Anyone see these signs: Make "Violence against Women Act" gender neutral

[LynneSin]

There are 2 of these signs in delaware specifically aimed at Sen. Joe Biden to make the "Violence Against Women" act 'Gender Neutral'. There's a plea and a picture of some guy who looks like he was beat up.

Mind you, I am against all forms of violence including men who happen to suffer from domestic violence (something like 850,000 men last year reported domestic violence).

But something STINKS about this group and I can't see on the sign who is behind this. But the reason I say STINKS is a worry that if "Violence Against Women" act becomes gender neutral then somehow it could be used as an anti-choice/anti-women law.

Am I on something here?

[China_cat]

1. Yes you are.

Because if it's 'gender neutral', all the 250 lb. guy beating his 100 lb. wife has to do is say, "she hit me first" and he walks. Usually to her door with a gun.

[woodsprite]

2. It's been bothering me everytime I go to work...

I was in the Newark ER when a guy came in whose wife hit him over the head with a cast iron skillet and pushed him thru a plate glass window, so I KNOW it does happen once in awhile. But those signs do bother me.

[China_cat]

3. Like any other crime of violence,

it would be a good idea to find out why. Was she just violent or protecting herself? Women are not raised to fight that way. We are raised to use words and rat poison.

[Eloriel]

6. Yeah? And what went on just before that not to mention

the months and YEARS before that?

[Finn MacCool]

4. I see how it could be a tactic to water down the "Violence against

Women" act -- but I don't see how it could be used as an anti-choice wedge. How are they related?

[Warpy]

5. Even though women outnumber men about 8 to 1 as

victims of domestic violence, it does go both ways. Men find it easier to leave a marriage because they can do so unencumbered by children and a lack of job skills and they are less likely to wind up in the hospital or dead. However, the violence can be serious and men feel stigmatized by it, that old thing about being beaten up by a GURL.

Domestic violence is horrible, no matter who the victim is. The only solution is to GET OUT, and men already have the bulk of the resources they need to do so. The majority of victims, women, simply do not. Women need shelters. Men can afford furnished apartments.

I think that what may be tripping your BS meter is that the benefits of the program will be gender neutral, meaning men will find shelters they don't need suddenly funded, while there will be a decrease in the number of shelters available to women and their children.

[Eloriel]

7. In addition to everything else said

(and I SO resent the "but men are victims too" comments. Why must men ALWAYS be over-represented in EVERYthing and even in every discussion about women's issues? If they were PROPERLY represented in this thread, there'd be maybe 2 posts about the poor men to sevral hundred about the women and their children. :grr: )

Making such a thing gender neutral disappears the problem. Poof, it's gone as an issue about women (Hah! not too unlike this thread!), at least where federal funding is concerned.

An analogy: there are those, usually conservatives but ill-informed liberals sometimes pick up the idea, who say things like, "Let's get rid of this hyphenated-American thing. We should all just be Americans."

Well, completely aside from the fact that people have the right to self-identify and it's a GOOD thing for America for its citizens to retain something of their ethnic heritage, disallowing or putting pressure on eliminating African-American (especially), or Mexican-American, and all the others allows you to also eliminate discussions about different (discriminatory) treatment of these other citizens. If you can't talk about the groups (or violence against WOMEN), you can't gather stats and for all practical purposes the problem disappears.

I'm so sick of those men whose egos are so fragile that they just can't stand to be excluded from anything, including claiming victim status (hah! as if....) and whose hatred of women so overpowering that they would go to these utterly ridiculous lengths. They are beyond pity.

[undergroundpanther]

8. Agreed.

Pity that is the hitch..

Some people really do not DESERVE pity.

Pity gets misplaced and ernds up harming hurting people too damn often.