Sent: Sat 2004-02-21 23:01
To: Sheryl Fricke, Alberta Government, Children's ServicesDear Sheryl, Re: Regional Workshop Guide & Workbook
Alberta Roundtable on Family Violence and Bullying
Apparently posted just yesterday [2004 02 20] to the
Alberta Government's FV website (Link - PDF, 2.5MB)
[Update 2004 03 03: The Alberta Government's FV Roundtable website was revised on about 2004 03 03 to remove most of the misandrist material but still contains quotes from, references to, and citation of misandrist feminist advocacy study reports. The workbook is now no longer accessible at the Alberta Government's website. The link shown above will provide you with a copy of it
(a 2.5MB PDF file)]
Please be reminded of the commitment that Ken Chapman made at the Edmonton roundtable session (Feb. 14, 2004) that he had organized in relation to men's issues of family violence (FV). Ken promised that he would do his best to get objective family violence statistics relating to men and women posted at the Alberta Government's misandrist (my adjective, not Ken's) website (see the anti-male bias explained), if only suitable peer-reviewed material were to be made available to him. Ken also claimed on two occasions during that session that there just isn't any information like that, and that therefore no material like that has been shown at the government's FV website (2.5MB PDF file)
Tom Turner asked Ken at the Edmonton session why the government applies a double standard, with men having to provide peer-reviewed study reports, while that requirement is being waved for all information supplied by feminist promoters of the women's shelter movement and of the vilification of men. Ken did not provide a satisfactory answer to that question, but he once more stated that he would consider any peer-reviewed material he would be provided with, if only it were to exist.
It was identified to Ken that literally hundreds of objective family- or partner-violence studies do exist, and that those studies would be identified to him. Immediately after the session Ken received a comprehensive list providing access to a large number of the requested references. Sheryl, you received a copy of the message by means of which the list was identified to Ken. (See Family Violence Index) Imagine my astonishment when I read the misandrist propaganda presented in your polemic against men that you published just yesterday. Sheryl, your workbook is a misandrist polemic against men, an elaborate and cunning piece of propaganda, and a self-serving product of the government-sponsored feminist family violence industry. That workbook reinforces the anti-male propaganda you already produced via our hard-earned tax dollars and that you published at the government website. Ken Chapman's impartiality as a facilitator in the Alberta Government's FV roundtable discussions now appears very questionable. Given that he is being paid by a government with clear misandrist intentions, and given that his future employment in similar endeavours very likely depends on how well he plays the right tune that he is being paid to play by his feminist employers, he appears to be not at arm's length from the Government's intention to slander and vilify men but is in a conflict of interest situation.
In any case, at best he exhibits a strong bias by being very informed on, and by even defending, the misandrist bias of the Alberta Government's FV website, while he appears very reluctant to accept that men's views (which he seems to censor) on the issue of FV are quite obviously far more objective than those of the government misandrists that promote polemics against men and pay Ken to occupy men's attention while they do that. With men thus occupied in battling their way through extensive misandrist bias, the government-sponsored misandrists have a free hand to manufacture one polemic against men after another. Coyotes employ tactics like those of the government misandrists when they steal and kill sheep. One coyote keeps the livestock guardian dog busy at one end of the field, while the other members of the coyote pack happily, unhindered and out-of-sight kill sheep at the other end of the field. Moreover, the coyotes will always scheme how to prey on sheep, while the livestock guardian dog takes actions to protect his flock only when he becomes aware of a coyote in the vicinity.[More from our experiences with raising sheep and what we learned from that about human nature at Of sheep and people and my e-mail address —WHS]
Just like livestock guardian dogs, men are at a great disadvantage if they get a chance to only react against the predators' unceasing urge to kill and destroy. That is the law of the jungle, not that of an ordered society that protects its families against predation by extremist ideologues instead of nurturing those constantly scheming human predators. Your workbook references some objective and peer-reviewed study reports on partner violence that identify that partner violence is a phenomenon in which the sexes engage to almost identical extents, with women being slightly more often the aggressors in serious violence incidents (Brinkerhoff & Lupri, (1)). Your workbook presents the very important, peer-reviewed findings by Brinkerhoff and Lupri only to downplay them and even presents them as being questionable. A more objective view of the study was published in "The Princess at the Window", by Donna Laframboise. It refers to the study report by Brinkerhoff and Lupri and states: ...when the dust finally settled it was determined that 17.8 percent of the men and 23.3 percent of the women among the 1,530 people surveyed admitted to behaving in a "violent" manner toward their spouses.(60)
The irony, of course, is that a government [the Ontario government launched an advertising campaign against men based on only the statistics concerning women but not men as victims, by selectively quoting statistics from the report, from the very table that clearly showed that women were more often than men the perpetrators in partner violence. —WHS] concerned about the violence taking place in Canadian homes spent the better part of a million dollars on an ad campaign that targeted only wife assault. Indeed, according to the very research it chose to cite, the ads should have been targeting female violence if, for some reason, it was necessary to single out one gender. (p. 119)
Your workbook polemic against men also references a large number of reports by so-called "researchers" associated with radical-feminist organizations that have a long history of spreading misandrist and misleading information. Some of those latter study reports have not been peer-reviewed. Moreover, some of them have been thoroughly discredited. Yet it is material specifically from those reports based on biased, flawed, skewed and selective research that you chose to editorialize in a positive and approving light in your workbook polemic against men, to intensify the slandering and vilification of men. (E.g.: "Changing the Landscape: Ending Violence -- Achieving Equality" Final Report of the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women, Statistics Canada, November 1993 (2), and "Education Wife Assault" (3)) In addition, you chose selected statistics that show men in a bad light, from selected, non-peer-reviewed, questionable and editorialized statistical summaries produced by Statistics Canada, to support the editorializing done in your workbook polemic against men. You chose to use for the vilification of men the very aspects of StatCan's editorialized summaries that Eeva Sodhi extensively critiqued in her analyses of such editorializing by StatCan. (4) In case the thought never entered your mind, let me make it clear. You are engaged, with taxpayer funding (of which men produce 70 percent), in the commission of a hate crime against men. It is unconscionable that the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta endorses your efforts to intensify the vilification of men.
As incredible as that may seem under the circumstances, Ralph Klein, the Premier of Alberta, and Iris Evans, the Minister of Children's Services, endorsed your workbook polemic against men, that in its vilification of men rivals the vilification of Jews during the Nazi regime by Julius Streicher in Der Stürmer [The Assault Trooper], except that your hate-propaganda is not as raw and unpolished as that promoted by Julius Streicher. Yours is far more sophisticated and therefore also far more insidious, effective and potentially far more damaging, if not for any other reason than that it targets close to half of all Canadian citizens and is damaging to our female citizens to boot by promoting the systematic destruction of our families through deepening the rift between the sexes.
[Note added after sending the letter: Mind you, Children's Services' anti-male propaganda targets not the masses and uses the lowest level of intelligence as the common denominator — as identified as being necessary by Hitler for propaganda to be successful. No, it targets academicians and politicians, to use the lowest level of intelligence in that community as the common denominator. However, in a totalitarian regime, where academic social engineers have a strangle-hold on the political power of the nation, that is all that is needed. —WHS] It is atrocious that leaders of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta lend their names and reputation to endorse your hate propaganda. That makes the hate-crime you commit official government policy. It remains to be determined whether you conned the PC party into supporting your hate campaign against men or whether you are following the direction of our political leaders. In either case our political leaders ostensibly and legally carry the responsibility for your actions. In that context, and aside from the obvious distortions of the facts that your editorializing produced in your workbook polemic against men, it is illuminating to compare the extent of family violence (on which you focus through your gender lens so as to emphasize the exposure of violence by men against women) against the extent of other social issues that claim the health and lives of far greater numbers of people and should receive far greater public attention (and funding) to resolve them. It appears that the Alberta Government has its priorities mixed up and is running after the proverbial red herring that you are dragging across its trail. Things need to be put into perspective, not to be looked at through the gender lens. The gap in the respective average life expectancies of men and women
Canadian men live on average to only 76 years, and women to 82 years of age. (5)
Yet, Statistics Canada bemoans the calamity that, A woman born in 1999 could still expect to live, on average, longer than a man, but the gap in life expectancy between the sexes continues to close, according to the latest vital statistics. (6)
That is reason for concern and the stuff for headlines and prime-time TV news, which is no doubt what is intended by StatCan's editorializing, but the reality of it is far less threatening to the exalted position of women for which men's lives and health are being sacrificed. The trend is not threatening to women at all. Life expectancy at birth, a key indicator of a population's health status, reached record highs for both sexes in 1999. A man born in 1999 could expect to live 76.3 years, up 0.2 years from 1998. A woman's life expectancy at birth reached 81.7 years, also up 0.2 years. (6)
Life expectancies increased for both sexes by an identical 0.2 years in the 1998-99 interval, yet, contrary to what its own evidence identifies, StatCan raises anxiety and alarm that "the gap in life expectancy between the sexes continues to close." Such is the stuff that the editorializing in your workbook polemic against men is made of. Still, going by StatCan's assertion that "Life expectancy at birth [is] a key indicator of a population's health status," Canadian men's lot is a sorry one, and you and the government that pays your salary are out to make it a lot worse.
The differences in the number of suicide victims by sex
About 80 percent of all suicide victims in Canada are men or boys. In 1996 there were 3,093 male and 848 female suicide victims in Canada (7), and indications are that the annual number of suicide victims is on the increase for men, while for women it appears to be stable. In 1999 the total number of Canadian suicides was 4,074 (6), and about 80 percent or about 3,250 of those were by boys and men, while 20 percent or about 824 would have been by girls and women. Virtually nothing is being done to address the escalating Canadian suicide epidemic that is devastating Canadian men, even though the relatively small annual number of 820 or so female suicide victims is vastly greater than that of the 60 or fewer annual female victims of spousal murder in Canada.
Yet, although virtually no funding is designated to attempts for alleviating the escalating suicide epidemic, more than $400 million is being spent annually in futile attempts to alleviate an allegedly all-pervasive pandemic of violence against women that in reality is virtually non-existent in comparison to far greater Canadian social problems. While your "workbook" polemic against men decries an annual average of 13 spousal murder victims in all of Alberta, of which an annual ten are alleged to be female victims, in the greater Calgary Health Region alone there were 109 male suicide victims in 1998. In the greater Calgary region suicides are now the leading cause of death for boys and men in the age group 10 to 49, ahead of murder, ahead of traffic accidents, and ahead of all other causes of death in that age group. (8) There are now over 3,000 male deaths each year in Canada due to suicide - fifty times the number of women killed in domestic violence incidents and four times as many as the number of girls and women who commit suicide. (8)
Annual fatalities by sex
| Cause | Fatalities | References | | Anorexia nervosa (US) | 54 | a | | Suicides (US, 1996 figures) | 31,000 | b | | male | 24,998 | b | | female | 5,905 | b | | Suicides in Canada (1996) | | | | male | 3,093 | c | | female | 848 | c | | Suicides in Alberta (1997-99) | | | | male | 969 | d | | female | 259 | d | | Injuries in Alberta (1997-99) | | | | male | 2,913 | d | | female | 1,198 | d | | Cancer in Alberta (1997-99) | | | | male | 6,895 | d | | female | 6,217 | d | | Motor Vehicle Related Injuries in Alberta (1997-99) | | | | male | 774 | d | | female | 345 | d | | Deaths in hospitals due to medical errors (US) | 98,000 | e | | Deaths in hospitals due to medical errors, maltreatment and neglect (Canada) | 30,000 | e | | Partner violence in Alberta (annual av.) | 13 | f | | male (est. annual average 1975-99) | 3 | f | | female (est. annual average 1975-99) | 10 | f | | Partner violence in Canada | | | | male (approximate. annual average) | 21 | g | | female (1997, StatCan) | 63 | g | _____________
References:Christina Hoff Sommers, "Who Stole Feminism?", (Quote at <https://fathersforlife.org/health/anorexia8.htm#Deaths>). Centers for Disease Control (1996 Quotes and sources at <https://fathersforlife.org/ussuic.htm>) "Suicides, and suicide rate, by sex and by age group" <http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/health01.htm> "Number of Deaths for Selected Causes By Sex and Region of Residence 1997-99", Alberta Government, Health and Wellness, Regional Health Authorities <http://www.health.gov.ab.ca/system/rhas/require/b5a-99.htm> Reader's Digest; Quote and source at <https://fathersforlife.org/health/anorexia10.htm#HospitalDeaths>) "Regional Workshop Guide & Workbook" Alberta Government, Feb. 2004 (PDF doc; 2.6MB) Source: Statistics Canada, quoted and discussed in "Spousal Assault and Murder [in Canada]", by Eeva Sodhi.
<https://fathersforlife.org/Sodhi/fvcan1.htm#Spousalassltmrdr>
The reference is used on account of the important insights Eeva Sodhi's discussion brings to the debate, primarily her debunking of the editorializing that StatCan routinely engages in with the intent to manufacture victim status for women. The figure of 21 male spousal murder victims is based on the annual average of about one quarter of spousal murder victims that are identified being male.
In that context it is necessary to recognize the importance of the following statement by Eeva Sodhi: "Considering that a significant number of homicides remain unsolved we can only deduce that the number of men killed by their female partners will never be known." Time and again, when women murder men, the murders routinely go undetected as such for a very long time (poison is one of women's favorite murder weapons), and the victim's murderer therefore goes unpunished or receives at worst only a token of punishment years after she did her deed. In the case of violent murders of men a female perpetrator is one of the last parties to be suspected and the least likely to be convicted, by far.
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In light of those statistics, why do Alberta women's shelters receive as much as $13 million in funding annually, and men's shelters not only receive no funding at all, but aren't even granted an operating licence? How come your hatred of men runs that deep?
The disparity in court proceedings involving cases of family violence
You illustrate in your "workbook" that in Alberta "Between 1974 and 2000, an average of ten women and three men were murdered each year by their spouses (Statistics Canada, 1999b)." Yet, not once did you allude to the fact that when a woman claims self-defence, the battered woman's syndrome, or to have been in the state of "automatism" when she killed her male spouse, she is likely to be exonerated, and her victim will most likely be counted as a victim of manslaughter and not be tallied into family violence statistics. For example, Dorothy Joudrie's almost successful attempt to murder her husband by shooting him three time into the back and shooting him three more times as he lay close to death on the floor of the garage of her home that she occupied (she missed once with those last three shots) did not become a family violence statistic. In the eyes of some people no woman can be or do wrong even when she kills. There are always extenuating circumstances. When no male culprit can be alleged without the accuser appearing to be ludicrous, "her inner demons" or, in the case of Dorothy Joudrie, a specifically invented exotic defence such as "automatism" will soon be manufactured. (9)
[Update 2008 10 22:
Video on
violent women]
Aside from your successful efforts to vilify men and to bolster sympathy and funding for your clearly criminal intentions, let me put your efforts into another perspective. Each year, one out of every 350,000 of us will die from falling out of bed. (10)
There is no doubt in my mind that some of the deaths caused by falling out of bed are being attributed to family- or partner violence. It would be interesting to know how many of those deaths involve female victims. However, from the incidence rate of such deaths it can be calculated that quite possibly 94 of them, more than the fatalities from partner violence, occur each year in Canada. Imagine what could be done with more than $400 million dollars worth of funding if that were to be diverted from futile attempts to curb virtually non-existent family violence to promote a far more effective and far more lucrative program for saving lives by providing safer beds for all. I am sure that you are fully aware of all that I stated in this message, but I did not state those facts to educate you. I stated them to demonstrate to others how well and how effectively the Alberta Government's bureaucracy lies. It seems to me that Hitler was right. If you wish for propaganda to succeed, tell lies, tell BIG lies; repeat them incessantly and all-pervasively until the masses accept them as the truth. Of course, you must have known about that strategy, too. After all, you have been using it for years and are well-versed in it. It is very clear. Although the absolute truth cannot be diminished by any amount of editorializing or bargaining, you attempt to engage Alberta men in bargaining, and it appears that you come to the bargaining table in very bad faith. Sincerely and disgustedly yours, Walter Schneider Cc: Men's rights activists
Pro-family activists
Some Alberta MLAs
Media in Alberta, Canada and the USA _______________________
References:- Brinkerhoff, M., & Lupri, E. (1988), "Interspousal Violence" Canadian Journal of Sociology, 13(4), 407-434.
Dr. Tana Dineen (in "Manufacturing Victims", in the chapter "Selling Psychology as Science", at the end of the section "Abuse of Numbers", in which she provides a number of examples of number abuse) analyses the infamous example of the "rape of numbers" that was provided by the report "Changing the Landscape: Ending Violence -- Achieving Equality, Final Report of the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women, Statistics Canada, November 1993". (p. 142). More on the rape of numbers at <https://fathersforlife.org/mv1rv.htm> "The truth about family violence in Canada: 5. "The United Way's Education Wife Assault (EWA)", <https://fathersforlife.org/Sodhi/fvcan3.htm> "Family Violence in Canada 2000 - An Alternative Approach, Part 2, 'Spousal Violence'" <https://fathersforlife.org/Sodhi/fvcans2.htm>, and Part 3, 'Spousal Homicide and Research' <https://fathersforlife.org/Sodhi/fvcans3.htm>; See also "The truth about family violence in Canada: Canadian Family Violence Statistics", by Eeva Sodhi, at <https://fathersforlife.org/Sodhi/fvcan1.htm> "Differences in the life expectancies of the sexes in various countries in the world." <https://fathersforlife.org/health/lifeexpw.htm> Statistics Canada, The Daily. Tuesday, May 7, 2002: "Deaths 1999" <http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/020507/d020507b.htm>
Canadian Suicides https://fathersforlife.org/health/cansuic.htm>
"Suicide in Alberta, Canada", https://fathersforlife.org/health/altasuic.htm> In the spring of 1996, Calgary witnessed its own version of a tawdry criminal trial in the case of 61-year-old socialite Dorothy Joudrie's attempted murder on Jan. 21, 1995 of her estranged business-magnate husband, Earl. <http://66.244.199.219/CKUA_Archives/eng/archive/news_jourdrie.aspx> "Are You Normal?" (Kanner, St. Martin's), quoted at <http://cagle.slate.msn.com/true.gif> (Save that cartoon to your hard drive. It will be available only for a few days.)
Walter H. Schneider
Fathers for Life
https://fathersforlife.org
http://dads.blog-city.com
See also:
The 1989 Montreal Massacre in the context of men’s sacrifices, 2008 12
07, by Professor Jeffrey Asher. |
