now recovering from being shot twice in the stomach by Moat. During their relationship, he split her head open. He threw her against a wall and jumped on her stomach. And he threatened her with a gun. His former partner, Marissa Reid, has said he beat her with his fists and a baseball bat, and raped her while she was tied to a bed. Nice.

So what do ordinary people make of that? Here are just a couple of comments on the RIP Raoul Moat Facebook page: "Maybe if she kept her legs closed none of this would of happened. Maybe Moaty had good reason to be angry," and "Moat is a true British hero, he done what he thought was right by getting revenge on his cheating ex-girlfriend." Moat himself wrote: "I never cheated on her. I wish she hadn't cheated on me. She pulled the trigger by doing so just as much as me."

So a woman who moves on from a terrifyingly abusive relationship deserves to be shot in the stomach? And a man who loses a girlfriend is entitled to try to kill her? That's still a scarily prevalent view. Men are 10 times more likely than women to kill a partner who has left them. People often wonder why women suffering domestic violence stay in a relationship. Usually it's because the man threatens to kill them if they go. Raoul Moat wasn't the only man to have said to his girlfriend, "If I can't have you, no one else can," and to have followed it through.

In their splendidly named study The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel [***click on link here or see bottom of post for the link to this important work], the evolutionary psychologists Margo Wilson and Martin Daly write: "Men lay claim to particular women as songbirds lay claim to territories, as lions lay claim to a kill, or as people of both sexes lay claim to valuables." This sense of ownership gives these men a sense of entitlement and a fury at the notion of losing "their" woman to someone else. So when Samantha Stobbart took up with a karate instructor, in order to feel protected and safe at last, she apparently "pulled the trigger" on herself.

Moat's twisted logic finds a reflection in other walks of life. When women who have been victimised ask merely to be treated fairly, they are often amplified by men into threatening aggressors. Researching a Radio 4 programme about opponents of women priests last week, I was told of an exhibition put on by an Anglican man who opposed women's ordination. He had painted pictures of leering women, naked apart from their dog collars, with intimidatingly large breasts, gathered round a communion chalice filled with menstrual blood. What's that about, Sigmund?

The Catholic Church, of course, has not just forbidden women's ordination, but made it a dreadful crime. Last week, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith decreed that "both the one who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive a sacred order, incur an ex-communication". This puts women's ordination on a par with child rape.

If only paedophilia were taken as seriously as women's ordination. The Vatican has hounded theologians and priests who have questioned the Church's teachings on women. Had it used the same energy to root out abusing priests, thousands of children's psyches could have been spared.

Even in the Church of England, which now has women priests and is close to accepting women as bishops, the hatred and vilification are shocking. At last weekend's meeting of the General Synod, some women priests were spat at. And a male bishop who appeared on the radio programme I made complained that the Synod had now been "swamped" by part-time women clergy or – as he put it – "ladies with time on their hands".

Hearing a word like "swamped", you might expect the House of Clergy to have been taken over by women. In fact, they account for just 39 of 197 members. In other words, men still take up 80 per cent of the places. But if women are seen as threatening and monstrous – as in that priest's painting – even their minority presence is hugely amplified.

This overestimation of the power and representation of women is commonplace. Research shows that when women speak in the classroom exactly 50 per cent of the time, both men and women think they spoke more. When I took part in an internet debate recently about whether Oxford University was sexist, James Kingston, president of the Oxford Union, said: "Most of the History tutors at Christ Church seem to be women." In fact, there are six women and six men there.

So perhaps that is why we put up with such appalling under-representation of women in public life. We believe there are more than there are. A report out last week from UK Feminista found that for every female character in TV drama there are two men. Is that an accurate portrayal of our lives? At Glastonbury this year, 71 per cent of the performances were all-male acts. Just 12 per cent of Turner Prize winners have been women, and 7 per cent of Bafta award-winners for screenplay-writing. Even in literary fiction, at which women are supposed to excel, awards go two-to-one in favour of men.

I can understand – just – why only 1.6 per cent of conductors at this year's Proms are women. Conducting is an all-consuming job with gruelling hours and constant travel. But it's hard to believe that men are twice as good at writing fiction, three times better at pop music and seven times better at art. And I certainly don't see why, as a former BBC TV executive admitted to me: "As male presenters get older, they become an authority; as female presenters get older, they become a problem."

The real problem is that 21st-century Britain still undervalues women, and particularly older ones. Open any newspaper, look at any billboard, switch on the TV or read a magazine and you will search almost in vain for a picture of a woman over 50. Girls may be doing better than boys at school, but it is ridiculous to claim that men are being marginalised. They still have the best jobs, the most money and the preponderance of power. And when women make any progress, however small, that is exaggerated to suggest that they are somehow taking over from men.

For at least 20 years, we have been fed newspaper articles telling us "The Future is Female". But the future has always failed to materialise. The present is still overwhelmingly male and women's advances are still over-amplified. I'll start to feel sorry for men when they are wildly outnumbered on company boards, wiped off TV in their forties, routinely earning less than women, and not just being murdered by their jealous partners, but being blamed for it.

m.sieghart@independent.co.uk / twitter.com/MASieghart

More from Mary Ann Sieghart  (click on link to the left, and also see below:)


The men who kill out of passion
Men are far more likely than women to kill for jealousy. But the law is changing to stop them using infidelity as a defence

Mary Ann Sieghart

All men kill the thing they love,” wrote Oscar Wilde in The Ballad of Reading Gaol, ruminating on a fellow inmate who had murdered a woman in her bed. Love is also used by Othello to justify the same crime. He asks to be remembered as “one that loved not wisely but too well” and claims: “For naught I did in hate, but all in honour.”

So how much has changed in 400 years? Even now, says Harriet Harman, the Deputy Prime Minister, “A man can say, ‘It was only because I loved her. It’s her fault I killed her. She must have provoked me. I killed her because she was planning to leave me’.” As a result, they can sometimes get the charge reduced from murder to manslaughter, with a far shorter sentence.

Between one and two women a week in Britain are killed by their partners. This is often prompted by jealousy, or as a punishment for wives or girlfriends seeking their independence.

Only last week, Neil Ellerbeck, a banker whose wife wanted to leave him, was let off with manslaughter after strangling her. The judge branded him as an “obsessive and jealous” husband who would stop at nothing to prevent his wife divorcing him. He could be out of prison in as little as three years.

In September, Brian Lewis, 31, was found guilty of murdering his wife Hayley Jones, 26, after she changed her status from “married” to “single” on her Facebook profile. She was stabbed and strangled.

“Till death do us part” is the vow we make in the marriage ceremony, but men are much more inclined than women to try to bring it forward. They are three to four times more likely than women to kill their partner or ex-partner. And of the women who do kill their husband or lover, the overwhelming majority do so after suffering years of violent abuse.

Martin Daly and Margo Wilson are evolutionary psychologists who specialise in the roots of male violence against women. In their fabulously titled The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel, they write: “Men lay claim to particular women as songbirds lay claim to territories, as lions lay claim to a kill, or as people of both sexes lay claim to valuables.” Not only do men see their partners as their property, apparently, but they have a sense of entitlement to them and therefore a huge sense of grievance at the prospect of losing them to somebody else.

Daly and Wilson put this down to the asymmetrical risk of cuckoldry. Men can’t know for sure whether their partner’s baby is theirs. With women there is no such uncertainty. So males of most species go in for “mate-guarding” to ensure that their partners can’t get pregnant by another male. And as Matt Ridley, the evolutionary science writer, puts it: “Spouse killing is an extreme form of mate-guarding.”

This can take many forms. In 2007 Susan Goswell, 63, was stabbed to death by her depressive husband Roger, 66, when he discovered that she had not been a virgin on her wedding day 46 years earlier, an inquest in Chichester heard.

Women get jealous too, of course, but evolutionary psychologists say that the nature of male and female jealousy is different. For a man it is sexual: he doesn’t want another man to impregnate his partner. For a woman it is emotional: she doesn’t want her partner to give time, attention or resources to another woman, as she needs these for raising her own family. But while jealous women will sometimes take revenge on their partners, they are more likely to take a knife to their suits than to their throats.

Daly and Wilson, in studies of spousal homicide, have found that by far the most common motive is the man’s jealousy. Sometimes this is “morbid jealousy”, in which the man becomes completely obsessed with the idea that his wife is being unfaithful, even when there is no evidence for it. Sometimes, though, it is standard jealousy, set off by her wanting to leave him. Then, says the psychologist Oliver James: “There’s a point at which, if I can’t have her, no one else will. In a kind of way you’ve got her for ever if you kill her, because no one else can have her.”

Dr Elizabeth Englander, in her book Understanding Violence, cites a study of 83 cases of spousal homicide in the US: 42 cases of husbands killing wives, and 41 of wives killing husbands. None of the husband-killers had jealousy as a motive.

Women are most at risk of being killed by their partners at the time of separation or soon after. People often ask why abused women don’t just walk out of the relationship: this is why. Englander notes that the abuser often reminded his partner that if she left him, he would track her down and kill her, and sometimes their children too.

It is no idle threat. In a Chicago study, three quarters of women who were killed had left or tried to end the relationship in the previous year. And violence that continues after separation tends to be more serious and obsessive, often including stalking and sometimes leading to murder. Women don’t tend to pursue their partners after a relationship has broken up. Men do: they are ten times more likely than women to kill partners who have left them.

And when they do, it is usually more violent than other murders. The majority of men who kill their wives or girlfriends use repeated blows or stabbings — far more violence than is necessary to cause death. This is rarely true when women kill.

So what is the mechanism that makes all this anger and jealousy explode into extreme violence against women? Men are in any case much more violent than women, and they commit many more murders. Men tend to externalise their anger, while women internalise it. Just look at disturbed adolescents: young men will fight, drink and take drugs, while young women will self-harm and starve themselves.

Tom Fahy is a professor at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. Jealousy, he says, “is a dangerous emotion, especially if it reaches pathological proportions and if there is alcohol involved”.

Although women can suffer it too, “the type of extreme, inflexible attitude, the sense of feeling of ownership, is much more part of the male psyche”. And men who are left by their partners can feel a sense of complete abandonment. When it’s for another man, “that’s a killer blow to self-esteem”.

Women who kill are already much more dysfunctional than the men who do so. “They often have a background of horrendous physical and sexual abuse themselves,” says Fahy. “They are much farther away from the mean than the average male killer.”

But do jealous men who kill their partners get an easier ride from the law? Historically, that’s been the case. In 1706, in the Mawgridge case here in Britain, it was declared that “jealousy is the rage of man and adultery is the highest invasion of property”.

Several American states used to have statutes that allowed men to kill adulterous wives without fear of prosecution — these were abolished only in the 1970s, and juries still sometimes acquit men who do.

When Harriet Harman became Solicitor General in 2001, she was horrified by the number of cases in which male killers pleaded their wives’ infidelity as provocation and had the charge reduced from murder to manslaughter. On behalf of bereaved relatives, she sent three cases to the Court of Appeal because the sentences seemed unduly lenient.

In one, a solicitor’s wife had admitted to having feelings for a karate instructor. The husband went out, bought a knife and stabbed her to death in front of their four children. Despite the apparent premeditation, he got off with manslaughter. “The relatives of the woman killed were heartbroken,” recalls Harman. “She was being blamed for her own death and she didn’t have the chance to defend herself in court. They thought the injustice of it was absolutely overwhelming.”

The Court of Appeal said that the law needed to be changed. As a result, the Coroners and Justice Bill, which is now wending its way through the House of Lords, will remove any defence of infidelity as provocation.

Not all lawyers, even feminist ones, are sure that this is the answer, though. Baroness Kennedy, a senior barrister who has spent much of her career standing up for victims of domestic violence, thinks that it’s more important for attitudes to change. “There are still ideas that somehow there are ‘good’ women and there are women who bring this stuff on their own heads. I still hear people saying that being a wicked-tongued woman is equivalent to a man being violent.”

She thinks that it would be unfair not to acknowledge in law the devastating effect that fear of abandonment has on a man. “I’d be cautious about denying to men the possibility that you could snap when you think your life is falling apart, though the defence shouldn’t be applied too generously. Changing the law is a simplistic solution to problems that ... require bigger shifts in society.”

Harman agrees that the problem is profound. “It’s about whether or not male ownership of a woman’s sexuality entitles him to take violent action. It’s very primeval.”

But surely we’ve moved on from our caveman days? Harman certainly thinks so. “Violence within a relationship is criminal, just as it is outside a relationship. We don’t accept a man’s ownership of a woman’s sexuality. It’s hers and doesn’t belong to him. It’s not for him to control her or her sexuality by violence or any other means.”

Society has already agreed that domestic violence is unacceptable, and there are no excuses for it. The men who receive sentences of a few years for manslaughter would be sent to jail for longer if their partners had survived and they were convicted instead of grievous bodily harm, for which there is no defence of provocation.

Even Othello decides that a fitting sentence is to stab himself to death. And Oscar Wilde’s protagonist? “The man had killed the thing he loved, And so he had to die.” Britain no longer has the death penalty, but at least now, once the law is changed, men who kill their partners will no longer be able to get away with murder.

Related Links:
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Top banker cleared of murder after killing wife 
 
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel