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Dr. Helen: Women are teh Suxor
By Jeff Fecke | October 9, 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.
Topics: Feminism, The Men's Rights Movement | 13 Comments »
October 9th, 2007 at 9:17 am
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today on Dr. Helen: Women are teh SuxorHere’s a quick excerptI’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 … [...]
October 9th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
[...] 2) Male feminist blogger Jeff Fecke (pictured), who (sigh) calls me a “misogynist.” To join the discussion on his blog(s), click here and here. [...]
October 9th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
It sounds as though you validate the legitimacy of your perceived male hegemony (in the media, and in imposed physical dominance), by saying this is a counterbalance to women who abuse men. Usually men are taught not to hit or abuse women, or to leverage institutional bias against women. So if that teaching were to be heeded, and men did not impose physical dominance over women, and men did not utilize their vast network of Old Boys Network contacts to keep women at bay — if men behaved like perfect gentlemen — then what is their recourse against abusive women?
Secondly, you seem to be ignoring the fact that both government and private academic research shows that women are the perpetrators from 38-50 percent of the time. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control just issued a report about a study which revealed that in relationships where the abuse is going one way, over 2/3 of the time it is the woman who is doing the abusing. How’s that for a “patriarchal environment of male-imposed terror?” More like the reverse — and the female abuser knows she can get away with it due to overwhelming social concern for the plight of ACTUAL domestic violence victims.
Thirdly, even if you were right and abuse against males only covered 10 percent of the population (a contention that is wrong, as the totality of research reveals), why not show genuine concern for them?
October 9th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
“Before we move on, let me tell any MRAs reading this: while Sacks is well-positioned as an ideologue and misogynist…”
It really is rather sad that anyone who actually preaches true equality, something that will benefit us all, is dismissed as “an ideologue and misogynist.”
By the way, here is the link for that CDC study:
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/42/15/31-a.
So it looks like most women who abuse men are NOT doing so only “after they have been thrown into a railing.” Sorry to burst your misandrist bubble.
October 9th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
> 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.
This highly unusual outcome of the Duke “rape” case was a result of the defendants’ above average resourcefullness. They could simply afford legal support your average falsely accused bloke can only dream of.
> 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.
Being a practicing lawyer, your wife knew she was _capable_ of successfully arguing for whatever she wanted _without_ resorting to using a restraining order for advantage. Her row in the pay matrix for this tactic had zero in the DON’T column, and a negative (the infinitesimal risk of the manipulation being exposed) in the DO column, so she obviously chose DON’T, that’s your game theory 101.
Granted it is also posible that your wife, being a lawyer, has internalized the deep philosphical principles off fairness that underlie the law, and therefore was hesitant to play unfairly. But this makes her even more unrepresentative of typical grudge-filled divorcing purchasers of “All Men Are Bastards” knife stands (look this one up).
> Why, men only control two-thirds of Congress, 89 percent
> of the Supreme Court,
The Frontman Fallacy.
> and every talk show on cable.
Like, uh, Oprah’s?
October 9th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
I don’t know what your personal attacks on the romantic preferences of Glenn Reynolds or Helen Smith have to do with the logic of your argument.
I would think these personal attacks would weaken your argument, but you have no argument.
Unlike most people that claim to be liberals, you believe that the relatively rich and privileged nature of the Duke students led to an outcome that anyone can obtain. I was reminded earlier today of LBJ’s reaction to affirmative action: “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, `You are free to compete with an the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.”
Most of us actual liberals would praise the Duke decision and then try to make sure that what happened there could and would happen for everyone else.
Instead of listening to Amanda Marcotte, you may wish to listen to an actual liberal woman, Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft.
Your wife was good to you. You were bad to her. She didn’t bend you over backwards. You deduce from that that no other women would.
Do you really believe such logic?
Others have pointed out that you are wrong on the facts regarding Domestic Violence.
Glenn Sacks is certainly not a misogynist. You are certainly not an informed progressive liberal.
October 9th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAnd — 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. … [...]
October 9th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Using the Duke case as your example was about the worst thing you could have done. The DA ADMITTED he withheld evidence and was deliberatly trying to pin the crime on kids he KNEW was innocent just to further his own agenda.
These kids were only guilty of hiring a stripper for a party. They hired a women who knowingly and willfully shows her body to men ( and I have worked in strip clubs they do more then just show it if the price is right and they know EXACTLY what they are doing) but yet you would portray this woman as a victim.
I know a great many men who have NEVER by word or deed done anything to belittle or injure thier spouse but yet because they didnt live up to the “what have you done for me lately” mentality that many women have these days they are divorced and the things which they, in many cases, as the sole breadwinner have scrimped and saved to aquire to satisfy the appetites of the significant other.
You and the other left leaners can beat your chests and pull your hair and scream on Oprah how skewed the system is against women and how unfairly treated they are by the Misognyistic legal system. Ill tell that to the father living in a rat infested motel because between the ruinous child support and his basic needs thats all he can afford. Ill also tell that to the man sitting in jail because he couldnt afford the child support and debt FORCED upon him by a court system which knew he couldnt afford it to begin with.
You and others of your ilk can say what you want but I notice the only time you raise you voice in protest is when things dont go your way. Try going to child support court…I promise you will get your fill of that feeling.
October 10th, 2007 at 3:35 am
[...] Jeff Fecke wrote a fantastic post today on “Dr. Helen: Women are teh Suxor”Here’s ONLY a quick extractHelen 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 … [...]
October 10th, 2007 at 3:38 am
[...] 2) Male feminist blogger Jeff Fecke (pictured), who (sigh) calls me a “misogynist.” To join the discussion on his blog(s), click here and here. [...]
October 11th, 2007 at 2:39 am
Fecke is a eunuch. Just an observation.
October 15th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Fecke should be checked for extra Y chromosomes. His preoccupation with the inevitability of men beating women sounds like a wish fulfillment fantasy. Therapy should be considered. His bleating appologies for his missteps with his own wife is self flagalation at its finest. The premise of his argument is, however, that all men are prone to such barbarism with their women. I have never considered such behavior, and I do not know anyone personally (well maybe one lawyer in Colorado) who has. Who is he talking about. Apparently not him. Humm…wish fullment?
June 1st, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Wow it looks like you have the same honor many of us share – the privilege to be hated by many of the cult followers :-) What can anyone say but drink the koolaid?
Thanks for your posts on this and many other issues.