NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/soc/feminism/2595

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-24 | 4.2 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Dave Gross)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Violence Against Women Act
Date: 23 Nov 1992 23:59:28 GMT
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When some feminists seek to justify sexual discrimination laws or
proposals in which the sexual discrimination is seen by those feminists
to be in women's "favor," they can occasionally resort to stereotyped
rationalizations which strongly resemble those used by sexists opposed
to women's rights in other arenas.

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>[e-mail] (Will Steeves) writes:
>| [Complaints about the sexism in, and a sexist interpretation of the
>|  proposed "Violence Against Women Act."  Steeves felt that this
>|  legislation discriminates against men by providing assistance to
>|  female victims of crime at the expense of male victims.]
>
>I think the issue is one of handling the worst problems
>first.  For instance, while the initiation of combat in the
>home is about evenly distributed between the sexes, since
>men are generally larger, stronger, and more experienced in
>fighting, the men generally wind up creating more damage to
>their opponents than the other way around.  Hence, if we are
>interested in the suppression or remedy of such damage, we
>must inhibit the male participants first, and provide for
>those who do not have private means to escape the still
>uninhibited.

One of the more influential arguments against allowing women in the
military, the police, and other professions is the argument that men are
generally larger, stronger, and (in the case of the military) more
experienced in fighting.

The counter-argument is that while /on average/ men may have more of
these qualities, /individual/ men and women vary widely and the area of
overlap between the sexes is greater than the statistical area
containing only strong, large, robust men.  Therefore, the test for
suitability for a job on the police force, front-line combat,
firefighting, etc. should be a test of strength, size, or whatever
qualities are important for an individual on that job -- but not simply
gender.

This, to me, is the stronger argument.  I believe it can also be applied
in the case of domestic violence.  It has been shown that domestic
violence, statistically, is a two-way street.  Both men and women
initiate and perform domestic violence, and have similar motivations.
Some of the studies I have seen seem to indicate, though, that men are more
likely to cause serious injury (for various reasons, this is a harder
statistic to gather and verify than might be suspected).

But there are men who are seriously battered as well as women.  The
solution to the problem of domestic violence may be to start with those
victims who are "worse off" by some criterion (severity of injury
perhaps), but the gender of the victim is not a good criterion in my
view.

In conclusion, I think it is important for feminists who seek to justify
legalized gender bias to carefully examine their arguments in order to
make sure that they aren't inadvertantly strengthening sexist positions
held by their ideological foes.

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