Shakesville: Dr. Helen Sez: Women Are teh Suxor

Dr. Helen Sez: Women Are teh Suxor

| posted by Jeff Fecke | Tuesday, October 09, 2007

As many of you know, Dr. Helen Smith, the woman who thought Glenn Reynolds was sexy enough to marry, has a problem with women. They're a bunch of meanies who are always trying to keep the man down, what with their desire for self-determination and their preference not to be beaten. Meanwhile, men who actually bend to their significant others' whims and wash a dish or read to a child are girlie-men, unable to meet the macho standards of this sexy guy.

Dr. Helen starts off this week by boldly declaring that she's not even going to bother making up a letter:

Many readers have written in to ask various questions about domestic violence laws, their effect on men and how to find justice for men in the legal system, especially in the wake of...

Wait! Hold on. It's time to play "Name that mind-numbingly repetitive wingnut trope!" I'm your host, Jeff Fecke. For $5000 and the trip to Aruba: What current case has proven that men are always screwed in the criminal justice system no matter what? I'll give you a hint: rape deniers love it!

Give up? Oky doky, Dr. Helen, give us today's answer!

...the Duke rape case

That's right, the Duke rape case! Yes indeedy, nothing shows that the legal system will ultimately screw men like a case in which all charges against a group of men accused of rape were dropped and the prosecutor was disbarred and sentenced to jail time for his actions.

Okay, that game out of the way, let's get back to Dr. Helen. She's decided that she needs to bring in an expert, someone who can provide good, accurate information to men seeking legal representation. And the only sane advice, "go hire an attorney who specializes in family/criminal law" doesn't fill a whole column. So Dr. Helen turns to an expert:

In order to answer your questions, I turned to expert Glenn Sacks, who is a men’s and fathers’ issues columnist, radio commentator, and blogger. Below is our interview:

You may remember Glenn Sacks from his support of the "Planned Fatherhood" folks, or when he was circulating inaccurate information that tended to minimize the level of abuse that women have faced.

It's a little like going to Bill Kristol to get fair, accurate information on whether Iran is a threat.

Before we move on, let me tell any MRAs reading this: while Sacks is well-positioned as an ideologue and misogynist, he is not, repeat, not an attorney. He has taught school, and did some work as a carpenter, and he got a radio show for a while, though, so I'm sure his advice in legal matters is rock-solid.

So let's jump into it! What's the most important thing that a soon-to-be-divorcing dad could know?

Helen Smith: The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) passed in the 1990’s under President Clinton. How is that working out?

Yes, VAWA! That's a really, really important thing for you to know about if you've beat your wife. Otherwise, not so much. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that Dr. Helen jumped right to it as the first order of business, though. And Sacks will, I'm sure, note that it's a useful tool for women in abusive relationships, and is, in fact, gender=neutral.

Kidding, of course!

Glenn Sacks: It’s done some good, in that it has helped ensure funding for domestic violence programs and shelters for battered women, but it has also helped create many problems, particularly for fathers and their children.

To pick one example, the restraining order issue is a nightmare. The father
is booted out of the marital home and pushed to the margins of his children’s lives. The orders are often based on false accusations, and are used as custody maneuvers or as punitive measures by angry soon-to-be-ex-wives.

Now, I don't like to make everything about me, but let's for a second. I've said before that I deserved my divorce, and I most certainly did. I never hit or cheated on my ex-wife, but I definitely engaged in a massive pattern of deceit surrounding my career, or lack thereof. When the deceit came unraveled (and everyone telling lies right now: it always comes unraveled), my ex was left but little choice to divorce me.

I'm frankly deeply ashamed of what I did then, and wish I could undo it, but I can't. I mention it now only to illustrate a point. My ex-wife had every reason to go after me. She did not trust me one iota, and had plenty of ammunition to go to court and get a restraining order against me, at least keeping me off her property. What's more, she wouldn't have had to pay a dime other than filing fees: she was and is an attorney, who clerked in a child support enforcement office while in law school.

And yet my ex-wife didn't do that. Was it because she was particularly nice? Because she felt warmly toward me and didn't want to trouble me more? Because she wanted to go easy on me? Hell, no! It was because she didn't feel I posed an actual physical threat to her, and she was right, I didn't. (I posed one to myself, but that's another matter altogether. And -- happy ending to the story -- I straightened myself out, paid my ex back every dime I owed her, have met my child support obligations, and have found the right combination of therapy and drugs to keep me sane. And in exchange, I've been able to share in raising my daughter and maintain a cordial relationship with my ex. I would rather it had been an easier road, but you can't change the past.)

At any rate, I curve into my personal life to make a point: even women who have really, really good reasons to go after their significant others, absolute knowledge of how to do so, and face no financial or societal limits on filing a restraining order don't do so if they're not in physical jeopardy. Believe me, if I had been an actual danger to my ex or my daughter, my ex would have filed in a second.

Of course, I guess it just goes to show that my ex is the most perfect person ever, because mostly, VAWA just lets the dames screw the men over:

Some judges simply rubber stamp protection order requests. One example is the David Letterman case from a couple years ago, where a judge granted a lunatic woman a restraining order against Letterman because she said he was sending her harassing messages through his TV broadcasts.

Yes, that's right, VAWA made it possible for the crazy Letterman stalker to file a restraining order that was later vacated, therefore that lady with her arm in a sling is probably just filing a restraining order in order to screw over her loving, caring husband.

Another problem with VAWA is the way that it helps fund domestic violence advocacy groups’ political agenda. Whenever we try to push forward legislation to help resolve some of the gross inequities of the family system and to protect the loving bonds children share with their fathers, these groups are out in force in the legislatures to stop us.

Yes, it's a huge problem, the support of domestic violence advocacy groups. If only those groups would go away, then we wouldn't have to listen to stories about how men abuse women, and women could simply suck it up like good little girls.

Of course, I don't know why we're even talking about abuse about women, because men have it so much worse, right, guys?

HS: What are some of the misconceptions about men and domestic violence?

GS: The biggest misconception is the woman-as-victim/man-as-perp model. Research clearly establishes that women are frequently the aggressors in domestic combat, often employing the element of surprise and weapons to compensate for men’s strength. Yet the domestic violence industry—funded partly by VAWA—does everything it can to suppress this reality.

Now, note what Sacks says: women are "frequently" the aggressors in domestic combat, "often" employing the element of surprise. I suppose that's right. Once in 100 cases is still lamentably high, and frankly, I would be surprised if the percentage of men abused isn't even higher, say 5 percent of all domestic abuse events, even 10 percent.

But it should tell you how imbalanced it is that even Sacks can't bring himself to try to argue that it's anywhere near parity.

Of course....

Even when women are arrested for DV, the DV advocates pretend that she’s really the victim, and the police just misunderstood the situation. The DV industry calls female abusers “victim-defendants,” and advocates on their behalf. It’s a total perversion of what the battered women’s movement once stood for. And, in its early days, that was a very heroic movement.

Yes, like those evil, battering women, who slapped their 6'6" husbands after being thrown into a railing. I'm not saying that women who are actually the aggressors should go without punishment -- indeed, I think everyone, male or female alike, would agree that any perpetrator of violence against another person deserves what they get.

I'm kidding about that last part -- MRAs like Sacks and Dr. Helen don't really think men should be punished.

No, really:

HS: What can people like myself who care about equal rights under the law for men do to change things? Should we try to change one law at a time or is consciousness raising a better alternative?

Yes, pray tell, what of the poor rich white men? Their lives are a constant struggle against the (wo)man, who's always trying to keep them down. Why, men only control two-thirds of Congress, 89 percent of the Supreme Court, and every talk show on cable. However will we get our message of tribulation out?

Thank God for Glenn Sacks, who tells us that we just need to believe:

GS: For you personally, just keep doing what you’re doing. For the rest of us, we need to build an effective national advocacy organization that can have a regular lobbying presence in state legislatures to help change and reform the laws. Much of the problem is our fault—men’s fault. We complain that the legislators pass laws which screw us, but the reality is that when these laws were being debated, we didn’t show up, {my emphasis} we didn’t have a regular presence, we didn’t do the grunt work that the feminist groups have been doing for 35 years.

Part of that -- and I'm just speaking as a man here -- is that we don't actually have much to complain about.

Look, if you want to talk to me about the fact that men are undervalued as caregivers, I'll be happy to agree with you. And I'll be happy to share my secret solution to the problem: feminism, which views mothers and fathers as equal caregivers, and thus, would suggest that in cases where fathers really are the primary caregivers that they should get custody of the children when it's in dispute. Of course, fathers aren't usually the primary caregivers, even when they may want to be. I blame the patriarchy for that one, and I think I'm right.

But you notice that Dr. Helen and Sacks never get to custody issues, except to note that being arrested for spousal abuse is really bad for your custody case. Sacks barely mentions child support, never talks at all about being arrested outside the bounds of domestic violence laws (which you'd think he would, what with the reference to the Duke rape case. It's almost like that's just morphed into a wingnut talking point disconnected from all reality. Hmmm).

No, the focus is on how laws that protect women from abusive partners are bad, bad, bad, and only hurt men. The message is that laws that prevent spousal abuse are bad for men, and that's much more important than keeping a few women from getting hit, especially since they probably deserved it. Best to repeal VAWA now.

And I can't imagine what would happen if we repealed VAWA, but I'm sure it would lead to much less abuse and happier women who stayed with their men. At least, that's what the statistics would seem to say.

(Amanda and Scott have more.)