Dean's World

Feminist researcher Patricia Pearson not long ago noted that: "Women commit the majority of child homicides in the United States, a greater share of physical child abuse, an equal rate of sibling violence and assaults on the elderly, about a quarter of child sexual abuse, an overwhelming share of the killing of newborns, and a fair preponderance of spousal assaults." (See When She Was Bad, published in 1997). Other researchers have noted that women are also far more likely to avoid prosecution when they seriously injure or even kill their boyfriends or husbands (see, for example, this excerpt from Women Who Kill.)

These sad facts are things that most people are terribly resistant to. In part it's because of politics: the right is traditionalist and thinks of women as weak and men as being there to protect them; meanwhile, the left thinks of women as victims who are oppressed by society and need the state or "the sisterhood" to protect them.

Who knows? Part of it may even be genetic. We just don't like to think of women in these terms.

But if you do some digging, you'll find that in the last couple of decades, more and more evidence is completely abolishing the stereotypes most people still associate with domestic abuse. Indeed, Dr. Martin S. Fiebert of California State University, in a review of over 155 scholarly investigations, concluded that women were as likely or even more likely to be abusers than men. (You can read his bibliography here, and if you want to see a wealth of similarly surprising material collected by Fiebert, you should read through this. For other rather shocking surveys and statistics by different researchers, click here and also here.).

Whenever I talk about these facts, it inevitably sparks a lot of nastiness and/or derision from people who just don't like hearing them. I expect to get still more of it just for posting this. Still, it doesn't hurt to remind folks now and then: the stereotypes we were fed as kids, or that are fed to us by left- and right-wing political groups who have an agenda to push, are not necessarily the truth.

So what causes me to bring this up? Well, I've written a few times since November 3 what I think Democrats could have done differently this year to avoid alienating so much of the American middle. You know, simple things: Not acting like our troops are routinely engaging in wanton slaughter of innocents. Not calling war supporters brown shirts and war profiteers. Not calling the President a "liar" without admitting that this would make John Kerry, John Edwards, and Bill Clinton liars too. Not embracing vicious and abusive hate-propagandists like Ted Rall and Michael Moore. Not claiming that Bush supporters were as a rule religious lunatics. And so on and so forth.

But I pretty much gave up. It seemed pointless, and like I was just rubbing it in. I figured Democrats were just going to have to go through the standard stages of the grieving process (denial, bargaining, anger, despair, and acceptance) on their own. Then, quite possibly, they might be able to examine the possibility that they'd made some mistakes in the last decade or so that were only amplified in these last couple of elections. Then they might take a look in the mirror, take stock, and consider that they had some problems with intolerance and closed-mindedness and outdated dogma. Then maybe, just maybe, they could find a new direction and strategy to bring more people into their coalition and win some elections again.

But I continue to see terrible outbursts of denial and rage from some Democrats. To be fair, I've also seen some Republicans making some jokes and some rude remarks, some good-natured and some not. I've made a few jokes here and there myself, but mostly I've tried to just let it go. As an ex-Democrat myself, I figured my old party would wise up eventually.

I was hoping it would be sooner rather than later, but now comes this: rippling through the Bush-hating portion of the blogosphere is an article entitled The Politics Of Victimization. In it, a woman named Mel Gilles who "works an advocate for victims of domestic abuse," characterizes Bush supporters as woman-batterers.

Now if you examine her piece, you can tell that saying she works in the area of "domestic abuse" is probably not quite descriptive enough. It appears that she works in the highly politicized, stereotype-driven subset of that industry. How can you tell? Because of her language. She shows very little awareness of the wealth of data that has caused most experts to stop referring so casually to "battered women." Instead, she trades in the old, sexist stereotypes and cliches that demean both women and men: men as abusers, women as victims, and domestic abuse characterized primarily as domineering men oppressing helplessly victimized women.

And let's be clear: she suggests that if you voted for John Kerry this year you should see yourself as a battered woman.

Why? Because you were "beaten" by people who didn't support John Kerry, and by people who said that Kerry supporters were often obnoxious and superior and condescending and unfair--and ultimately, by the fact that not enough people voted for your candidate.

Do I exaggerate? Here are some of her words: "They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that we are the victims of verbal, mental, and even, in the case of Iraq, physical violence."

Here's more: "Any battered woman in America, any oppressed person around the globe who has defied her oppressor will tell you this: There is nothing wrong with you. You are in good company. You are safe. You are not alone. You are strong. You must change only one thing: stop responding to the abuser."

If you think I'm exaggerating even a little bit, you can simply read her entire piece here, and draw your own conclusions.

A few weeks ago, I wrote at length on how much nastiness I saw on the Bush-hating, anti-Iraq liberation side these last couple of years. A lot of people linked it, and commented on it. I might suggest that Ms. Gilles and her fans read it, but I suspect they'd merely call it more "abuse."

I might also suggest that Gilles and her like-minded compatriots read Abuse Revisited by feminist Cathy Young. Then they might learn that in most cases of domestic abuse, we know today that both partners are abusers. They would also learn that when the abuse is one-sided (which is only about half the time), quite often the person we presume to be the victim is actually the perpetrator.

If Ms. Gilles and those who think like her were to acknowledge all that, then maybe there would be some way we could address the issues facing us like functioning, self-possessed adults. But I don't suppose that works for people who are still caught up in long-outmoded political dogma.

So I guess it comes to this: We who supported the liberation of Iraq, and President Bush, found people like Ms. Gilles and many of her compatriots irrational and mean-spirited and unconvincing in their arguments. We failed to vote for Kerry, and now in their eyes we're woman-batterers.

Well hey: at least now we all know where we stand, eh?

So tell me, fellow Bush voters, should we batter them in bread crumbs, or in flour? I lean toward flour and egg, but occasionally bread crumbs mixed with grated parmesan cheese is pretty good....

* Update * The Weekend Pundit has a somewhat more pungent view. But I expect that such frank talk would, again, just be considered more violence and abuse, eh?