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Note 10.148         Coming Events (*please* delete when past)         148 of 148
SYSENG::BITTLE "all my instincts, they return"       40 lines  26-JAN-1990 14:56
             -< Sunday 1/28 "Walk to End Violence Against Women" >-
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	This has already been mentioned in 3 replies in 2 different
	topics, but this seems like an appropriate place to share 
	some details from what I've learned about the march this Sunday.

	I spoke on the phone with Jackson Katz, the founder of the 
	group called "Real Men" that Linda mentioned in the "But 
	there's hope yet" topic for about an hour this morning. 
	
	The walk sponsored by "Real Men" is called a 
	"Walk to End Violence against Women".  Both women and men
	are welcome.

	Here are the details:

	The march begins at Watertown Square this Sunday at noon.
	It is a 12km walk finishing at Park St. T-station.
	At approx. 3pm, there will be speakers and a ceremony
	to honor female victims of male-violence.  I can't remember
	exactly, but I think he said something about a documentary
	or slide show or something...

	There will be speakers from the Mass Coalition of Battered Women
	and a woman whose husband psychologically abused her and murdered 
	their daughter.

	Trying to explain to him how I heard about him and his group was
	fun.  "Well, it's called Womannotes, and it's a place where women
	and men can talk about topics of interest to women.  It's really
	cool - we talked about everything from "S&M" to "Taking Action for
	Choice" to "lingerie" to guns to gynecologists in Real Time
	online discussions...  I invited him to the next =wn= party
	(David, is that OK? - I'm not sure that I'm going yet!!).  D!,
	are you going to be there :-)?  He seemed quite knowledgeable 
	about how S&M has been received by the feminist community.

	I'm surprised and encouraged that people (men!) care that much
	about the violence and threat of violence women face.

							nancy b.

    

    >>>(The spokesman admitted he would be watching the Super Bowl, and that he
had been a high school football player. However, he felt that football
was a macho sport that contributes to a macho culture in which violence
against women takes place.)

    Foolish.
    

    More info on the organization "Real Men", sponsoring the march on
    Sunday 2/28:
    
    Real Men
    (617) 782-7828
    P.O. Box 1769
    Brookline, MA  02146
    
    

    
    
    What the Hell has Football and Violence in todays society have in
    Common, 
          4/Wifes/girlfriends are murdered every day by theier Husbands/Boy
    friends,,YA! is that exact.
    
                      oh well whatever GO Super Bowl  XXIV
    
    
    jim

I'm peeved about his whole march affair.  To me, it is a majorly sexist 
affair that only perpetuates the myth/perception that human males are 
brutal beasts.

Go ahead and march, but march against violence against *anyone*!!!

Bob_who_in_not_feminist_and_not_masculinist_but_humanist!

    re .5, Mike Z-
    
    >	Well, call me dense, but I fail to see the relationship between
    > football and violence against women.
    
    Far be it from me to suggest you're dense.  The relationship is not so
    much directly between football and violence against women, but between
    many culturally accepted activities that include casual violence, and 
    unacceptable behaviors that appear when misguided individuals learn 
    from such cultural institutions as football that violence in general is 
    ok.  Football is not the only such culturally-accepted activity; violence
    against women is not the only area of concern.  But some men find it
    completely disingenuous to deny the possibility of a link between the
    two phenomena; I'm one of them; I support the approach taken by the
    organization called 'Real Men'.  Do you understand the suggested link
    any more clearly now?  If you understand it, perhaps we can go on to
    discuss whether or not you agree with it, hopefully without the sarcasm
    of your later entry.
    
    re .8, Bob-
    
    > I'm peeved about his whole march affair.  To me, it is a majorly
    > sexist affair that only perpetuates the myth/perception that human 
    > males are brutal beasts.
    
    I'd be interested to know why you think it 'sexist'.  The event was
    open to anyone who wanted to go.  The cultural phenomena of violence
    against women is a specific problem that many people think deserves
    specific attention.  Calling them sexist for addressing it, yet not
    identifying the underlying phenomena of violence against women as 
    sexist, suggests to me that you find it easy to ignore the particular 
    problems women have vis-a-vis men regarding the problem of violence.
      
    In general, women are smaller and less physically able to both prevent 
    violence and to protect themselves against it when men initiate it.  
    Many people think that this physiological fact has been true for so 
    long, throughout recorded history in fact, that it has shaped and
    affected many aspects of our society, from the institutions of our
    political bodies to the laws regarding property, marriage, divorce, 
    control of children, and all other aspects of life, in nearly every 
    society on the globe.  Within western culture, while the crime of 
    violence against women is technically and legally discouraged, the 
    penalities and enforcement of those laws is such that not much deterrent 
    value is realized; people disposed to do violence to women (howsoever
    that sick disposition emerges) are not discouraged from it by our 
    society; rather, they're hardly punished at all (statistically speaking, 
    for example, very few rape cases are ever even prosecuted, much less 
    convicted.)  When someone suggests that perhaps this problem is related 
    to other aspects of violence in our society, like football, then I think 
    it is only responsible to look at that idea and consider whether or not 
    its possible.  
    
    As a political issue, therefore, it is not sexist to recognize and 
    attempt to address the specific problem of violence against women.  
    A protest symbolically chosen to correspond with the violence inherent 
    in the Super Bowl is that sort of attempt.  I don't think it says 
    anything about men being 'brutal beasts'; it says something about 
    violence against women being a result of some people's inability to 
    reconcile social teachings like violence in a sporting context...and 
    that if such violence *is* related, as many believe, then lets talk 
    about it, and try to figure out what kind of solution we can reach.  
    Don't be peeved about the march.  Be peeved about the fact that violence 
    against women is such a huge problem, and join us as we attempt to 
    understand why.
    
    DougO

    re .10, Mike Z-
    
    > 	Oh, Doug, are you really serious?
    >
    >	Football teaches individuals that violence in general is OK?
    
    Mike, your sly digs aren't so subtle.  Yes, I'm serious.  And your
    restatement skipped 2 key phrases.  I said 'misguided individuals'.
    Has anyone anywhere claimed that because the problem of male violence
    against women is huge, that therefore all men or a large proportion of
    men are guilty thereof?  What I am trying to do here is suggest
    possible mechanisms, possible relationships between a recognizably huge
    problem and a recognizably huge cultural value.  
    
    When I say a culture that glorifies the Super Bowl, I'm not talking 
    only about that specific event.  I'm not only talking about pro 
    football.  I'm talking about the entire culture of which that is 
    a part, starting from the first time a bunch of 6-year olds start 
    throwing a football around and playing tackle on the school playground 
    at recess, through high school and college versions.  I'm talking about
    something that many, many men throughout our culture are exposed to,
    and live with, and learn from, throughout their formative years; 
    throughout the period of time when for year after year, season after
    season, their coaches and peers and fans encourage them to go out and
    pound on/destroy/annihilate their opponents.  Thats what I'm referring
    to when I describe football as a cultural institution.  Its part of the
    culture, and it affects a lot more people than just professional
    athletes and their fans.
    
    > 	Research it and you'll be surprised.  There's more fan violence 
    > at low contact sports like soccer than high contact sports like foot-
    > ball, boxing, and hockey.  If these sports really encourage violence 
    > in general, I'd expect more fan violence too.   
    
    You missed the point.  I didn't say that the sporting event itself
    provokes instances of violence.  I said the culture of which it is a
    part may be linked to the problem.
    
    > Alas, the data seems to contradict your assumption.
    
    You misunderstood the assumption.  But, please provide those data
    anyway, seems only fair to consider your evidence.
    
    > 	This kind of silly football-male_female_violence connection is
    > absurd.   It deserves to be shown for what it really is.  Fodder for
    > the gullible.
    
    I disagree, and I asked you to dispense with sarcasm.  I have no 
    desire to have Steve L. shut down yet another interesting discussion 
    merely because the participants exceeded his narrow bounds of propriety.
  
    I have explained where I think you misunderstood the link I was
    postulating and I would appreciate your considerate response to 
    the point.  In part, I'd like to know why you are so convinced that 
    no such link between the upbringing of so many men and the problems 
    of male violence against women can be possible.  To me, its obvious 
    that a link may exist.
    
    DougO

    re .13, Mike Z-
    
    >  I didn't originally reply to _you_, and what _you_ think - I
    >  replied to the spokesman quoted in .0.   What you're saying and 
    >  what was said in .0 are not the same.
    >  
    >  I agree with much more of what you're saying.
    
    Well, I thought your statement in .5 was asking for someone to point
    out the relationship.  I'll agree that .0 didn't state it clearly
    enough.  But if you reread it, the references to the culture of which
    football is a part are there.  
    
    > 	Ok, you've made the claim, now tell me that violence against women
    >   is less of a problem in societies where high contact sports, such as
    >   football, are not considered acceptable.
    >
    >	That seems like the logical conclusion, if your claim (that there
    >   is a relationship between violence in life and violence in sports) is
    >   true.
    
    Well, you're misparsing the claim again; quite specifically and
    importantly for the relationship I postulate, 'violence in sports' is
    only one example of many culturally acceptable and encouraged violent
    behaviors, any and all of which contribute to the postulated
    relationship.  Let me ask you a related question: which societies 
    are you thinking of, that have no culturally acceptable violence?
    If you can name one, then I wouldn't be surprised at all to see that
    their incidences of violence against women are indeed less.  But as I
    was explaining in my earlier paragraphs to Bob, in .9, the values that
    encourage men to be violent are suspected to be ingrained,
    long-standing parts of our societal institutions, and the problem 
    happens to be global.  There are several ramifications: for the problem
    to be so huge, it means that cultural conditions that promote the
    problem are also likely to be huge and influential, with some effects
    that are hidden from first glance.
    
    > 	You see pound/on/destroy/annihilate opponents.  So do I.
    >
    >	I also see protect/succeed/cooperate/teamwork/function-under-pressure.
    
    Fine.  One set of values looks fine to me.  The other one looks like a
    definate problem.  Regretably, both get encouraged.  Presume something
    for a minute, Mike- misguided individual, a misfit.  You may have known
    one or two, throughout your life.  I've known several; I suggest that
    there are statistically significant numbers of alienated people in all
    cultures on the globe.  Indoctrinate that person as a football player.
    Train that person to work as a team player, cooperate in attaining the
    important values of the team (scoring, how appropriate).  Train that
    person to block others, to tackle others, to crush opponents. Do it for
    10 years.  Is the person possibly now more misguided as a result of the
    training, as a result of overexposure to parents living through their
    kid's achivements, overzealous coaches, etc?  Sure its possible that
    the person is a model team-playing citizen.  But its also possible that
    due to the confusing and conflicting values inherent in
    culturally-encouraged violence, that the person, and thousands of
    others similarly treated, have now learned that violence is an
    acceptable, even encouraged instinctive response to gritty emotional 
    situations.  
    
    >  You've based your claim that "football teaches that violence is
    >  Ok" on its affect on a select group of misguided individuals.
    
    Everything I've described is well within the norm at thousands of high 
    schools across the country.  Having experienced the culturally confusing 
    time of adolescense in an American high school myself, I can well imagine 
    that many of the people subjected to those kinds of pressures come out 
    with vastly different approaches to handling gritty emotional situations.
    And when I look at the huge problems of violence against women in our
    culture, you can bet there are some huge cultural factors influencing
    the people who turn to violence, somewhere in this culture.  
                                      
    > .12>    You misunderstood the assumption.  But, please provide those data
    > .12>    anyway, seems only fair to consider your evidence.
    >
    >	I did, fan violence at the most violent sports is almost nil,
    > when compared to fan violence at the more restrained sports, like
    > baseball.
    
    We seem to be using different definitions of the word, 'data'.  I meant,
    please indicate your sources.  Thus far, its anecdotal.  Not that
    there's anything inherently wrong with that, but it isn't data.
    
    DougO

 Having a walk to protest violence against women is a good idea. Having it
on superbowl sunday is ok, too. Having it on superbowl
sunday specifically to protest the violence of football and its impact on
male/female violence is kinda stupid, IMO.

 If football were a game where men attacked women it would be one thing, but
since all the players in the NFL are male, it is self-serving to protest
against the game. 

 You can make an argument that football encourages violence, and that any
level of violence is bad. I'll disagree with ya, but you can at least make
the argument (especially if one is fond of arguing). Having a march coincide
with the superbowl is disrespectful of the things the NFL stands for. It makes
about as much sense as having an anti-male rally on father's day; it is meant
only to annoy and gather publicity.

 I believe that taking a stand against violence is the right thing to do. I 
believe that attempting to link the NFL with violence against women is the
wrong tack to take, especially if one wishes for male support (which is
necessary for solving the problem IMO).

 The Doctah

    re .15, Mark-
    
    >  If football were a game where men attacked women it would be one 
    > thing, but since all the players in the NFL are male, it is self-serving 
    > to protest against the game.
    
    You went clean past me on that one, partner.  What are you trying to say?
    
    > You can make an argument that football encourages violence, and that
    > any level of violence is bad. I'll disagree with ya, but you can at
    > least make the argument (especially if one is fond of arguing). 
     
    Well, the suggestion has been made, not quite in your terms, but see
    .12 and .14.  And go ahead, disagree with what I said.  Lets discuss.
    
    > Having a march coincide with the superbowl is disrespectful of the 
    > things the NFL stands for.
    
    Or, if you prefer, we can start here.  What is it that the NFL stands
    for, in your opinion?  And if other people disagree, and see the NFL
    as the pinnacle of a football culture that promotes conflicting and 
    contradictory social values, perhaps disrespect is an appropriate
    response, politically.  btw, you're making the same shorthand response
    that Mike was making awhile ago...the super bowl, or the NFL, are not
    isolated elements in our culture.  They're merely the top dogs on a
    huge heap of city, intramural, frosh, jv, varsity, and college league
    football culture.  Don't imagine that the protest was against them in
    isolation.  The protest chose them as the symbol of the whole schmear,
    the whole social institution of football.  Thats what the NFL stands
    for, to me.  Am I disrespectful towards that institution?  One guess ;-).
    
    DougO

    Doc, mike z, 
    
    What, you have't been wearing your hair shirts..?
    
    How can you be so, so, so, politically incorrect?
    

    Well, it can't hurt to cast bread upon the waters one more time.
    
    Hey, Bob.  yeah, you, the one who always forgets to answer direct
    questions.  Aw, come on, this won't hurt a bit....good, you're reading
    clear down to the second paragraph....keep going...now.  Think about
    this, and answer when you're ready;
    
    Why do *you* think there's such a huge number of incidences of male
    violence against women in this culture?
    
    One liners don't count, either.  Hey, what've you got to lose?
    Go ahead, give an answer.
    
    DougO

    Football:

    	Multiple replays of compound fractures
    	"Spearing"
    	Late hits
    	Roughing the kicker
    	Facemasking
    	Torn hamstrings
    	"Injured Reserve"
    	Fractured Ribs
    	Arthroscopic Surgery
    	Retirement after 10 years because your body is trashed
    	Flak Jackets
    	Fans Trashing a city after a Superbowl

    A violent game that encourages violence? Naw, I must have imagined it.
    Appreciated for its teamwork? Why then is volleyball so unpopular as a
    pro sport? An athletic event? Why so much more popular than the
    triathalon? Why are young children discouraged from playing "tackle"?

    Football is the modern equivalent of gladiators in the forum.

    Our society glorifies male violence, football is just one facet of
    that. I agree with Doug, denying it is disingenuous. Holding a march
    protesting violence against women on Superbowl Sunday is more the
    equivalent of holding a march against drunk driving on New Years. Perhaps
    not directly related, but apt none the less.

    	-- Charles

    Isn't this getting more than a little silly? Of _course_ football is a
    violent sport that is popular in a violent society. But this wasn't a
    march against football, or an attack on roughing the kicker as the
    equivalent of rape. The march was on the same day as the Superbowl. In
    the interview that I heard, the organizer was _asked_ about this (he
    didn't bring it up), and made the remark _contrasting_ the "violence
    within the white lines" with the "no rules" violence against women, and
    in the home. He went on to say that he had played football in school
    himself, and was going to go home after the march and enjoy the game.
    
    So, gentlemen, why are you being so defensive, and why do you feel so
    attacked?
    
    		- Bruce
    
    p.s. I am still waiting with interest for the seemingly promised data
    on the greater fan violence at non-contact sports events. Gee, I must
    have missed the stories about drunken riots at tennis matches and track
    meets. Or do you call ice hockey a non-contact sport? What were these
    claims referring to?

    Hmmm.. OK. then that means that women watchin soaps are being taught
    infidelity, murder, child snatching, dope adiction, and downright
    slimyness against men...right?
    
    Yes, football is a violent sport, but I think that this whole argument
    is right up there with the "lets blame everyone else" generation.
    
    Noone is ready to take responsibility for their OWN
    actions....everything and everyone is at fault.  "But I saw Jason do
    it, so I thought it was ok"......
    Come on folks.....
    

    I've never seen a fight at: A monopoly tournament, a chess match,
    tiddlywinks, a billiards tournament, a bridge tournament, the list
    is endless.
    
    I believe these are non-contact events, though they are not all
    "sports"  But then I don't think I've seen a fight at a golf tournament
    either -- though I don't know if that's really a sport either.
    
    ed

>    You went clean past me on that one, partner.  What are you trying to say?

 The premise upon which the protest is based, being held specifically on 
superbowl sunday, is that the violence that occurs between two teams of men
getting big bucks to move a ball a given distance promotes or encourages 
male violence towards women. I think that is utterly false, especially since 
there is no male-female violence occurring anywhere on the field at any time.
What I'm trying to say is that if there were an element of male-female violence
in the game of football, it would make it more believeable to me that the
level of violence contributes in some way to male-female violence off the
field.

>And if other people disagree, and see the NFL
>    as the pinnacle of a football culture that promotes conflicting and 
>    contradictory social values,

 Yes, I know, there is a large pacifist contingent that thinks that men should
be given estrogen treatments daily to prevent them from being aggressive, etc,
and that aggression and violence are categorically bad entities in society.
I reject that notion categorically.

 What type of conflicting social value is it to help an opponent up after a
play? What is the problem with opponents patting each other on the behind after
a good play. What is wrong with players showing their opponents respect? Not
quite the images you conjur up when considering the game of football, but
equally valid, equally prevalent, and equally real.

>The protest chose them as the symbol of the whole schmear,
>    the whole social institution of football.  Thats what the NFL stands
>    for, to me.

 The NFL also stands for volunteer work and charity work. Donations to the
United Way. Sending sports heros to inner-city schools to stress the importance
of a complete education.

re: Bob

>    How can you be so, so, so, politically incorrect?

 It's a way of life for me; I make my own decisions and to hell with political
correctness. (no smiley)

The Doctah

    Speaking not only as a feminist, but as a sissy feminist (: >,) I
    thought the Super Bowl connection was strained and bound to result in
    less serious treatment by the media of the march.  This shouldn't be a
    "lunatic fringe" issue.
    
    There are some real problems with the importance of football in USA
    culture, some of them involving sexism (its common use as a metaphor by
    men in government and business especially bothers me), but I just can't
    see violence against women being one of them.  As far as organized
    sports go, boxing (which I enjoy) seems closer to that kind of
    behavior.
    
    I'm no football expert, though.  All I really know about the game is
    that it gave me a socially acceptable chance to knock down bigger guys
    and that it's boring to watch.
    
    I heard how the Super Bowl went; how did the march go?
    
    Ray

    re .31
    
    I agree. I think the base purpose of the march was admirable. To link
    it with the Super Bowl made it look like cheap sensationalism to gain
    publicity for their event.
    
    And the only football I have watched all season was one minute at the
    end of the 1st quarter of the Bowl in order to justify my opinion that
    it wasn't worth watching. It wasn't.
    
    Dj

    .30 > Yet spectator violence at baseball games is more common than
    .30 > spectator violence at football games.
    
    Can you document that, mike? I have never attended a pro-football game,
    and not many baseball games lately. Indeed, I've never seen any real
    "spectator violence" anywhere. So I have no direct experience. But my
    sense from the Globe and TV is that the violence in the Foxboro parking
    lot alone is far larger than all that at Fenway, despite far lower
    annual attendence levels. At least this was true in earlier years,
    when there enough fans at Patriots' games to _stage_ a fight.
    
    		- Bruce
    

    
    	Why do I get the feeling after reading some replies that, since
    football is a game created by MEN, played by MEN, and enjoyed (mostly)
    by MEN, it is a deep dark evil force that lies at the root of the
    violence against women problem ????? Lighten up. Violence is a BIG
    problem in our country, men vs men, men vs women, women vs women, but
    I fail to see how football is at the bottom of it. As was stated a few
    replies back, people are unwilling to accept the responsibility for
    their actions, there always has to be a scapegoat. Football ????
    Gimme a break.....
    
    Paul C.

>Having a march coincide
>with the superbowl is disrespectful of the things the NFL stands for. 

Ha!  And what do they stand for?  Could it be "making money"?


						--Ger

    
    RE: -1  
    
    < And what do they stand for? Could it be "making money"?
    
    Did you ever hear of sportsmanship, teamwork, and healthy competition ?
    
    Last time I looked none of the teams in the NFL were claiming
    tax-exempt status with the IRS as charitable organizations, so I
    believe that allows them to legally make a monetary profit.
    
    Now, what other activity that men enjoy can we bash ? :-(
    
    Paul C.

    
    
    So if this march was not held on SuperBowl Sunday then it would
    have been ok? 
    
    
    I think the organization had a few good reasons to hold it on this
    day.  One obvious reason being it was on a day when most woman would
    rather be doing anything other than sitting in front of the TV.
    When I watch NFL football I see violence.  I know the game cause
    I was in band in high school and we were at every game.  If I look
    long enough I can see the teamwork.  But the most obvious thing
    is the violence.  Sorry, but watching grown men (large grown men
    at that) run full force into each other does not make me start
    thinking of peace.  I realize that is a necessary part of the game,
    but that does not make it any less violent.
    
    Another reason for having it on that day was to gain interest in
    the group. Judging from the discussion here, the group and the march
    have certainly caught men's attention.  That was part of the intent
    and it worked.  
    
    I personally don't see an immediate connection between the violence
    of football and man to woman violence.  What I see is the connection
    between the machismo of the violence in both situations.  Some men
    feel that football is a macho tough game because it is proving one's
    strength over an opponent through force.  Supposedly if you are
    physically stronger then you are a macho man.  In the same arena,
    men to woman violence is a man proving his strength over a supposedly
    physically weaker opponent.  Again man is proving his strength
    over an opponent through force. 
    
    Mi
      

    	My teenage son told me the other day that Football is an
    	expression of a principle that is deeply ingrained in the
    	American psyche:
    
    
    
    			"Violent Land Acquisition"  :)
    
    	
    	Professional baseball is another "mostly-male" sport, but I
    	don't think the same description could be applied to it.
    
    	Therefore, I don't think the objection of the "Real Men" march
    	was to "mostly-male activities" as much as to a culture of violence
    	that is often played (in real life) against women.
    
    	P.S. Both my son and I are football fans.

	 Just as a side comment.

         I've dated many men that were intensely competitive
	 athletically....whether it be in football, baseball, skiing,
	 bowling, etc.  And these men were, by far, the scariest men
	 I've ever dated.

	 I've had things thrown at me, I've been screamed at and
	 yelled at because he didn't "get a home run."  I've had to
	 basically bear the brunt of their intense anger at not "being
	 the best."

	 These men seemed to have a fixation on "being the best."
	 This need to be God on the field almost puts them into a
	 blind rage.  Most of these men were also some of the sweetest
	 and kindest men I dated, until they "lost" or "weren't the
	 best."  I've seen them slam their fists thru walls.

	 Some men seem to have an intense need to be competitive and
	 to be the best.  And when they don't meet their expectations
	 they fly into a blind rage.  And I see this in a MAJOR
	 portion of the intensely competitive/athletic men that I
	 know.

	 So maybe it's not so much that watching football incites men
	 to believe they can be violent, but rather I see it as
	 participation in sports by some highly competitive men can
	 DEFINITELY lead to violence against women.

	 It's considered macho by some sport-a-holics to start a
	 fight.  Tensions run high, violence is considered an
	 acceptable outlet.

	 I see it in women athletes as well, but nearly to the same
	 degree.  I had a roommate who was a shotputter in college and
	 she was extremely violent when she got angry.

	 kath

    
    
    re .20 DougO
    
    Well gee, Doug, I guess if you put it that way, I'd better saything
    a little meatier or get ready for some *real* abuse..;-^
    
    For one thing I don't believe you can lay the blame at the
    door of the NFL.
    
    I think blaming football or sports in general for violence against
    women is worse than missing the point, it is taking the issue down
    a rathole. 
    
    Give the issue the respect it deserves, and discuss some real causes,
    such as how men and womens interactions are portrayed in movies and
    on TV, perpetuation of male dominance in certain cultures..etc.
    
    An aside: In Japan, despite the fact that horrifyingly vivid portrayals
    of abuse of females are readily available in the booksstalls, you
    find very little of this sort of crime there. Hmm... could it be that
    Japanese men are raised with certain ideas and expectations about how
    to interact with each other, that we do *not* emphasize here??
    
    Look for the cause someplace beyond a few shallow, easily attacked,
    male rituals such as football... For G*d's sake its only a sport.
    
    

    
    
    For an interesting discussion of male and female political
    systems, and the role that football and other team sports
    play in strengthening and defining the male system, read
    "Breaking Into The Boardroom" (formerly titled "Why Jenny
    Can't Lead") by Jinx Melia.
    
    Not related to abusive men and abused women, but definitely
    a fascinating book about how the two systems developed, and
    the role of sports (teamwork) in the male system.
    
    Deb
    

>   For one thing I don't believe you can lay the blame at the
>   door of the NFL.

    No no no. No one was claiming that football *causes* violence, football is
    *symptomatic*, we live in a society that strongly encourages male
    agression, comptetiveness, and violence. (Our society also encourages many
    positive male attributes as well...) One "token" of this glorification is
    the popularity (among men mostly) of professional football. Another is
    violence against women. There is no *direct* connection. (I too find the
    example somewhat strained, but still valid. It is by no means black and
    white, if we really did glorify violence above all, boxing would be more
    popular... [note further that boxing IS more popular in traditionally
    "macho" cultures...])

>   I think blaming football or sports in general for violence against
>   women is worse than missing the point, it is taking the issue down
>   a rathole.

    No one is doing that. What you are engaging is is called a "straw man
    argument".

>   Give the issue the respect it deserves, and discuss some real causes,
>   such as how men and womens interactions are portrayed in movies and
>   on TV, perpetuation of male dominance in certain cultures..etc.

    Good idea. Seriously, let's do that. Would you elaborate?

>   An aside: In Japan, despite the fact that horrifyingly vivid portrayals
>   of abuse of females are readily available in the booksstalls, you
>   find very little of this sort of crime there. Hmm... could it be that
>   Japanese men are raised with certain ideas and expectations about how
>   to interact with each other, that we do *not* emphasize here??

    In Japan there is much less *reported* violence against women. There is
    some evidence that domestic violence is underreported since it's a "family
    matter" and not an "important crime". Be careful... not too long ago there
    was no reported spousal rape in the U.S. not because it didn't happen,
    but because it wasn't a crime... societal attitudes have a great deal to
    do with how "crimes" are percieved, reported, and acted on.

>   Look for the cause someplace beyond a few shallow, easily attacked,
>   male rituals such as football... For G*d's sake its only a sport.

    Yes, why don't we pick the shallow male ritual that it is acceptable to
    vent anger physically? Or perhaps the shallow male belief that the ONLY
    acceptable emotion for "real men" to show is anger. When the only tool you
    have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

    [See - now you've gone and made me angry. It's YOUR fault, and I guess I'll
    just come over and beating the shit out of you... oh! that's right you're
    bigger than me. I guess I'll just go home and take it out on the wife
    and kids...]

	-- Charles

    It is a fact:
    
    If women play football against men, they can expect to be beaten.
    
    Did I get the point?
    
    -dwight

    Before blaming football (or any other activity) as a contributing
    factor to violence in society I'd want to see some evidence.
    
    Do football players have a greater history of violence than
    non-football players?
    
    Do people who watch football (at home/at stadium) have a greater
    history of violence than non-football watchers?
    
    Without some facts it just seems that football is just a convenient
    scapegoat.  Now, don't get me wrong, football might be the cause
    of something, but somebody's saying so doesn't mean it's true.
    
    Bob

Please, folks, don't read more into my comment than what is there.  
I'm not bashing men.  I'm not making a comment on the connection 
between violence and football.  I'm not bashing football as a sport.  
(Yes, football can stand for competition, sportsmanship, and so 
forth.)

I was only addressing the idea that someone mentioned "respecting what 
the NFL stands for."  I'm sorry, but I side with the person who wrote 
"North Dallas Forty."  The NFL is a business (as is Digital).  Just 
about everything comes in second to making money.  I'm not saying that 
we should _disrespect_ that, but why should I _respect_ what the NFL 
stands for???  Any more than I should respect what Hostess cake 
manufacturers stand for?

That's all I was saying.

Back to the (original) topic: I noticed in the paper this weekend that
a Maine man stabbed his wife to death, stuffed her into his car trunk,
drove to Boston, and killed himself with a shot to the head.  Two
things stand out to me: the report that 40% of women murder victims
are killed by their husbands or boyfriends, and that all evidence
pointed to this Maine man "loving" his wife, not understanding why she
would want to leave him. 

A lot of men in this file and in society give the rest of us a lot of 
grief when we try to figure out what in our society is causing 40% of 
women murder victims being killed by men who supposedly "love" them.  
Okay, so the football connection is tenuous; I agree.  But there must 
be something in this society that assists in men thinking that a 
solution to conflict with their wives and girlfriends is a smack, a 
stabbing, or a gunshot wound.  Either that, or it's a strange 
coincidence that a lot of men are suffering from psychosis all at the 
same time.

What leads up to a man thinking of his wife as an expendable
commodity?  Could it be that men are trained to think of women more as
possessions and window dressings than as human beings and partners? 
I think so.  Could it be that there is a consistent emphasis placed on 
men being violent in this society and that that violence is okay?  I 
think so.  Toss a little neuroses, tension, and pressure, and BANG!  
We got another murder/suicide.

It is really aggravating to read the responses of a lot of guys in 
this file.  I can't believe how many times you all build a victim role
for yourselves, "You're bashing men again!" when it is so clear that
women--much more than men--are the ones ending up beaten, stabbed, and
"disposed" of, like objects.  In regards to the women-beaters and
killers, you all keep making claims about "taking responsibility for
ones self" and the almighty individualism. 

Everything we say and do as men matters.  What I keep hearing in this 
file is that the men who "go too far" need to take responsibility for 
their actions, when the regular guys who support the environment that 
partially makes it all possible doesn't have to take responsibility at 
all.  

We're all connected, folks.  Do you seriously think that the downhill 
slide of America has to do with politicians and business men?  Nah.  
Just take a look at the slugs in front of the TV set night in and night 
out.  Check out the folks who would plug in a walkman before talking 
to a friend, brother, or lover.  Notice rush-hour behavior or lack of 
eye contact among neighbors in a high rise or people who buy the 
"latest and greatest" without a clear need or people who discard 
objects as soon as something better comes along.

They're responsible, too.  It all adds up.  And it all counts.

It's as if the environment takes a man, walks him up to the fine line 
of illegal violence, puts a gun in his hand, and then walks away.  
Yes, individuals who snap and pull the trigger--who walk over the 
line--need to take responsibility for crossing the line.  We all need 
to take responsibility for leading him up to that line; we played a 
part in it, too.

						--Gerry

I think a lot of people are missing or misstating the point - perhaps Doug O
and Charles are being too subtle?  In my view, nobody is saying that football
causes violence against women.  I see the idea being that men who grow up in
a society that praises them for being violent in certain socially-acceptable
contexts (sports and warfare, the two being closely related), may find it
difficult to understand that violence should not be the first choice in methods
of resolving conflicts.  A boy who has just gotten out of football practice
where he has been encouraged to attack opposing players may not see anything
wrong with slugging his girlfriend if she displeases him.

I think that some of the reactions here so far have exemplified the problem
we're facing.  Football is just one of many sports that encourages brutality.
The timing of the march was clearly for publicity purposes, though I imagine
the sponsors understood the negative reaction it would cause for many.  The
Nashua Telegraph carried a (rather poor) captioned photo of the marchers
in the event, though had no accompanying story.

			Steve

    I think while the issue has been kinda clouded during the course
    of these replies, the original article/statement quoted said something
    to the extent that the march was being held on Super Bowl Sunday
    because of the *role* football played on violence against women.
     
    
    Now, one could read that lots of ways, but it *is* a rather vague
    statement. "Roles" could mean anything--I would imagine that it
    was simply a reference to violent sports glorifying violence, thus
    perhaps encouraging it (tho we all know it's a vicious circle anyway),
    and therefore indirectly contributing to violent crime against women.
    
    My personal feeling is the "role" any violent sport (boxing, football,
    et al) plays in violent crime *is* there, perhaps indirectly, and
    as much as the *liking* of violent sports, TV, Movies, etc  is to
    blame for violence in society.  I don't see one facet of America's
    love for violence being *the* catalyst for causing violent crime,
    be it to women, to men, to children, or to German Shepherd Dogs,
    but mostly likely all are a contributing factor.  As I stated before
    violence, the protrayal of it, the acceptance of it, the demand
    to see it, is all a vicious circle.  I doubt there'd be one without
    the other, just as much as I doubt the culpability of one over the
    other.
    
    At any rate, there's more than football at fault if merely watching
    it encourages men to hit women (or men, or WHOEVER).  I watch football,
    and admit to even liking it (with some reservations and cynicism
    about what I am watching), but I'm not violent.  I don't think my
    chromosones somehow wiped out my capability for violence, and I
    dont' think football by itself makes it possible for me to conceive
    of committing such.
    
    ---kim

>It is really aggravating to read the responses of a lot of guys in 
>this file.  I can't believe how many times you all build a victim role
>for yourselves, "You're bashing men again!" when it is so clear that
>women--much more than men--are the ones ending up beaten, stabbed, and
>"disposed" of, like objects.

 By heaping the responsibility for male-female violence upon all men, you are
bound to meet with resistance. Male-female violence is very bad. All men are
responsible for male-female violence. Therefore, all men are bad. When you
start with this premise, of course you'll encounter resistance from those who
do not enjoy self-flagellation for the purpose of attaining a sense of moral
superiority.

 Another byproduct of this tendency to ascribe all of the world's ills to
"society" is a further reduction of responsibility for crimes felt by the
actual perpetrators. "It's ok, I didn't kill her; society did." or "Society
told me it was allright to dismember my girlfriend for not putting out."
Horse manure.

 The fact of the matter is that many women become victims of violent crime at 
the hands of known males. This is clearly a problem. Branding all males
as being responsible for this accomplishes zero, except alienating many 
of them. "Why not hit her? Even if I don't, I'll still be responsible."

> In regards to the women-beaters and
>killers, you all keep making claims about "taking responsibility for
>ones self" and the almighty individualism. 

 If people DID take responsibility for themselves, much less of this would 
happen. Hold people accountable. What do you think a man who gets a short
sentence because "society" told him it was "ok" for him to kill his wife thinks.
He gets positive reinforcement that using the "society" defense mitigates his
guilt. That's the wrong tack.

 And whatever is so bad about individualism? You make it sound like a cardinal
sin. For you, maybe. Not for me. I am completely responsible for the things
I do. I am not responsible for what YOU do, even if I watch the GD superbowl.

>Everything we say and do as men matters.  What I keep hearing in this 
>file is that the men who "go too far" need to take responsibility for 
>their actions, when the regular guys who support the environment that 
>partially makes it all possible doesn't have to take responsibility at 
>all.  

 Please explain what "makes it all possible." That is key to solving the 
problem.

>It's as if the environment takes a man, walks him up to the fine line 
>of illegal violence, puts a gun in his hand, and then walks away.  

 I completely disagree with this assessment. That is not the way things are.

 Try this:

 Junior watches dad pound on mom. Junior watches mom call the police on dad.
Junior watches the police shrug their shoulders. Junior concludes that it's
ok because it isn't illegal (dad didn't get arrested). Next time, dad finally
does get arrested. Dad gets let out on bail. More reinforcement that it's
"ok" because dad only got a slap on the wrist. If dad was held accountable
the FIRST time, both he and junior would get a much better message from that
dreaded "society." If Mr. Roberts from across the street gave dad sh!t for
smacking around the wife, dad and junior would get a better message. 

 The key to sending the right message is not holding "society" hostage for
the transgressions of the few. Rather, it is hold the individuals responsible
right off the bat, before people end up hurt or killed. 

 I think it is the wrong model to take, considering ALL violence and aggression
to be inherently bad. It isn't. Sometimes it is necessary for self-preservation.
It is more important and helpful to teach LIMITS and responsibility.

 There needs to be a happy medium found here. Placing the blame on all of
society is far too broad-brushed to be useful. Perhaps concentrating only
on the individuals is too fine-toothed an approach for the present situation;
ultimately, however, I believe it is the correct approach. 

 The Doctah

Well, I've been toying with this thought for some time now and 

>< Note 409.47 by TLE::FISHER "Work that dream and love your life" >

has prompted me to step in and say my piece.

> the report that 40% of women murder victims are killed by their
> husbands or boyfriends, 

So?  This, to me, is a meaningless statistic.  I would ask - how many 
men are murdered by their wives or girlfriends?  No anecdotes please - 
how about some real numbers and sources.

>What leads up to a man thinking of his wife as an expendable
>commodity?  Could it be that men are trained to think of women more as
>possessions and window dressings than as human beings and partners? 
>I think so.  

Excuse me while I barf.  Women have long been trained to treat men as
"success objects".  If you can't supply that four bedroom colonial, two
cars, the summer and winter vacations, plenty of spending money then
you're not worth s*** as a man.  Yes, there is anger in that
statement... 


OK - to my main question:

It appears that the common perception is that violence by men against 
women is to be singled out for communal outrage.

Why?

There is much violence in this society.  Men against men.  Child against
woman.  Woman against man.  Man against child.  Woman against woman.  
Man against woman.  Child against man.  Woman against child.  Child 
against child.

Why is anyone of these more deserving of communal outrage than any of 
the others?

Flame away...
Bob

    "Why is anyone more deserving of communal outrage than any other, i.e.
    parent child, man woman, woman man, adult child etc?"  The ONLY
    difference I can see is related to position of relative vulnerability.
    In other words a child who is harmed by an adult has less ability
    to defend him/herself than another adult.  Or a woman MAY be physically
    less able to defend herself from a man than another man.  Or a
    man may be less able to defend himself emotionally from another man
    than some woman could.  My point is that the comparison/generalization
    is not appropriate as a sweeping generalization because of individual
    differences.  Your point is well taken.... it SHOULDN'T matter, but
    I think it does.   Jeff

    
    This is becoming less a forum for exchange of views, and more
    a whipping post for the less politically correct among us.
    
    The self righteousness level here is a little excessive. If
    you want to persuade me, don't come off with this insulting
    patronising attitude. 
    
    Preaching ain't gonna convince anyone...
    

    Make a donation to your nearest Battered Women's Shelter.
    You can find the one nearest you by contacting:
    
    Mass Coalition of Battered Women Service Groups
    107 South Street, 5th Floor
    Boston, MA  02111
    (617) 426-8492
    
    Or if you're not in the Boston area call:
    
    National hotline 1-800-333-7233
    
    (DEC will probably match donations to women's shelters.  Make sure you
    fill out the card.)

    Well...I'm the one who posted the note in <.0>
    And I went to the march.  About 50-50 men-women.  Some kids.
    And nobody put down football.
    But we walked seven miles.  Quietly.  (yes it's true, a few men
    heckled us.  No that is NOT an indicment of ALL men.)
    
    And we heard some speakers: 
      A friend of Carol DeMati Stuart.
      A woman whose daughter was killed by her husband last April
        after being told she wanted a divorce.
      An African-american woman, head of the Mass Coalition of Battered
    	Women Service Groups, likened the struggle for racial justice to the
    	struggle for an end to violence against women, carefully noting the
    	recent cuts to consistently underfunded Women's Shelters.
    	(Hey DECies, when was the last time your friend who works at the
    	Battered women's shelter got paid even half of what you earn!
    	But damn, computers are so much more important, aren't they.)
      And, Jackson Katz, one of the march's organizers, likened the
    	responsibility that men have in changing a sexist society  to
    	that of white people's responsibility in changing a racist society.
    
    It's been real interesting to read all of the replies in the notes file.
    I'm angry.  And disappointed.  
    
    NO NO NO.  I met with the man who was interviewed, Jackson Katz of Real
    Men, and NO he was not trying to indicate a DIRECT link between
    football and male violence against women.   Nor did I mean to imply
    such a direct connection.  But I fail to see why people who enjoy
    football get so defensive at the suggestion that football is part
    of a male culture that is clearly violent to women.  Of course
    we live in a society of contradictions.  And only the most dogmatic
    these days would assume that just carving out the symptoms/expressions
    of these contradictions really solves the problem.  You're right,
    shutting down football wouldn't mean a thing.  But we CAN look at
    football, analyze it.  Examine our own reactions to it.  Examine the
    health, politics, and economics of it, as several authors in this topic
    have. Understanding how we perpetuate a culture of violence is the
    first step towards changing it.  
    
    Perhaps I was not careful enough in my paraphrasing of Jackson's words
    in the opening note.  I believe that some noters here are threatened by
    this topic..and seize upon any intellectual distraction to avoid
    dealing with the issue personally. But the jump to defense of Football
    and the subsequent obfuscation of the real issue based on whether there
    is or isn't a direct link implied by the timing of the march really
    tells me that we've got a lot of thinking to do.  And that alot of
    people want to avoid taking any responsibility.  (I don't except myself
    from this group.)
    
    What I don't hear people talking about is what we might do to
    challenge sexism.  Or how we might, as well-heeled male DECies, shell
    out some money, which DEC will match, to Battered Women's Shelters.
    Or the other ways male violence against women manifests itself in this
    society.  (e.g., mostly white male corporate leaders, congress,
    laywers, judges, scientist, engineers)  This is not indictment...it's a
    statement of fact!  We are in POWER.  And this power does not belong to
    us.  And this power is abused, not just by crazies, but by alot of
    normal everyday men, like you and me.
    
    You know, sometimes I really think that VAXnotes are an exercise for
    some in naricissism...some people really like to just see their own
    words.  Yeah, i'm a little pissed off that all these men can't just
    say "Yeah...violence against women is a problem.  Yeah, I can see how
    football MIGHT be symptomatic/reflective/expressive of a male culture
    of violence.  Let's talk about it here in the notes file and come up
    with ideas about changing it..."  But NO...men here scream loud and
    clear in reaction to any suggestion that we men really have alot of
    power in this culture and the fact that we use/abuse it.
    
    Some noters should learn from what women have been telling men for
    a long time:  listen more, talk less.

    
    
    re .58
    
    Bob,
    
    "Woman have long been trained to treat mean as "success" objects."
    
    Well that may have been true for your mother's generation.
    Today's women were raised to be self sufficient.  We were not
    raised to be dependant on men.  Most of us work and earn our
    own livings.  We are not supported financially by men unless
    we make that choice to be.  I personally don't know of any
    woman in my life who depend entirely on a man's financial
    support.  However, I do know many woman who choose to have
    men in their lives for emotional support.  Big difference!!
                               
    Your outdated attitude should reflect society as it is today
    not as it was in the past.
    
    Michele

    
    
    re. 58
    
    I also think that some folks are intimidated by this issue of violence.
    It really has become such a part of society today.  Unfortunately
    it is more accepted today.  Violence is violence regardless of who
    is doing the beating and who is getting the beating.  It is wrong
    and there are ways to stop it.  It is a thing that has been passed
    down through the history of life.  
    
    One way to stop the violence it to stress to the children of this
    world that it is wrong.  Don't just say No don't do that, but explain
    to them (really explain to them) why it is wrong.  Children would
    be the easiest to start with, and the easiest to accept a non violent
    society.  It may be hard keeping it away from them, but we have
    to try.
    
    Another way to stop the violence would be to have the judicial system
    revamped.  Granted this realistically would be incredibly difficult.
    But it must be done.  The attitudes of the cops, judges, lawyers
    all reflect the fact that domestic violence is just not serious
    enough to take action on.  Sure a judge can issue a restraining order
    against an abusive person, but the police will not step in to
    enforce this until that abusive person has beaten, stabbed,
    fill in the blank!  This is bullshit.  They are supposed to be
    there to protect, but they are still protecting the abuser and not
    the abused.
                             
    
    I have witness domestic violence as a child.  Many times I remember
    watching my drunk father come in and hit my mom.  I can remember
    the yelling and the fights.  And I can remember the cops coming
    and doing absolutely nothing.  I had a boyfriend once who struck
    me in anger.  The first thing I did was to get away from him,
    the second thing I did was to go to the cops.  They laughed at me.
    When I went down a second time to file a compliant I brought
    an entourage of male friends.  And they listened to me that time!
    Why?  You tell me.   Unfortunately that attitude still exists today.
                                                                        
    I think the major difference between men and woman in violence is
    the fact that males traditionally use their fists and females
    traditionally use their minds.  As we all words can hurt
    just as badly as a punch in the face.  If people would just stop
    and count to ten when the pressure gets too high, I think alot
    more people would be talking instead of fighting.
    
    Michele

>    	(Hey DECies, when was the last time your friend who works at the
>    	Battered women's shelter got paid even half of what you earn!
>    	But damn, computers are so much more important, aren't they.)

 That's very constructive. I can even hear the sneer in your voice as you say
it.

 This is what Bob Holt refers to as self-righteousness.

>the suggestion that football is part
>    of a male culture that is clearly violent to women.

 Poetry is also a part of male culture, a male culture that is clearly violent
to women. Thus, poetry must contribute to male-female violence, n'est-ce pas?
Do you understand now?

>Understanding how we perpetuate a culture of violence is the
>    first step towards changing it.  

 What does this mean? Changing a culture that includes football and other
violent sports to reduce the amount of violence seems to indicate a tendency
to eliminate these peripheral areas of violence. Now you tell me what this 
means. If it does not mean elimination of violent sports, etc, what does it 
mean? If it does mean the elimination of relatively harmless socially acceptable
outlets for aggression, do you believe that that will positively or negatively
impact the amount of socially UNacceptable outlets for violence.

> I believe that some noters here are threatened by
>    this topic..and seize upon any intellectual distraction to avoid
>    dealing with the issue personally.

 As one to whom you refer, I disagree with this assessment. If you followed your
own advice and LISTENED, you'd know that nobody has stated that the problem
of male-female violence is not valid. You'd know that we all support the aims
of "Real Men" (A cute name BTW). You'd realize that the reason that only the
peripheral issue of the contribution of socially acceptable outlets for 
aggression to male-female violence has been addressed is because it is the only
issue raised on which there is contention.

>And that alot of
>    people want to avoid taking any responsibility.

 Part of the issue is what responsibility we indeed share, and what we are
capable of doing to solve the problem. What you seem to imply is that it is
not enough for men to not engage in violence themselves, teach their children
that violence is not ok, refuse to tolerate violence from peers, and assist
the victims of violence. What else do we have to do?

>But NO...men here scream loud and
>    clear in reaction to any suggestion that we men really have alot of
>    power in this culture and the fact that we use/abuse it.

 That's not at all what we are contesting.

 The Doctah

    Forget football!!
    
    What about male-female violence?  Do you agree that there is a lot of
    it?  Do you agree it's a problem to be worked on?  Who do you think
    should work on it?  How?  Do you believe there's violence in our
    society?  Do you believe men are encouraged to express emotions
    physically?  Do you belive most women and most children are physically
    weaker than most men?
    
    Can we talk about violence in our society, and how every study, every
    statistic supports the view that adult men contribute most of the
    violence in our society?  Can we talk about how that comes to be?
    
    Should men who are *not* violent help stop the problem?  If not, why?
    
    If the rally had *not* been held on Superbowl Sunday, would you have
    walked in support of this cause?  Will you donate money to shelters and
    to the group?  Why or why not?
    
    Lots of questions, but I'm curious.  Interested in hearing discussion
    about the Real Men group itself, why it has been formed, and what men
    here think about it.   
    Pam

Actually, I think that male-female violence is just one aspect of the general
problem - a society that encourages males to get ahead by means of violence.
That women are the more common target is a secondary effect, devastating as
it is.  Thus while it is not entirely wrong to say that violent sports 
encourage violence against women, one runs the risk of being challenged to
prove a direct connection, which isn't there.

As a male, I have more than enough experience with other males using
violence against me in order to prove their dominance.  The only reason that
I no longer suffer from such violence is that I'm no longer a tempting target.
Women still are.

Football doesn't cause violence.  Rather, the popularity of football is
a symptom of our violent society.  If football were immediately outlawed,
violence would not cease - it would just find other outlets.  If we can find
a way to change ourselves and our children so that violence is considered
unacceptable in ALL situations, violence against women would diminish.

			Steve

>But there must 
>be something in this society that assists in men thinking that a 
>solution to conflict with their wives and girlfriends is a smack, a 
>stabbing, or a gunshot wound.  Either that, or it's a strange 
>coincidence that a lot of men are suffering from psychosis all at the 
>same time.

When I was rereading my note, it made me think of watching the new 
Richard Gere movie, "Internal Affairs."  There is a scene in the movie 
in which a husband backhands his wife in a restaurant; the blow was so 
hard that it sent her into a few tables and sprawling on the ground.

I have no gripe with the movie scene.  The scene was supposed to show 
how crazed the man had become and how low he had sunk.  What terrified 
me was the audience.  More than half of the audience applauded and 
cheered when he hit her.  (I saw the movie at the Cinema 57 in 
Boston).  

It was positively chilling to be watching this movie in a city that 
had just been rocked by a husband disposing of his wife and blaming it 
on "some Black guy in Mission Hill," and to have that kind of mindless 
violence applauded.  It reminded me of the line in "Search for Signs 
of Intelligent Life in the Universe" that says that the audience is 
the real play, the real theater.

But it was just a movie, right?  (Brrrrrrrr...)



							--Gerry

    re: .47, .64
    
    I think you're getting warmer. I believe that starting at a very young
    age children are programmed to resolve conflict through violence. Ever
    watched a 'harmless' Bugs Bunny cartoon with an eye out for violence as
    an interpersonal skill? One of my favorites as a child was Roadrunner,
    but as I watched an episode recently I was apalled at the high content
    of violence. And children learn to laugh at the violence!
    
    How about old Western movies - any time there is a difference of
    opinion, its not long before there is a bar room brawl or a shoot out.
    Again programming that conflicts are resolved through violence. But
    then, watching John Wayne give 'I messages' about being angry or hurt
    doesn't sell seats.
    
    While the NFL may be a business whose primary interest is making money,
    I claim that the real programming of violence as a primary conflict
    resolution tool is carried out by the business interests of Hollywood.
    And I don't believe that the scene you described (man backhanding woman
    in restaurant) is any less to blame than Bugs Bunny.
    
    Seen any good movies (or even cartoons) lately? More important, what
    have your children seen lately?!?
    

    Re .63, Steve, I like your idea that ALL violence is unacceptable. Do
    you really mean all?  Lets take this sceneiro:
    
    A person has a gun and is threatening people with it in a mall.
    
    The police show up and the person is uncoperative as to whether he/she
    will give the gun up, in fact, the persons threats have increased and
    he/she has worked themself into a better tatictal position to grab a
    hostage.  Grabbing a hostage is imminent and the person has been
    shooting (but missing) at people.
    
    Do the police shoot this person as soon as an opportunity arises to
    stop him/her?
    
    If the police choose to shoot and kill/maim the person is THIS the
    type of violence your are suggesting we stop?
    
    Jeff

Re: .66

Yes. I wish to have a society where this person would find it unthinkable
to pull out a gun and start shooting at people.  Thus, the question of
whether or not the police should use violence against violence would be moot.

				Steve

Aggression should have an outlet.  Relief can be taking a tennis racket and
beating a sofa.  For me, it's going to the Air Force Academy and boxing.  A
good work out in the gym really makes me feel better, mentally and physically.
Football could be considered another outlet.  The spectators can also use
"watching" a football game as an outlet for releasing their aggression.

As others have noted, if you stop a sport based on violence, it'll find another
outlet, and maybe not in a good way.

-dwight

>Aggression should have an outlet.  Relief can be taking a tennis racket and
>beating a sofa.  For me, it's going to the Air Force Academy and boxing.  A
>good work out in the gym really makes me feel better, mentally and physically.
>Football could be considered another outlet.  The spectators can also use
>"watching" a football game as an outlet for releasing their aggression.

Something interesting happened to me the other day.  

I play basketball for a Digital team in Southern New Hampshire.  
After being the MVP on a championship team in 1986, my performance has 
been heading steadily downhill, and it's been bothering me; although, 
in the past few weeks, I've started jogging to get into shape.  All the 
time I've been playing basketball, I've been aware that "something was 
going on," that I was trying to get something out if that was more 
than fun competition and exercise.  I was trying to "prove" something 
out there.  (To try to pin it down in more words would be to do the 
feeling an injustice; that's how vague it felt.)

The other day, we were playing a team that is right at our level, and 
we usually have a fun time playing them, lots of joking and banter 
inbetween playing.  Well, we got off to a _terrible_ start.  The score 
at the half was 30-15, them; I don't think we scored our first hoop 
until 5 minutes or so had passed.

I was also flubbing up pretty badly.  After getting bumped a couple of 
times by their center and after fouling him on the way to the hoop 
(score two foul shots for them), I got pissed.  I stopped looking at 
the other team, I ignored their jokes, and I started getting very 
physical (as physical as I could get and not get called for a foul; 
the refs starting jabbering at me to "watch the contact").  I turned 
it into an "US vs THEM," and they were the enemy.

In the second half, I hit a three point shot, a conventional 
three-point play, a turn around post-up, and two foul shots down the 
stretch to help my team win the game by 4 points, or so.  I was a lot 
less physical in the second half, but I was still operating on the 
anger that I had generated in the first half.

After the game, the other team's center came up to chat with me, and I 
had a hard time.  After 1 hour of intense (even physically intense) 
anger, I couldn't just switch gears and chat with him like a friend.

In summary, I was a real jerk.  ...but it worked.  ...and it _was_ a 
socially acceptable outlet of aggression.

In sports, if a team is cleaning your clock with an aggressive level 
of play, you will lose if you don't raise your level of play to match 
theirs.  There are a couple of ways to lift level of play, but the 
easiest and most effective (short-term) method of lifting the level of 
play is to get pissed and to start throwing weight around.  In the 
past, when I was in better shape, I was also able to lift my level of 
play by running faster, jumping higher, relaxing on the shot, and 
concentrating on the fundamentals.

I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this note.

I _do_ love playing basketball.  I _don't_ love turning it into an 
emotional war and acting like a jerk.  I think that a good barometer 
of how I behaved in the game would be to see if I am able to chat with 
members of the other team after the game.

I guess I'm just saying that the outlet of aggression walks people 
down a fine line of fostering aggression if they aren't careful.  It 
has happened to me, and I see it in a lot of the other guys who play 
in our league.

Sometimes I think it's like putting a harness on a tornadoe and trying 
to ride it.  Good luck!


							--Ger

		It seems to me that aggression is built in to most males
	to some degree and I can see the evolutionary factors that would
	enhance this trait.  Culture does not cause aggression but does
	have the ability to channel it one way or another so I think we
	should work towards channeling aggression into productive actions
	or, failing that, at least into neutral actions that don't harm
	anyone.  I belive that someday genetic engineering will provide
	a tool powerfull enough to eliminate the inherent aggression of
	our species but this will be a two-edged sword with the capability
	for great harm as well as great good.

							Jim

 Aggression is genetically linked to us. Aggression was a trait necessary for
survival. As time goes on, it is less so.

 Large, hungry animals do not listen to reason. They eat other animals, 
including people. If you are in a situation where no animals are aggressive,
your need for aggression is reduced. If everyone were law-abiding, there would
be little need for aggression. That is not the way things are.

 People cry out against aggression when what they are really upset about is
unacceptable levels of aggression or unacceptable outlets for aggression. If
all aggression were eliminated, we'd become a society of mediocrity.

re: Ger

>After the game, the other team's center came up to chat with me, and I 
>had a hard time.  After 1 hour of intense (even physically intense) 
>anger, I couldn't just switch gears and chat with him like a friend.

 Perhaps you need to feel angry to allow yourself to be aggressive. maybe that's
why you couldn't deal with chatting with the opposing center. Perhaps if you
believed that aggression was ok and didn't need to be justified by an
underlying anger, you'd have been better able to "turn it off" after the game.
I also play B-ball. I have been unable to engage in light banter after a
game. Usually that happened after I lost and played poorly or won but was
unsatisfied with my performance. Maybe that's what the problem was. When the
game's in progress, it's no holds barred. Afterwards, the contention is over for
me. Let go. Be loose. have fun.

 The Doctah

    In re: .71
    
    What are you a Doctah of? Sociobiology? Physical Anthropology?
    Organismic and Evolutionary Biology?
    
    		- Bruce
    

    RE: last
    
    Mark Levesque, DMND
    
    (Doctah of mental noting disorders)
    
    :-)
    sorry Doc, couldnt resist....

re: .69 - Fisher

Ger:

I hear you.  As the Doc said, "Try to have fun."  But.. I'm not so sure that
the story you told is as bad as one might think.  Perhaps we need to feel the
aggression to make us whole, to make us strong, to keep us forging ahead in
everyday life, to keep us from becoming a weak and stale society.  Men
shouldn't be violent to women, nor women to men, nor adults to children.  But
to try to stamp out aggression would be foolish, in my opinion.

As I said, I like to box.  Like my idols, Ali and SRL, I like to stick and
move, stay outside, move in and throw flurries, and move out again.  It works
for me but really pisses off some boxers that don't have the footwork to catch
me.  There are a few guys at the Academy that really want do "deck" me so bad.
I can feel their anger and see it in their face.  They get wild and start
throwing "hay makers" at me.  If this one guy ever lands one, I'll feel it for
sure.  He loses control and puts everything into it.  When he hits me, I'll
probably feel anger also.  I'll probably unload on him to let him know he's
gone too far.  I may drop him.  Who knows?

After we spar, we talk, but it seems to be "forced."  I still sense his
frustrations, his anger.  He is built well, really stronger than me.  His pride
is getting to him because I easily evade his best efforts.  Jealously? 
Perhaps.  It won't be the first case.  But I feel a bit uneasy talking with him
and being around him also because I know there is a priviate little war going
on between us.  Perhaps if/when he lands the big bomb, things will change???

I can spar with others and not feel this way at all.  Some people get mad at
themselves, but that's different.  Some don't get mad at all, but just have
fun.  I don't know... it's not a new thing.  Since I started with karate at age
17, I have gone through many of these experiences.  But I feel they make me
stronger in character.  

I understand and can appreciate your story about basketball.

-dwight

    Two comments.
    
    1. Aggression in males is normal. Contact sports and other types of
       activity are ideal ways (there are others) to express this. There
       is nothing wrong with expressing this type of aggression.
    
    2. Men resort to physical "violence" because their self-image/identity
       has been eroded to such a low level that they are emotionally
       incapable of withstanding any further assaults. (Assaults are not
       necessarily from a wife) Men will strike back where victory is
       guaranteed (at a smaller woman under the same roof).
       The reason violence works so well in this situation, is due to 
       superior size. Where physical size is not to the male advantage 
       abuse takes an alternate form. ie: verbal, emotional. 
                     
    
    A healthy self-image within a man, will in most cases prevent the kind
    of abuse that we see in many relationships today. Contact sports
    contribute very little (if any) to the problem of "male violence toward
    women".
    
    Terry

    Yesterday I read the Globe from start to finish.  One article sticks in
    my mind.  On July 28, 1988 a young woman seven months pregnant was
    murdered by two teenagers.  It is alleged that her husband hired the
    young men for $10,000 and they were paid that sum from insurance money
    that he collected.
    
    I kept thinking about this note and I thought about a comment awhile
    back that a male noter entered.  He stated that he was not acquainted
    with any men that thought of their wives or partners as possessions. 
    His comment implied to me that violence against women is no longer a
    problem.
    
    But if he worked at DEC on July 28, 1988 one of his coworkers was
    murdered so that her husband could collect her insurance and pay off
    his gambling debts.
    
    Sharon Johnson was a Digital Engineer at the time of her death.

RE .76

...and on the next page of the Sunday Globe, you can find the story of
a Vermont man who raped his ex-wife (or girlfriend) at gunpoint and
proceeded to play Russian Rullette with her.  He was let out on $1000
bail. His partner took out a restraining order on him and police took
extra patrols past her home to try to protect her.  However, he did 
manage to break into the home, to kill her, and to kill himself.

She quoted him as saying, "If I can't have you, then noboby will.  
We'll both die, and, baby, you'll be first."


							--Ger

    Re .76 & .77
    
    A few years ago, police officer Dennis Yaklich was killed by multiple
    shotgun blasts outside his home as he arrived home from work.
    
    Several months later it was discovered that his wife Donna had 
    hired two brothers to do the dirty deed.  Several thousand
    dollars in insurance money was involved from which the two brothers
    were supposed to be paid.  When the breakthrough in the case was
    made, Donna was in the Caribbean with her lawyer.  During the
    trial Donna tried to evict Dennis's children from a previous marrige
    from their home that Dennis had built with insurance money from
    their mother's death.
    
    The two brothers plead guilty and got 20 years.  Donna tried to
    use the "he was beating me" defense.  However, due to her strange
    behavior around the case and the fact that the murder had been
    planned over several weeks, the jury didn't buy the defense.
    Donna got 40 years.
    
    In our society, if I really want to kill someone, and I am willing
    to give my live in accomplishing that end, there is very little
    that anyone can do to stop me.
    
    fred();

    Some thoughts:
    
    Re: football and violence towards women.  If anything, football
    can be said to promote violence, period.  I may tread on some toes,
    but is violence towards women by men any worse somehow then violence
    towards men by men?  I think not.  
    
    re: inherent aggression.  I don't buy that men are "born" more
    aggressive than women.  Without lasping off the topic hugely, and
    falling into a rathole of genetic makeup as perceived by society,
    it's just more acceptable in this time (tho a lot has changed) for
    men to display aggression than for women to.  Vice versa with emotions.
    
    I DO buy that PEOPLE (human beings, whatever) have some inherent
    aggression within them.  In animals, aggression is couple with what
    we like to term instinct, which is simply part of the survival process.
    If an animal is a predator, it must display some aggression or it
    will not be able to kill prey.  If an animal is a herd/territorial
    animal, it must display aggression to gain it's mates/herd/territory.
    If an animal is a prey animal, it must have some sort of aggression
    to defend itself.  Even a rabbit is capable of violence, given the
    right situation (I know first hand).  
    
    People are territorial.  Back when we were a little bit lower down
    on the evolutionary chain, we fought to get mates, define our
    territory, protect ourselves, kill food, so on and so forth.  
    
    We STILL fight among ourselves, and if you wish to take things down
    to the base material, it's generally for the same reasons.  Men
    and women alike.  I've felt violent impulses, I've acted upon some,
    and I've thought to do some things that I won't relate here to people
    I didn't even know.  It had nothing to do with chromosones, but
    rather with mental attitude.
    
    Anyway, my final point is that if one wishes to eliminate violent
    sports/hobbies/etc from societ, you need to get rid of the violence
    first.  If violence is something accepted (violence = aggression
    = acceptance of displays of such) in society, then there will be
    what has been termed "outlets".  You can't get rid of the dog simply
    by removing the tail.  (animal lovers despair not, I am not advocating
    canine mutilation :)
    
    ---kim

    What with all the talk of "Inherited agression", I am surprised noone
    has brought up the Freud theory and the Super ego.
    
    Voilence agains ANYONE is horrible.  Blaming it on a sport, one that
    is particularly violent, is not the answer, INHO.
    
    

    Excuse me. Questions from the almost read-only:
    
    Assuming aggression is inherent in the human species, assuming even
    that men are more aggressive than women, why does aggression ever need
    to be expressed physically? What's wrong with, for example, a verbal
    expression? Do men blow up or something if they can't express
    themselves physically? 
    
    Assuming a physical expression is necessary, why does it have to be
    directed against another human being? Is there somewhere else we can
    direct it? 
    
    If the feeling can be released in a manner that does not endanger the
    physical well-being of someone else, isn't that a preferable mode of
    expression?
    
    John

    It appears to me that any transaction that involves money or bartering
    is one that begins with possession.  You must own something in order to
    gain from its sale or loss.
    
    I know that there are examples of the concept of possession of human
    beings in other relationships other than male/female.  I think the
    observance on Super Bowl Sunday was an attempt to illustrate that it is
    more prevelant in the male/female, husband/wife situation and that Real
    Men want to if not totally stop the violence, at least to make a
    statement that it is not acceptable.
    
    In discussion such as this it is frustrating to find such refute of the
    basic problem.  There seems to be a skirting around the issue and a lot
    of rhetoric on the process or the reasons why.
    
    What would be refreshing is to have people say...."Yes, violence
    against women is still a major problem in our communities".  
    
    And then go on to say how they might resolve it.  Maybe many of the
    responses to this note are valid...maybe Superbowl Sunday was not a
    good time to do this...maybe there would have been a better time. 
    Maybe Mothers Day would have been supportive and would not have
    generated the negativism.
    
    I think that Mike made a valid point about male hormones ...
    aggressiveness and extreme aggressiveness has been linked to a higher
    level of testostorone (sp?) in the body.  If I were a man I would be
    screaming at the medical profession to document and recommend treatment
    for this as women have for PMS.

    re. Mike Z_
    
    Aggression is related to testosterone?  I'm intrigued....does that
    mean if I take a testosterone shot, I'll suddenly become aggressive
    and want to get in fights?
    
    (okie, a little cyni-sarcasm, but really, it's a honest question
    if a bit off the track)
    
    I'd be quite interested in your reference source, Mike.  If you
    know it, please send mail.
    
    Re: Men exploding because they can't hit someone :)
    
    Maybe that was more to my point--men use physical violence because
    it's encouraged/acceptable then just ranting and raving.  
    
    ---kim

    re: a few back.
             
    Someone asked about verbal outlets for male agression rather than
    physical.
    
    I don't believe that verbal abuse of an individual is any more
    acceptable than physical abuse.  Violence directed at an individual,
    or group, in any form is harmful to the recipient.  Emotional scars,
    though  they cannot be seen, are none the less real.
    
    Other outlets do exist, some people compete in non contact sports,
    drive fast cars, climb mountains etc.  In Japan some companies used 
    to (still) have a room where one could take out frustrations throwing
    plates at an effigy of the boss.
    
    Bob

    Re. 84  I have read that higher testosterone levels may increase
    the TENDENCY toward a more aggressive/violent? orientation.  That
    is not to say that a given individual with BE more aggressive, just
    that over a large number of individuals those with higher levels
    TEND to be more agressive.  Can't document it with references off
    the top of my head.   Jeff

In yesterday's Boston Globe, a 23 year-old drug addict in Dorchester 
stabbed his grandmother to death.


						--Ger

    The radio this morning indicated that at 57 year old Pueblo, Co.
    woman would plead guilty to a plea-bargained manslaughter charge
    for shooting her husband in the head.
    fred();

    I am really confused...now I have the feeling that we all know there is
    violence against women and maybe the reason might be high level's of
    testostorone. 
    
    But we don't want to be bothered to find out about it or have the
    medical community seek solutions to the problem.
    
    Real people don't make light of serious problems Violence Against Women
    or possible Hormonal Disorders of Men.
    
    

    Having a system that produces to much of anything is a disorder.  
    
    What would your suggestion be, that folks who suffer PMS, thyroid
    problems, diabetes or aggressiveness due to a hormonal imbalance just 
    bite the bullet and live with their ailment?

    What must not happen is Violence...if in fact someone's anti-social
    behavior is a result of a hormonal imbalance they have choices as how
    to correct the problem, one of which might be getting medical help.
    
    I am a firm believer that our bodies were designed by the great
    engineer to perform certain tasks and assume certain roles.  Evolution
    is a long process and is not in keeping with the current human.  Not
    all men need to hunt or be physically strong and not all women choose
    to procreate.  This creates some confusion...or hormonal imbalances.
    
    I believe in using all the resources available to resolve issues. 
    Violence against women is a result of many things...it is wrong, we
    should do what we can to see that it is not accepted.

    So have we ruled out "football" and other sports as being the cause?
    
    -dwight

    I see some occasional sidetracks to this note.  Sometimes when someone
    says "there's violence done to women by men", or gives an example, someone
    responds with "yeah, there's violence done to men by women", or gives
    an example of it.  Why don't we put discussion of female violence
    against men, its whys, and its wherefores in another note, because it
    seems to be sidetracking and watering-down the issue of violence men do
    to women in here.  
    
    If, indeed, the issue is going to actually be explored and discussed
    here.
    
    -Jody
    

    re .98
    
    Because when you attempt to correct the injustice done to one
    group and ignore (aka. condone) the same injustice to another
    group, it does not make you a hero, it makes you a 
    hypocrite.
    
    fred(cmd);

     But if you have two problems with (potentially) different causes and
    styles, then it makes sense to separate the discussion.  Otherwise, the
    readers of the notes will get very confused!!!
    
     It would be hypocritical to discuss just one and say "but the other is
    unimportant".  I don't believe that was suggested.
    
    					Nigel

    
>    Because when you attempt to correct the injustice done to one
>    group and ignore (aka. condone) the same injustice to another
>    group, it does not make you a hero, it makes you a 
>    hypocrite.

Creating another note isn't ignoring it.  Also, it would give us a 
forum to start asking some questions about women's violence against 
men, just as we are asking questions about men's violence against 
women in this note.

The back and forth nature seems more hostile, to me, than discussing
the issue separately.  That way, we can report on the violence without 
having to feel like we are one-upping each other.

Another solution would be to discuss "violence between partners in 
relationships" in a separate note.  That way, we could compare the 
two and avoid the "segregation" charages.

This topic of this note is about violence against women.

						--Ger

>Sometimes when someone
>    says "there's violence done to women by men", or gives an example, someone
>    responds with "yeah, there's violence done to men by women", or gives
>    an example of it.

 I suspect that this phenomenon occurs due to the nature of the remarks being 
responded to. They are often accusatory or make it sound like male-female
violence is the only violence problem we have, or that all males are involved,
or that female-male violence nevers occurs. Even here, men get put on the
defensive, for the sole reason that they are men.

 In all actuality, the vast majority of men here are sympathetic to the problem
of male-female violence. Unfortunately, men often get put into a position of
having to defend maleness. 

 This file, like any other, cannot be all things to all people. If a woman comes
in here and expresses anger, it may be a cathartic thing for her. It is
certainly her right to speak her mind. And yet her catharsis may alienate
members of the community. She may place otherwise sympathetic noters on
the defensive. People say that because we are men and some men are violent, we
are somehow also responsible for the violence perptrated by some members of
our group (a group over which we had no choice in belonging to). It is sort of
like if a few DEC engineers wrote a worm that crippled the nations computers
and people came up to you in the street and gave you a hard time because you
were employed by the same company.

 When you are disparaged thusly, you can simply accept it or refute it. Some
here have accepted "responsibility" for the actions of their peers, others
have denounced it. As long as men in general are targeted rather than
perpetrators of violence, we will continue to have this problem. 

>Why don't we put discussion of female violence
>    against men, its whys, and its wherefores in another note, because it
>    seems to be sidetracking and watering-down the issue of violence men do
>    to women in here.  

 Well, there's two schools of thought on this. One is that we should just talk
about this one segment of violence (since it is arguably the biggest). The
other is that we should take a more holistic approach, and tackle the
general problem of violence, encompassing this discussion with the more
general problem. Personally, I don't care, as long as it is understood that
to the victim, no violence is more important than the one that affects them.
IE, victims of male-male violence, or female-male violoence, or female-female
violence, don't want to hear that male-female violence is the "worst" or
"most important."

>    If, indeed, the issue is going to actually be explored and discussed
>    here.

 That statement seems to border on insult. I suspect a man who made such a 
comment in the file you moderate would be looked at with suspicion as to
what his motives were.

 The Doctah

    .102
    
    Mark, it seems to me you've really lost perspective in this string. 
    Why are you so incredibly defensive?  What Jody said was not
    unreasonable.  Calm down, please.
    
    			- Bruce

re: .102

>>    If, indeed, the issue is going to actually be explored and discussed
>>    here.

> That statement seems to border on insult. I suspect a man who made such a 
>comment in the file you moderate would be looked at with suspicion as to
>what his motives were.
    
    Well, Mark, in case you're suspicious, my motives are to encourage
    discussion and exploration of the topic of this note, which is about
    supporting an end to violence against women via exploration of how and
    why it might occur.
    
    If you want we can do a blow-by-blow of all the sidetracking that has
    seemed to be going on in this discussion by several people, although I
    think I pointed this out in my previous note.  It seems like several
    people either don't want to discuss it, or don't want to see it
    discussed.  I was simply addressing that issue.
    
    -Jody

    Violence, men against women, women against men, men against men, it's
    all here somewhere.  In reading some of the =wn note's descriptions of
    atrocities I was reminded of having been beated up by 17 men and left.
    I am not as eloquent as those other notes and I don't think the terror
    that I felt was as bad as that expressed by a single Rape victim but
    I know that it was there.  I had forgotten about it for the last 25
    years.  Now I think about it more often and try to relate that fear to
    what it must be like to walk a street in constant fear of such a thing.
           
    I try to avoid CFN (content free noting) but I thought I'd say I think
    a know a little bit about the violence of humans against humans and I
    encourage anyone who wants to try to stop it.

    ed
    

    
    	RE: .103  Bruce, everyone is entitled to his/her opinion regarding
    the contents of the issues under discussion. I don't feel we need
    a critical analysis and resulting commentary on every note to which we
    do not agree....your attitude struck me as rather condescending.
    
    Paul C.

>    Mark, it seems to me you've really lost perspective in this string. 
>    Why are you so incredibly defensive?  What Jody said was not
>    unreasonable.  Calm down, please.

 I don't know what makes you feel that I am "so incredibly defensive," but I
certainly don't feel like I'm on the defensive, even after rereading my entry.
please point out what leads you to this conclusion (in mail, please. enough
ratholing).

 I was also completely calm when I wrote the note, so "calm down" in this 
context doesn't make since.

 I simply explained what I believe to be the cause of the things that Jody
spoke about. Nothing more- nothing less.

 The Doctah

	re: .96 (Dwight Berry)

	> So have we ruled out "football" and other sports as being the cause?
    
	I participated in the march described in the basenote, and
	spoke with Jackson Katz, the organizer of Real Men, about
	the correlation between football and violence.

	He said something like, 

	"If you are looking for hard data... national studies... etc., 
	there are none.  What _is_ known is that on days of nationally
	televised football games, in particular the Super Bowl, there is
	a large increase in calls to battered women's shelters and 
	hotlines."  [...]  "I think that has to do with the large amount
	of drinking that goes on during game days, how early in the 
	day it starts, and the betting, especially w.r.t. the Super Bowl."

							nancy b.

	P.S.  FWIW, Jackson was a high school football star at a local
	      high school, and is writing a book entitled, 
	      "The Feminist Fullback". 

    re .96-
    
    >   So have we ruled out "football" and other sports as being the cause?
    
    Actually, Dwight, I don't remember ever seeing that argument, and my
    entries early on in this string spoke along other lines entirely.  Now,
    some folks did like to continue to set up and knock that straw horse
    down, and, since I was 1) busy then and 2) moving last week and 3) out
    sick with strep throat since, I wasn't inclined to pursue the rathole.
    
    Now, if I'm wrong, and someone *was* making such a shallow argument,
    please point it out.  No, on the other hand, don't.  Lets just carry
    on with a real discussion.  As soon as I review the topic, I'll try to
    make a real contribution.
    
    DougO
    
    PS- And here came Nancy's note, correlating big sporting events with
    increases in violence against women.  Maybe we *should* follow that.
    

    re:  .109  [bittle]

    >>>	hotlines."  [...]  "I think that has to do with the large amount
	of drinking that goes on during game days, how early in the 
	day it starts, and the betting, especially w.r.t. the Super Bowl."

    So then, this note would be more accurate if we were discussing
    "drinking problems" and the problems which stem from that and not
    mention sports/football in the same breath with violence against
    women... eh?

    -dwight

 Actually, people, I finally know the real truth about the correlation of
sports and violence against women. It was on the news last night- every station
in the Boston area reported. I am personally disgusted.

 The real truth is that violence is not related to football at all. It is 
related, heck, it's perpetrated by basketball and basketball teams. The Celtics
are no longer special to me. Neither are sportscasters- they all reported the
crime with glee. What happened? According to the three local stations, last 
night:

 "The Celtics beat Charlotte."
 "The Celtics hammered Charlotte."
 "The Celtics pounded Charlotte in a laugher of a game."

 Can you believe that? An entire team of men attacking a single woman, with a
hammer? And calling it a game? What is this world coming to?

 The Doctah

 ;^)

    RE: .113   Doctah....I was there last night and witnessed the action
               you described, sitting 5 rows from the floor. It was an
               experience to day the least :-}
    
    Paul C.

    Re. 92 "having a system which produces too much of anything is a
    disorder".   Fine.... but how do you define how much is too much
    on an individual basis?  Do we go by behavior?  i.e. Any male
    which is agressive toward women has "too much testosterone" and 
    should be chemically castrated?  I know you didn't say that, but is
    that where we are heading as a cure?  Other noters have been against
    that approach, (chemical castration).  How would we define the
    "eligible" males anyway.  I would think that chemically reducing
    male hormone levels should only be done in extreme cases unless
    it was voluntary.  Perhaps as an alternative to prison?  I think
    that I have read that chemical reduction of male hormones does not
    work too well in sex offender cases.   Jeff

I feel that the march was done on Super Sunday for press. That's smart marketing.
I don't care if you rain on my parade. I can ignore it if I want.

I happen to have a sister-in-law who is a jock. She took up volleyball in
college and was constantly bruised and scraped on her legs. This is a brutal
sport. People dive for the ball and burn their skin while colliding with their
teammates. And we admire their spunk. Especially when they're women.

She also played softball in high school. I remember that it always surprised me
that she would wear shorts to the games. At first I figured this was because she
wasn't planning to slide, but then I watched her go head first into second. She
came up bloody but didn't care much about it. She was so into winning that she
couldn't care about anything else. At one point when she knocked a line drive off
the pitcher's leg, she had to quickly wipe a smile off of her face (aimed for her
teammates) so that she could straight-faced ask the girl if she was okay.

A few years ago she (then about 25) came to visit in the summer. She had been
nursing her knee somewhat (it was a sliding injury). But she finally declared
it to be sufficiently healed to challenge me to one-on-one basketball. I figured
that this was a sport that she wasn't very versed in, and might prove somewhat
silly, but I agreed to anyway. She gave me the ball first. I stepped back to take
a shot, then started in for the rebound, and "bang" she laid a hip on me. I
proceeded to maneuver around and she pushed me back. I (reverting to my wimpy
schoolyard days) said "what's that ?". She said, "oh, I'm just feeling where
you are". Well, we went at it for a few hoops, getting more and more physical,
and less and less accurate on the shots, then it started to rain and we both
decided to call it quits. We have never held a rematch. This was a landmark
event for me. It wiped out some stereotypes and warned me to not let my guard
down. It was a bit of a thrill, but also scary.

    re .111, Mike Z-
    
    > 	Allow me to enlighten you :
    
    Oh, that was real helpful, Mike.  You've repeated that, what, three
    times now?  The original author of the basenote has said it was poorly 
    written and didn't get his meaning across very well.  I repeat- no one
    has made that argument.  The original author has discalimed it and your
    continual attribution, after 110 replies, is a waste of time.  Its a 
    straw horse.  Go ahead, keep flogging it, but after 110 replies with no
    one defending that point of view, I'll leave you to do it alone.
    
    Your 'enlightenment' doesn't illumine the discussion at all.  But you
    probably already knew that.
    
    DougO

    re .41, Bob-
    
    Sorry for the delay getting back to you.  Thanks for answering
    my question in .20.  (I'd ask the same question of Mark Levesque, if 
    he hadn't been pointedly ignoring the other things I already wrote, and
    already asked him to respond to (.17, I think).)
    
    >  For one thing I don't believe you can lay the blame at the
    > door of the NFL.
    > 
    > I think blaming football or sports in general for violence against
    > women is worse than missing the point, it is taking the issue down
    > a rathole.
    
    'Blaming' the NFL wasn't what was really done, the way I saw the events
    described.  I saw it as drawing a correlation between two spectres of
    violence in our society.  Now, some people like to see one of those
    shades as much more benign than the other.  The march and the group
    were trying to make the point that perhaps they're not that far apart,
    trying to get people to look at their daily lives and the values they
    encourage by participating in/responding to media hype over pro football.
    Gored some sacred cows here, I can see.
    
    >  Give the issue the respect it deserves, and discuss some real causes,
    > such as how men and womens interactions are portrayed in movies and
    > on TV, perpetuation of male dominance in certain cultures..etc.
    
    Funny you should mention that.  Just a month or so ago I tried to
    discuss that very correlation, about how movie and TV male-female
    interactions do influence the cultural problems we have, and Mike
    Zarlenga just about had a fit with it.  Hey, both correlations are
    obvious to me.  Do I gore your football ox or his TV/movie ox?  Both
    reflect and reinforce aspects of this culture that condone violence
    in general...and that effectively translates to violence against women,
    since some men take those cultural imperatives of violence to an extreme.  
    
    You may see the football subculture as 'trivial' but I disagree.  I'm 
    glad you agree the issue merits serious discussion, though, and I'll 
    gladly take it in other directions than the football subcultural one.  
    Hey, Steve L, wanna reopen the topic you shut down earlier so we can 
    pick it up again?
    
    DougO
    

    re .118, Mike,
    
    Oh, you missed it?  This is from .58.  OK?  Let the straw horse die.
    
    > NO NO NO.  I met with the man who was interviewed, Jackson Katz of Real
    > Men, and NO he was not trying to indicate a DIRECT link between
    > football and male violence against women.   Nor did I mean to imply
    > such a direct connection.
    
    DougO

    RE:  Last few.....So DougO, do you believe that if our society did away
    with any and all references to violence in movies, sports, etc., that
    the incidents of violence against women/children/people-in-general
    would, over time, decrease to near 0 ?????
    
    Sounds too much like Misterrogers Neighborhood to be attainable in the
    real world....Shangra-La, maybe, but not the real world.
    
    Paul C.

Yesteday's Globe had a story about a woman from New Bedford who was
killed by her husband (he committed suicide after) in May of 1989, and
his family is attempting to collect half the estate. Massachusetts law 
states that, if a couple dies at the same time, then the two families 
split the estate (no provision was made for murder).

He shot her in the back and then turned the gun on himself.  3 
independent investigators concluded that he shot her (including his 
finger prints found on the shot gun).

							--Ger

Note: I _have_ been looking for incidents where the man was killed by 
a woman relative (which I'll post in another note), but I haven't found any.  
I'm not "ignoring" that kind of violence.

It could be that the Globe is not printing these stories.  It could be
that the Stuart case has forced a temporary focus only on wives who
are killed by their husbands.  I don't know.  Whether the Globe is 
reporting the other kinds of violence or not, I'm startled by the 
amount of violence against women in New England in the past 3 or 4 
weeks!

The only thing I could do is to buy the Herald for a while (Blech!) to 
see if their coverage is any different.  They are known to have more 
complete and better local coverage.  

    No, Paul, you're right; I don't think that hiding from the problem,
    either by suppressing visible manifestations as you suggest, or
    pretending they don't exist (as so many here are doing), will solve
    it.  As the basenoter mentioned in his much more readable note .58, I
    think that by attempting to understand our culture we may come up with
    ideas on solving the problem.  Certainly we won't get there if we have
    to waste 120 replies explaining every chance miss-statement which
    happened to tarnish a cherished cultural icon like the Super Bowl.
    Given how difficult it is to even get consensus that conflicting cultural 
    values instilled into millions will systematically result in disorders,
    perhaps we need to start at a simpler level for the mennotes community.
    
    DougO

>(I'd ask the same question of Mark Levesque, if 
>    he hadn't been pointedly ignoring the other things I already wrote, and
>    already asked him to respond to (.17, I think).)

 What have you asked that you consider to be unanswered in .17 or any other 
note?

>    'Blaming' the NFL wasn't what was really done, the way I saw the events
>    described. 

 and

.17>Don't imagine that the protest was against them in
>    isolation.  The protest chose them as the symbol of the whole schmear,
>    the whole social institution of football.

 I guess I don't understand what the point of protesting an institution that
is not being blamed or held responsible for something is. If the NFL is not
being held responsible, why then, did the organizers raise the issue?

>    Gored some sacred cows here, I can see.

 That's not it at all.

>Both
>    reflect and reinforce aspects of this culture that condone violence
>    in general...and that effectively translates to violence against women,
>    since some men take those cultural imperatives of violence to an extreme.  

 I disagree that violence is a "cultural imperative." Aggression, perhaps, but
not violence. Besides, do you hold all drivers responsible for the fact that
some drivers drive recklessly and cause accidents? 

>    You may see the football subculture as 'trivial' but I disagree. 

 Fine. There's no problem with disagreement.

>I'm 
>    glad you agree the issue merits serious discussion, though, and I'll 
>    gladly take it in other directions than the football subcultural one. 

 Do it. I'm ready.

>Certainly we won't get there if we have
>    to waste 120 replies explaining every chance miss-statement which
>    happened to tarnish a cherished cultural icon like the Super Bowl.

 Nor will we get there if people feel the need to talk down to people they
disgree with at every opportunity. That statement was unnecessary and 
inflammatory; kind of a strange combination from one who claims to wish to
cut to the chase. Why the one-upmanship, Doug? rather aggressive of you. :-)

 How do YOU suggest we solve the problem? be specific. Please explain what
you feel we must do in relation to the visible manisfestations of violence
in our culture.

 Doug, we are more than willing to listen to reasoned arguments. Don't try
to paint us as unreasonable- it's not fair.

 The Doctah

    I tuned into the night of Jan 25th which was about men abusing the
    women they were involved with.  it was on a PBS station (not WGBH -
    maybe WGBX-44 or the NH pbs station?) and I didn't get a chance to
    watch the whole thing, but I did take  some notes...
    
    They discussed a program/place for abusive men called EMERGE.  They
    discussed not only wife/SO physical abuse, but added other things to
    the list like namecalling, criticism, controlling all the money,
    isolating the woman, making her stay at home, and taking her keys as
    other forms of abuse.  They mentioned that sexism is the key to the
    problem, and that the violence begins with the devaluing of the women.  
    And that violence at home is often an attempt to control completely the
    women in their lives.
    
    Statistics included that:
    
    only half the men who even GET to EMERGE stop battering
    
    physical abuse occurs behind almost half the closed doors of america's
    homes.
    
    police spend almost a third of their time responding to domestic abuse
    calls
    
    Boston police repsond to calls for help in domestic abuse cases about
    1500 times a year.
    
    -Jody
    
    

    I agree with the statement that violence toward women is a result of a
    mixture of reasons. Part of the conference is looking for a single 
    cause such as watching football games.  Which comes first, the cart
    or the horse? i.e. do men watch football games because they are
    agressive, or does watching football games make men agressive?  I 
    suspect the answer is yes..... both.
    
    Look at the movies.... the movies which are made are the movies people
    are willing to PAY to see.   For the most part people are willing
    to PAY to watch violence.  Even if your not willing to pay all you
    have to do is turn on the TV and presto you see another woman getting
    beaten up or killed.
    
    What am I leading up to?  Men tend to be violent toward women because
    of their hormones AND cultural influence.
    
    100 years ago, were men as violent toward women if one adjusts for 
    population ratios?  I don't know the answer.  Men were certainly more
    sexist.  If there was less violence in general toward women a century
    or more ago I think that points to cultural influence more than to
    inate male agression/hormones because men havn't changed biologically
    in less than two hundred years.        Jeff

I was having a discussion with another noter from MENNOTES when 
something occured to me.  A lot of times, Notes doesn't really give a 
very good indication of what a person is thinking or feeling about an 
issue, unless that person takes a _lot_ of time to key in all that 
information.

I can understand how some people would see my postings of Globe
reports about violence against women as some kind of "Nya nya nya NYA
nya" gesture (picture thumb against the nose with fingers waving), or
as a slam against men.  That's not what I was thinking and feeling at 
all.  I also am not interested in ignoring other types of violence, 
types other than that against women.

What happened with me was that I read the statistic about 40% of women 
murder victims being killed by men in their families, and I was 
shocked.  I thought that if the statistic is so high, I should be 
seeing evidence in my local newspaper.  Sure enough, every couple of 
days, there is another story about violence against women by men who 
"love" them.  I was (and am) schocked.  I just wanted to share what I 
was finding.

Since reading some of the replies, I now think that it would be a good 
idea to keep a look out for other kinds of domestic violence, too.  I 
happen to be of the opinion that other kinds of domestic violence can 
be discussed in other notes.

I apologize to people who felt that I was slamming men or thumbing my 
nose at violence against men.  That wasn't my intention at all.  


							--Gerry

    re .64 - gerry's comment about audience reaction at the cinema 57
    
    me too.  the audience cheering every time a woman "got it" ("deserved"
    or not) ruined BATMAN for me.  that crowd was SCARY!!
    
    i'm not going back to that cinema...

re:  .120  Olson

>>>>-< Dwight, you should pay attention, too. >-
                   ^^^^^^

Anything else I *should* do??  I feel so foolish....

-dwight

    I'm still waiting, mike z (.26), for your data on fan violence at
    non-contact sports.  Can't find it?

    But I have some vaguely related data that may be of interest. Way 
    back, I spent two years as a research associate at a university.  One
    of my most perculiar - but interesting - duties was compiling
    statistics on the academic qualifications of the members of the men's
    varsity teams at all colleges in a prestigious athletic league.  This
    was done for the college Presidents, so they could encourage each
    other to remember the theory that they were supposed to be admitting 
    scholar-athletes, not pure jocks.  The main metric was SAT scores at
    the time of admission.

    There was some voyeuristic interest in seeing which schools were 
    having more trouble remembering the principle.  But more interesting
    were the socre patterns across different sports at a single school,
    which were  pretty constant across the different colleges.  

    One pattern was simply smarter kids in some sports than in others. 
    Crew and squash players had scores just like the class as a whole, 
    while football players (for example) were noticably lower, and hockey 
    players were ...  well, lets just say they were lower still.  Now, in a 
    sense this isn't surprising, and seemingly might have simple 
    explanations.  For example, admissions committees might bend the rules
    more for visible sports like football.  And perhaps many squash and
    crew  members have come from prep school backgrounds.  Anyhow, if you
    ranked the sports in order of average SAT scores, at any of the
    colleges, you would get a spectrum that roughly ran from least contact
    (high  scores) to most contact.  Contact isn't quite the right word
    (basketball  was about level with football, for example, though it has
    a lot less contact), but the word "agressive" by itself wouldn't be
    quite right either (agressiveness can be real valuable to a squash
    player, but it's a much more channeled agression). Maybe "macho-ness"
    is about right.

    But there was another more subtle and probably more fundamental
    phenomenon.  The above differences were _far_ larger on Verbal  scores
    than on Math scores.  Thus crew members had Verbal and Math scores 
    that were not only high, but were about the same.  Hockey players, in
    contrast, had mediocre Math scores, and really terrible Verbal scores.
    In fact, their Verbal scores were about 400 points lower than the crew
    members - that's _4_ standard deviations - but their Math scores were
    only about 200 points lower.  The pattern held pretty well for
    individuals, as well as the averages.  Thus the "smart" hockey players
    (there were a couple) had high Math scores and mediocre Verbal scores;
    the _difference_ was fairly constant.  And the pattern varied across
    the spectrum of sports, ranked according to their degree of
    "macho-ness."  If you knew just the difference between an athlets  M
    and V scores, you could make a pretty good guess about his sport.

    Now I'll move from fact to a bit of interpretation and speculation.  It
    is of course the case that women in general tend to have slightly
    higher Verbal scores than Math scores, and men the reverse.  The above
    data suggest this score differential is associated with other traits
    considered sex linked within men as separate group.  Now, I have  NO
    data on rapists or other violent criminals, but I'll bet that more of
    them can count their change than can compose a sonnet, or even a
    limerick.  Note that I have NOT advocated preventive detention for pro
    hockey or football players or fans (though some fellow noters will
    probably make this accusation).
    
    And I have not speculated on cause and effect.  It seems unlikely that
    low verbal skill cause high hockey skills, or that playing hockey 
    directly lowers verbal skills.  More likely there is some other
    underlying mechanism.  Unfortunately, we had no information on levels
    of testosterone or other steroids.  And we had no data on women
    athletes (this was only a men's league), so I have no idea if there
    would have been similar patterns for them.  Clearly there may also be
    environemntal factors at work, as there may be hereditary or
    biochemical ones.
    
    So, next time you find yourself feeling sorry for some dumb jock
    (male), realize that it's probably more accurate to think of him as an
    _inarticulate_ jock; he _may_ be able to add and multiply.
    
    			- Bruce
    			 {whose math and verbal scores were the same, which
    			  could tell you what sort of sports he was a jock in}
    

    In re: .133
    
              I haven't looked for supporting data either, mike [but 
              then, I never promised to].
              
              I know you're wrong, however.
              
              You're so obviously wrong, that's it's not worth my effort to
              prove it.  But of course I could if I tried.  So let's
              consider this settled, and that I won the argument.
    
    
    Does that sound unoriginal?  Does it sound constructive?
    
    			- Bruce
    

    "In this society violence against women occurs with shocking frequency.
    
    FBI statistics indicate that every eighteen seconds a man batters a
    woman in her home.
    
    Battering occurs in anywhere form one-quarter to one-half of all
    marriages or male/female cohabitating relationships.
    
    One out of three women will be raped (forced to have sex without
    consent) during her lifetime.
    
    ...
    
    Every day we see real and imagined violence against women in the news,
    TV shows and movies, in advertising, in our homes and workplaces.  It
    becomes a fact of life.
    
    ...
    
    in the broadest sense, violence against women is any violation of a
    woman's personhood, mental or physical integrity or freedom of
    movement, and includes all the ways our society objectifies and
    oppresses women.  over the past decade, activists have made the
    definition more specific in order to facilitate organizing efforts
    around certain forms of violence. ...
    
    Every form of violence threatens women with physical or psychological
    violation and limits our ability to make choices about our lives...
    
    Twenty years ago, most forms of violence against women were hidden
    under a cloak of silence and tacit acceptance.  As more and mroe women
    talked wiht each other in the recent wave of the women's movement, it
    became apparent that violence against us occurs on a massive scale,
    that no woman is immune...
    
    Over the past fifteen years women in communities throughout the country
    have mobilized to offer direct services to women who have encountered
    violence, to educate people about the range and nature of the violence
    and to develop strategies for resistance..."
    
    
    The above is excerpted from "(The New) Our Bodies, Ourselves, by The
    Boston Women's Health Book Collective.  ISBN # 0-671-46088-9.
    

    
    "One man's violence against one woman may SEEM to result from his
    individual psychological problems, sexual frustration, unbearable life
    pressures or some innate urge toward aggression.  Though each of these
    "reasons" has been used to explain and even justify male violence, they
    hid the truth.
    
    Men use violence against women to exert and maintain their power and
    control over us.
    
    When a battering husband uses beatings to confine his wife to the home
    and prevent her from seeing friends and family or pursuing outside
    work, he exerts dominance, hostility and control...
    
    Whether or not an individual man who commits an act of violence view it
    as an expression of power is not the point.  The fact that so many
    individual men feel entitled to express their frustration or anger by
    being violent to so many individual women illustrates the power men as
    a group hold over women as a group...
    
    Thousands of daily acts of violence throughout the country create a
    climate of fear and powerlessness which limits women's freedom of
    action and controls many of the movements of our lives."
    
    
    The above excerpts were taken from "(The New) Our Bodies, Ourselves", a
    book by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective.  ISBN 0-671-46088-9
    
    

    In re: .135
    
    mike -
    
    I'm glad your memory is perfect, and I'm glad you never read any
    nonsense, or believe it.  I'm also glad you recognize a parody, though
    no exaggeration was necessary, at all.
    
    I do wish you would go back and read what you claimed earlier (circa
    .20 +/-), and even some of the responses from other people.  What you
    claimed seemed to me absurd on its face (it required that tennis fans
    be more violent than football fans, for example, and polo fans more
    violent than boxing fans).  I may be wrong, and if so I would
    like to know it.  I do not find myself up to accepting your bald
    assertions as evidence in themselves, and doing so is getting harder by
    the entry.  Why is that so hard for you to understand?  Now,
    internationally, there may have been more violence at English football
    matches than at Austrailian boxing matches, but that is clearly a
    meaningless comparison.  Are the English more violent at cricket
    than at football?  Are the Australians less violent at boxing than at
    swimming?  You specifically asserted that there is more violence in the
    USA at baseball games than at football games; you'd better mean on a
    per-capita basis.  I didn't believe it and I still don't, and you're
    shouting it won't convince me.  Put up or shut up, please.
    
    It seems to me that you and others are unable/willing to accept this
    topic (as represented in the title) as a legitimate point of discussion,
    and want to steer it into mouseholes (STOP JUMPING ON THE SACRED NFL;
    BOWLING FANS ARE VIOLENT; etc.).  How am I wrong on this?  And, would
    you accept from an intellectual antagonist the argument "I'M RIGHT
    YOU'RE WRONG GO TO HELL"?   It seems to me that you're approaching that
    approach.
    
    			- Bruce
    
    p.s. Thank you Jody for trying to reintroduce the topic of this topic.
    

    You're right mike.  I was complaining that you were digressing, and I'm
    glad to stop contributing to that myself.  See 411.
    
    		- Bruce
    
    p.s.  Can you tell me why in your short and reasonable note .139 you
    append 15 lines of mine from .138 to your 6 new lines in .139?  Do you
    worry that nobody can remember - or re-access - the previous entry?

    I do not know where to address what I am about to write--it seems
    that about all the content is related to this topic, and some not
    so precisely, and what with the expressed concerned of digressing
    an issue here, moderators, feel free to move this is necessary:
    
    
    Since this topic is entitled ...violence against women, and plenty
    of statistic have been quoted to support the motion that a large
    and frightening amount of women have been murdered/beat up by men,
    I am not so sure that adding to the arguement would be in any way
    constructive.  However, all the facts and figures and questions
    brought up have made me wonder about a few things:
    
    We are focusing on how men, due to the possible combination of
    hormones/cultural conditioning/societal influence, etc. are violent
    against women.  If one read this note casually, one might suspect
    that men are violent MOSTLY, or almost always against *women* alone.
    I am interested in "the other side of the fence" so to speak. 
    
    Are men as violent/less violent/more violent against other men?
    
    Are there studies/stats to show the percentages?
    
    If men tend to be more violent against women--why?  Is it because
    women are perceived as "easier marks"?   
    
    (and this is definitely off the string a bit...)
    
    Are there pecentages on women to women/women to men violence?  What
    are they like?  Has it gone up or down in recent years?  My guess
    would be up, simply because is it more "okay" for women to display
    aggression now-a-days than of old.  I can state with reasonable
    assurance that women are certainly capable of aggression and
    violence--do statistics suggest that this capability is generall
    suppressed, or transferred into more "acceptable" outlets?
    
    
    ---kim

    There were some stats in WOMANNOTES which indicate that _reported_
    cases of violence are most common by far for the man-to-man case. 
    
    Note that domestic acts of violence are usually not reported and that
    most violence against women falls in that category.
    
    It doesn't surprise me that violence between strangers would skew
    towards male victims: men are probably more likely to react
    aggressively to an aggressor and to escalate a tense situation.
    
    Ray

	I received the following notice of a meeting next Monday night
	for the group REAL MEN.
							nancy b.


                                      REAL MEN

                                  invites you to an

                                Introductory Meeting



                            Monday, March 5, 1990, 7:30pm
              Berkeley Residence, Boston YWCA, 40 Berkeley St., Boston

          (located at corner of Berkeley St. and Appleton St., about 4
          blocks from Copley Square.  The closest 'T' stops are Arlington
          St. on the Green Line and Back Bay Station on the Orange Line)

                          --------------------------------

          REAL MEN is a group of people who are attempting to contribute to
          a new understanding of what it means to be a man, and of men's
          relationship to feminism.

          We are a group committed to political change through public
          activism and personal development.  One of our principal goals is
          to encourage men to take responsibility for ending sexism and
          male violence.  To this end, we organize speakers, distribute
          information and media packets, and promote our views on radio and
          television.

          We would like to thank all those who participated in our _Walk to
          End Violence Against Women, which raised nearly $2000 for the
          Mass. Coalition of Battered Women's Service Groups.  Please send
          any remaining pledge money or other donations to:

          Real Men, P.O. Box 1769, Brookline, MA  02146

                          ---------------------------------

                         For more information, please call:
             Jackson Katz  (617)782-7838  or  David Levy  (617)787-4819

    Thanks for posting .143, nancy b.
    
    Ray

        re: 409.145 (Ray Davis)

        > We can always go to the pub afterwards...

        Ray, you must be thinking of the Commonwealth Brewery,
        which is a couple T stops away from where the Real
        Men meeting will be held...  As a matter of fact, using
        Bonnie's description of a "real man", all the guys I've
        ever met there have definitely been "real men" :-)!!

                                                nancy b.