fuzzy post-it

btw i also went to great pains to keep that doc at 133 pages long

but i think it only works if you have the font i used installed, and it only ships by default with linux :( on mel’s windows machine it’s actually 135 pages.

jolteon is cool too i guess.

plansfornigel:

DEBUNKING THE MEN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT

POSTED BY
DEBUNKINGMRAS

POSTED ON
MARCH 12, 2014

What follows is a response to a popular list of claims and arguments made by men’s rights activists.

1. SUICIDE: Men’s suicide rate is 4.6 times higher than that of women’s. [Dept. Health & Human Services — 26,710 males vs 5,700 females]

Not for lack of trying: women attempt it three times as often. [1] Men are more likely to succeed because we are trained for violence, trained for emotional detachment, and trained to deal with problems ourselves rather than seeking help from others. Moreover, we are socialized with a sense of self-importance that can lead men to believe family members would be better off dead without them or to use suicide as a form of revenge against people close to them. The statistic given here also masks that many of these “suicides” were actually murder-suicides. In the United States, an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 people died in suicide attacks each year. [2] More than ninety percent of the offenders are men; nearly all the victims are female. [3]

2. LIFE EXPECTANCY: Men’s life expectancy is seven (7) years shorter than women’s [National Center for Health Statistics — males 72.3 yrs vs females 79 yrs] yet receive only 35% of government expenditures for health care and medical costs.

This is a curious statement. If women live seven years longer than men, it should be obvious why they receive more health support: because the oldest people in society are those that most need subsidized health support, and the oldest people are predominantly women. Furthermore, the insurance industry charges $1 billion a year more to women in health insurance each year for the same coverage plans men receive [4], and up to 53% more for the same individual coverage plan [5], despite women’s overall better health and despite receiving 23% less income then men. [6]

3. WAR: Men are almost exclusively the only victims of war [Dept. Defense — Vietnam Casualties 47,369 men vs 74 women]

The first thing to say is that if trained soldiers sent to engage in imperial wars of aggression can be called “victims” at all, then they are victims of those responsible for the wars in which they fought. And those responsible are men. All Presidents and Vice Presidents have been men. All members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been men. Both branches of Congress have always been dominated by men. Polls since Vietnam show that men have been the ones to support going to war, and the ones most likely to support wars currently in progress. [7] On every level of analysis it is men who are responsible for war, and to somehow blame male combat deaths on women is not only absurd, but insane. If we want to stop these deaths, we need to stop those who are responsible for them: the male politicians, male military personnel, male war contractors, and male warmongers who perpetuate them.

The second thing to say is that this is simply a lie. A study by researchers at the Harvard Medical School looking at wars in 13 countries, including the Vietnam War, found that of the 5.4 million people violently killed, more than 1 million were female. [8] This figure does not account for those women killed less directly through aerial spraying, inflicted poverty, or as the result of sexual torture by men. This also ignores male sexual violence during wartime. In Vietnam, for instance, it was common and accepted practice for soldiers to gang rape women and young girls, as well to kill a female following a rape. [9] Such was the frequency of the latter that the term “double veteran” was coined to refer to such perpetrators. [10]

4. WORKPLACE FATALITIES: Men account for more than 95% of all workplace fatalities.

The figure is 92% as of 2012. One important reason for this discrepancy is that men are inclined to select work that is dangerous in order to prove their masculinity to women, to other men, and to themselves. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the most dangerous professions in the United States are construction, transportation, and warehousing, all of which are male-dominated professions. [11] Men’s relative risk of danger is further increased through a relative lack of safety compliance. [12] Tellingly, the most common way for a woman to die in the workplace is to be murdered. [11]

5. MURDER: Men are murdered at a rate almost 5 times that of women. [Dept. Health & Human Services — 26,710 men vs 5,700 women]

Men also murder at a rate more than 9 times that of women. That men are often killed by other men is not a problem that women are responsible for. I can hardly imagine why that even needs to be said. In the United States in 2010, 1,095 women were killed by husbands or boyfriends, accounting for 37.5% of female murders. By contrast, only 241 men were killed by their female partners. [13] The smallness of this figure is particularly striking when we consider that 200,000 women in the United States suffer serious violence from male partners each year. [14]

6. CHILD CUSTODY: Women receive physical custody of 92% of all children of separation, and men only 4%. [Department of Health & Human Services]

91% of the time, custody is agreed upon or settled by parents themselves, usually without outside mediation. Mothers are more likely to receive custody because both parents usually understand that it is in the best interests of their children. In married two-partner households, women spend nearly twice as much time doing child care as their male partners. [15] Only 4% of custody cases go to trial and only 1.5% are resolved there. [16] In disputed custody cases, fathers win custody 70% of the time, [17] despite abusive men being among those most likely to fight for custody. [18]

7. JURY BIAS: Women are acquitted of spousal murder at a rate 9 times that of men [Bureau Justice Statistics — 1.4% of men vs 12.9% of women]

This is not a matter of “bias”: women are sometimes acquitted of murdering their husbands because their husbands abused them or their children. It is estimated that 1.3 million women are beaten by male partners in the United States every year, putting them in fear for their lives. [18] Every one of these women would be justified in killing her spouse or partner and receiving an acquittal. It is exceptionally rare for any man to experience a comparable level of terroristic threat from his wife.

8. COURT BIAS: Men are sentenced 2.8 times longer than women for spousal murder [Bureau Justice Statistics — men at 17 years vs women at 6 years]

As per above, many women receive lighter sentences for killing their husbands because their purpose in doing so was to stop physical abuse against themselves or their children.

9. JUSTICE SYSTEM BIAS: Women are assessed for Child Support on average at half the rate of men, yet are twice as likely to default on Child Support payments. Ninety Seven (97%) of all child support prosecutions are against fathers. [Census Bureau]

Women are assessed less often than men and default more often because women aged 18-35 have on average $0 in net worth. Many mothers simply have no means to pay child support. By comparison, white men of the same age have a median wealth of $5,600, and men of color have $1,000. [20] This wealth discrepancy also pressures young mothers who care for the welfare of their children to prosecute men for child support.

10. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: Numerous credible studies from independent researchers report that women are the initiators of domestic violence in 58% of all cases, and cause physical abuse in almost 50% of all cases, yet women only account for 6% of all criminal proceedings in such matters.

It’s telling that you speak of “numerous credible studies” and carefully avoid citing any of them. I tried to find studies from any source making such claims, with no success. What I did find is the most recent report by the US Department of Justice, which found women suffer 805,700 physical injuries at the hands of partners each year, compared to 173,960 men. Moreover, the injuries suffered by women were more than twice as likely to be considered “serious”, defined as including sexual violence, gunshot and knife wounds, internal injuries, unconsciousness, and broken bones. To put that another way, partners inflicted 104,741 serious injuries on women, compared with less than 9,400 inflicted on men, a greater than 11:1 ratio. [14] Even those men who have been subject to partner violence have usually not taken it seriously. According to a study by researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin, they were “significantly more likely than were women to laugh at partner-initiated violence”, while women “reported more fear, anger, and insult and less amusement when their partners were violent.” [21] It’s also worth noting that a number of these male injuries were incurred by male rather than female partners; according to a 2000 Department of Justice report, men living with male partners are at nearly twice the risk of “serious” violence as those living with women. [22] If women really are criminally prosecuted in 6% of domestic violence cases, then that figure sounds eminently reasonable.

11. CHILD VIOLENCE: Mothers commit 55% of all child murders and biological fathers commit 6%. NIS-3 indicates that Mother-only households are 3 times more fatal to children than Father-only households. Despite these compelling figures, children are systematically removed from the natural fathers who are their most effective protectors.

The first sentence is unsourced and not credible. According to one group of filicide [child murder] researchers:

Although some studies have noted that mothers commit filicide more often than fathers, other research has shown that paternal filicide is as common or more common than maternal filicide.

Reports of a higher proportion of maternal filicides most likely reflect the inclusion of neonaticides in some studies. [23]

In other words, there is no agreement as to whether mothers or fathers are more likely to kill their own children, but when mothers are seen as more likely, it is likely because infanticides are included in the results. According to the above researchers, the main motivation “may be the undesirability of the child,” and mothers under the age of 20 with a previous child are among those most likely to engage in such a murder. Young mothers without sufficient economic, family, or medical support may find there are no better options for themselves or for their other children. By contrast, fathers who kill their children are “often perpetrators of fatal-abuse filicide”, meaning that they batter their children to death. Some of the most common motivations for father filicide are “attempts to control the child’s behavior, and misinterpretation of the child’s behavior”. [23]

I’ve recently obtained a copy of the NIS-3 study, and while Table 5-4 does indeed provide data indicating that “Mother-only households are 3 times more fatal to children than Father-only households,” the provided footnote also says explicitly that the difference is either statistically insignificant or marginal, with p-values above 0.10. What that means is that the numbers, while provided, are statistically worthless and cannot be used to even hint at inferences. Meanwhile, the data from the NIS-3 regarding parental households that is statistically valid paints a very different picture. In every category, father-only households put children at a higher risk of harm than mother-only households. Risk of abuse is 71% higher, including a 68% greater chance of physical abuse. Risk of neglect is 28% higher, including a 32% rise for physical neglect, 67% rise for emotional neglect, and 14% rise for educational neglect. Risk of both moderate or serious injury is 40% higher.

That this is true is particularly exceptional when we pair this with data from the more recent NIS-4 study which found that households with a lower socioeconomic status were nearly 7 times more likely to involve neglect, including a nearly ninefold risk of physical neglect. Overally the safety of children in these households was classified as 5.7 times more severe than those of a higher socioeconomic background. [24] Single women with children are far more likely than men to live under conditions of severe poverty: both black and Hispanic women with children under age 18 have an average median wealth of $0, compared to $10,960 for black men and $2,400 for Hispanic men; white women with children have an average median wealth of $7,970, compared to an average of $56,100 for white men. [20] If economic justice for women was sufficiently advanced, we would expect the safety of mother-only households illustrated by the NIS-3 to increase still further. Given this information, to call fathers the “most effective protectors” of children is a hateful turn of phrase, suggesting that mothers wish harm on their children and only fathers can protect them. This in spite of the reality that children are far safer in the custody of their mothers than their fathers.

12. WEALTH: Women hold 65% of the total wealth in the USA [Fortune Magazine]

This is a ridiculous lie, and to their credit I can find no evidence that Fortune Magazine ever made such a claim.

Contrary to this claim, one Harvard University researcher found that men have an average net worth of $26,850, compared to an average of $12,900 for women. [25] That is to say, men on average hold more than twice the wealth of women.

References

[1] http://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures
[2] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/21/murder-suicides-are-in-a-class-by-themselves/2572133/
[3] http://www.jaapl.org/content/37/3/371.long
[4] http://www.nwlc.org/press-release/new-nwlc-report-discriminatory-health-insurance-practices-cost-women-1-billion-year
[5] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/health/policy/women-still-pay-more-for-health-insurance-data-shows.html?scp=1&sq=women%20insurance%20costs&st=cse
[6] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/07/the-wage-gap-between-men-and-women-has-grown-during-the-recovery/
[7] http://www.gallup.com/poll/7243/gender-gap-varies-support-war.aspx
[8] http://www.bmj.com/content/336/7659/1482
[9] Nick Turse, Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam, pages 164-171
[10] http://www.waywordradio.org/double_veteran_1/
[11] http://pro.sagepub.com/content/41/2/1283.short
[12] http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0011.pdf
[13] http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded/expandhomicidemain
[14] http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ipvav9311.pdf
[15] http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/06/15/a-tale-of-two-fathers/
[16] http://www.divorcepeers.com/stats18.htm#fn%201
[17] Joan Zorza, “Batterer manipulation and retaliation compounded by denial and complicity in the family courts” In M.T. Hannah & B. Goldstein (editors), Domestic violence, abuse and child custody: Legal strategies and policy issues
[18] http://www.nnflp.org/apa/issue5.html
[19] http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/ipvbook-a.pdf
[20] http://www.insightcced.org/uploads/CRWG/LiftingAsWeClimb-WomenWealth-Report-InsightCenter-Spring2010.pdf
[21] http://vaw.sagepub.com/content/8/11/1301.short
[22] https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/181867.pdf
[23] http://www.jaapl.org/content/35/1/74.full.pdf+html
[24] http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/nis4_report_congress_full_pdf_jan2010.pdf
[25] http://citation.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/0/9/2/6/pages109260/p109260-1.php

This synopsis was written by Owen Lloyd, a stay-at-home dad living on the Oregon coast. Hate mail can be addressed to him at owen.lloyd@gmail.com.

http://debunkingmras.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/debunking-the-mens-rights-movement-x/

rebloggin this entire fucking thing for all this delicious bad math

a while back i stumbled upon “dontneedfeminism” which had a lot of long posts of gripes about how hard men have it and links to back them up

i read a lot of the links (because hey wow this stuff is interesting) and mostly found a whole lot of serious twisting of statistics. i am pretty interested in math so this got me all fired up

i’m still seeing the originals get reblogged with comments like “heh and some people think we still need feminism” though so i’m shamelessly signal-boosting my responses

these cover a broad array of MRAish issues like custody battles and punishment for crime and education and so on

spoilers: almost all of the issues (or at least the linked research) boiled down to other factors, including gender stereotypes, racism, and classism. at least, the ones that weren’t outright fabricated. which sort of reinforces my suspicion that MRAs and anti-feminists don’t really care about solving or even examining these issues; they just collect them so they have something to flaunt at feminists. which is, you know, utterly repulsive.

links, with some choice quotes:

bad math, round 1:

…black men are penalized significantly more harshly than anyone else, whereas black women appear to be treated about the same as non-black women…

bad math, round 2:

…i’m also curious why there are almost twice as many homeless women with children as homeless men with children. does this mean about half of homeless families have both parents, and half have only a mother? where is the father?…

bad math, round 3:

feminists see things that are worse for women, and want to make them better for women. you see things that are worse for men, and apparently want to make them worse for women.

and a response to a response:

but distinct from issues that affect men just as much are issues that have different negative effects on men and women

for example, while women still win more custody battles, that also means most single parents (about 5 in 6) are single mothers.

bad math 4, from a disingenuous cretin named “logicd”:

interpreting statistics is tricky business; careful when making bold claims or you might come across as a bit silly

bad math 5:

are men not choosing to take far more dangerous jobs? they could be nurses and secretaries.

are men not choosing to commit more crimes, and ones that are more severe to boot?

in only FOUR DAYS… the number of years since my last cubic age will be exactly half what the number of years to my next cubic age was now

how many times in your life can you even say that

dontneedfeminism:

mr-cappadocia:

Would feminists feel that equality has been reached when 50% of the prison population consisted of women? When 50% of workplace deaths consisted of women? When 50% of suicides consisted of women? When 50% of homeless were women and 50% of women lost their children in divorce?

Does anyone reading this believe for a single solitary moment that feminists would EVER fight to deprive women of their children to benefit men? To actively work to create that 50% of women who lose their children to men. It would certainly be equal.

Somehow, I don’t think so. This is why I think Feminism and Feminists in general are full of shit.

The practical application of the stated goals of their ideology (equal rights/economics/etc etc for all) would require women to ACTIVELY WORK AGAINST THEIR OWN INTERESTS.

i have several simultaneous comments

1. yes

2. well, 51%

3. what is your proposal? the last paragraph strongly implies that the only solution is to increase the number of homeless women, women committing suicide, etc. to balance the numbers out. this seems impractical.

   what i would actually like to see is not equal representation in tragedy, but a reduction in tragedy: no crime, no workplace injury, no suicide, no homelessness, and no custody battles. if these problems concern you so much, you should work to address them, not flaunt them as evidence of how hard up you are by demographic proxy.

   feminists see things that are worse for women, and want to make them better for women. you see things that are worse for men, and apparently want to make them worse for women.

dontneedfeminism:

Feminists tell us that men are more privileged in society, even though men make up 76% of the homeless population.

i am too lazy to reply to most of these (sorry!) because i’m far more interested in this bad math here

from your own link, and also some others i found, we get:

“In 2007, a survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that of the population surveyed 35% of the homeless people who are members of households with children are male while 65% of these people are females. However, 67.5% of the single homeless population is male, and it is this single population that makes up 76% of the homeless populations surveyed.”

i am pretty sure you’re reading this wrong because the numbers don’t make any sense otherwise. this paragraph says that 76% of homeless people are single, not single males. that gives us a male homeless rate of 67.5% × 76% + 35% × 24% = 59.7%. still an imbalance, but rather less of one.

(your interpretation would mean that 76% of all homeless people are male, even though 35% of homeless household members are male and 67.5% of single homeless are male. you cannot combine two crossed subsets like that and end up with a larger total.)

i’m also curious why there are almost twice as many homeless women with children as homeless men with children. does this mean about half of homeless families have both parents, and half have only a mother? where is the father? is he separately homeless, putting him in the single population? prison? dead? fucking statistics.

IN CONCLUSION i suspect that a lot of this numerology (especially in regards to crime and violence and other serious tragedy) boils down to problems with poverty, and gender disparity in either direction is a weird symptom of how gender intersects with poverty rates. the poor get pretty fucked in the US and i don’t think anyone who claims to be progressive in any direction is opposed to fixing that.