Subject: Re: (U.K.) Domestic Violence Against Men (TV Channel 4) -Reply
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 12:26:07 -0800
From: Walter Schneider < >
To: Denis Herard <dherard@assembly.ab.ca>
CC: Gus Sleiman <mesa@lexicom.ab.ca>
Dear Mr. Herard,
Denis Herard wrote:
> This is an issue that needs to be studied further!
Thank you for your interest in the issue of denial of the fact of the extent of female-perpetrated family violence.
No doubt, you are aware that the circumstances that were brought to light in the two items that I had sent to you are symptomatic of the state of family-violence politics in all developed nations, including the Province of Alberta. Study of the situation is required, here and elsewhere. However, the problem is not so much a scarcity of studies as it is the denial by society of the findings reported by objective social scientists in their studies.
More than 100 studies of the roles of the sexes in family violence were done by reputable social researchers in North America over the last three decades. All of these studies found to varying extent that family violence is not a gender issue but rather a human failing that is gender-neutral, or that women, if anything, are slightly more likely than men to initiate family violence against their spouses.
The U.S. Bureau of Justice tells us that 41% of spousal murders that were brought to trial were committed by women. Even in Canada, where gender-related statistics are routinely obfuscated and obscured, 25% of spousal murder victims, based on cases of spousal murder that were brought to trial, were men. Yet, out of the many hundreds of emergency shelters in Canada no more than four are dedicated to men who are the victims of family violence.
Anyone who isn't very familiar with the extent of the anti-male bias in our society and judicial system may wonder about the emphasis on the identification of spousal murders that came to light in cases brought to trial. Although such statistics are inherently accurate with respect to convictions, the judicial system is enormously biased against men and is not a very good source for objective statistics pertaining to actual rates of violent offences of that kind. Just to mention one example of how such bias distorts the true incidence of spousal violence against men, Mrs. Joudrie's attempt on the life of her husband never made it into the domestic violence statistics. The reason for that is that she was never found guilty of committing any violence against her husband. There are many more cases like that in Canada and elsewhere.
The problem is compounded by the fact that violence by women is often violence by proxy. When contracts are being taken out by women on the lives of their spouses and the murderer is caught, the instigator routinely goes free or gets off without a murder charge, whereas the killer, usually a man or perhaps a teenaged son or relative, goes to prison. It is left to anyone's imagination how many murders of men were in reality killings contracted by their female spouses. However, it is a fact that any such murders are not considered to be spousal murders when they happen and don't make it into the domestic violence statistics.
More so than at any time during human history, on account of thirty years of active and escalating propaganda against men, women are today far less likely to be considered to be capable of committing any kind of violence, all evidence to the contray. That is reflected in statistics relating to ratios of incarceration of the sexes.
The ratio of incarceration in Canada is currently almost at 100 men for every woman, whereas in the U.S., a country with very similar moral standards, the ratio stands at 18.6 men for every woman incarcerated. As Dr. Warren Farrell explains in his book "The Myth of Male Power," these large differences in incarceration rates for the sexes are due to pro-female bias in jurisprudence.
When individuals of either sex commit crimes of equal severity, women are far less likely to be suspected, less likely to be indicted, and less likely to be convicted. If they are convicted, in the U.S. they receive on average a sentence that is one-third the duration of what men will receive. In Canada, they are likely to go free on parole.
However even if they are made to serve a sentence, they are more likely to be released early on parole. In all of Canada there are currently no more than 150 women in federal prisons. The total capacity of our prison system is no more than 250 women! It stretches the imagination to pretend that these large differences are due to the inherent inculpability of women, yet that is precisely what feminist gender-activists would like us to believe and accept as the truth.
Women's violence expresses itself different than that of men. Women's violence is often directed at the defenseless or the unsuspecting, children and, as far as violence against men is concerned, the sleeping or intoxicated, which then is frequently excused by claiming that it was in self-defence.
To a large extent, the largest community of the victims of female-initiated violence, children, is invisible as far as our jurisprudence is concerned. When children, nine times more likely to be murdered by their biological mothers than by their fathers, are being murdered by their mothers, they are often not considered to be victims of murder but rather victims of infanticide.
Originally the category of infanticide covered only the first few days after the birth of a child, to excuse women for the murder of their newly-born child when they were still in the turmoil caused by the event of giving birth. The time-frame for infanticide became soon extended to cover the full first year of the life of any child murdered by its mother, to make allowances for "the hormonal imbalances likely to result from breast-feeding the child." Today, infanticide is being used to excuse the murder of children far in excess of the age of one year.
When a man murders a child, he'll be sentenced for the murder of that child and invariably go to prison for a long time. When a woman murders a child, depending on the age of the child, the murderer will be either indicted for manslaughter, as in the case of Danielle Blais who deliberately drowned her 6 1/2 year-old son and was never incarcerated although she was sentenced to two years less a day, or she may be indicted for infanticide.
Infanticide is a category of crime that is used only when a mother commits the murder of a child. This category of crime, by law, can't be applied when fathers murder their children. To the victim, using the sword of justice to slice definitions so finely is immaterial. He/she will be equally and permanently dead, whether the murderer legally committed infanticide or murder, or whether he is found to be only the agent of an accidental death. However, a mother convicted of infanticide almost invariably doesn't serve any time for her crime.
Our society condones or at least tolerates the violence by women against innocent victims. It should therefore not surprise us that women and especially teenaged girls are becoming increasingly violent. They are being *taught and indoctrinated* that they are empowered to commit violence with impunity.
Canadian men and women are *not* equal before the law. Even though ostensibly Canadian laws apply equitably to all, the interpretation of those laws is entirely in the hands of the various players in Canadian jurisprudenc. The decisions made by many workers in the judicial, social services and law enforcement systems are driven by what passes for public opinion, that what is being expressed in the feminist dominated and controlled media.
Although many others and I are trying our best to bring these circumstances to the attention of the public, the enormous anti-male bias that has become established in many sectors of public life makes any such efforts largely futile. The total absence of funding for any such efforts and the presence in our society of feminist-inspired sentiments make it extremely difficult to publicize the truth. I personally receive no funding from any sources, neither do any other
Fathers Rights advocates that I'm aware of. Additional studies are not very likely to change that bias but effective promotion of the truth will.
If you are concerned about these circumstances, a number of Albertans would be eager to meet with you to determine what strategies can be developed to promote the restoration of a more balanced and equitable society, one in which there is universal respect for all and in which we all cooperate toward the good of society instead of promoting entitlements for manufactured victims, a society in which families are allowed in peace to responsibly raise the next generation of responsible and productive citizens.
Sincerely,
Walter H. Schneider
Box 62, Bruderheim, Alberta
T0B 0S0
Tel: 796-2306, area code 403 (area code 780 as of January 25, 1998)
PS. For additional information, refer to "Myths and Facts about
Domestic Violence" at https://fathersforlife.org/../family_violence_main_page.htm#Myths_and_Facts and
"Child Abuse, The Respective Roles of the Genders" at chldabse.htm#FV_stats
