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This is not simply being stupid and wrong. This is not simply being stupid and wrong. Large prominent feminist organizations actively, willfully supporting and celebrating female abusers while completely erasing male victims if not making them out to be the abusers. They seem to justify any violence by women towards men as self-defense and any violence by men towards women as abusive. If you don't see that as willfully evil, I'm not sure what you would see as such.
Given the history of domestic violence research (see particularly the section on the harassment of researchers who found evidence of gender symmetry), I do not consider such ignorance to be a very good defense.
I think it is less biases of agency that are the problem in this case and more biases in the acceptance of harm.
I don't think all or possibly even most willfully evil behavior is based in malice. Gross negligence is I think an example of such, and one I think better describes my characterization of feminists in this case. They mostly don't necessarily want to hurt men, they just don't care if men get hurt.
I think that characterization is horribly infantilizing of feminists and is far less charitable than recognizing that they are being willfully evil for two primary reasons. First, doing so is in my mind just another way society doesn't take women seriously. Regardless of my disagreements with them, I don't believe they are stupid. I'd expect the average intelligence of feminists to be above the population average, as it is largely a movement of the well-educated.
Second, I think that this puts "evil" behavior on too high a pedestal, which I don't think is wise. Willfully evil behavior is normal human behavior, not something restricted to evil people. Importantly, how can I expect to recognize and not shy away from acknowledging when I'm being willfully evil to others if I close my eyes to the much easier-to-recognize case of others being willfully evil toward (people like) me? This is perhaps a bastardization of the Catholic teachings I was raised with and turned away from, but I think this ties directly in to the plea in the Lord's prayer to "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"--there can be no forgiveness without acknowledgement.
EDIT: Grammar.
Hmmm...I think I still failed to communicate. I think it is evil to believe "The ends justify the means." and actively disregard moral responsibilities to those affected by your actions in pursuit of a goal. I don't think it should be necessarily considered to be malice however, as any harm caused is usually a side effect rather than the ultimate goal. This is how I perceive most feminists' activism in the context of DV. I take it you disagree with at least one of these characterizations?
N=1, but I'd be a lot healthier if I found it easier to be convinced I am wrong than that I am evil.
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"Size and strength differences significantly change the context for violence. More women end up in the hospital or the morgue."
While I understand the idea that physical violence would result in greater injury to women, even if abuse rates were equal, wouldn't that consideration be irrelevant to the discussion of unfair institutional bias in family courts?
My understanding of the original contention point was that family courts were biased against men, and a key point of evidence of this fact was that feminist groups were against reform, whereas men's groups were for reform.
Your reasoning for why feminist groups may be against reform, even if the current family court system was in fact unbiased, was because of the perception that abusive men are attempting to reform the courts in a way that would allow them to use the family court as a continuation of their abuse.
The response was that within domestic contexts, there seems to be an equal rate of abuse between men and women, and in fact women are more likely to abuse children than men, demonstrating that women are just as capable of abuse, where they have the opportunity.
Your response was that men are stronger than women, and therefore the result of any reciprocal physical abuse is that men's abuse would have greater context.
If we were considering creating policy for domestic violence, I can understand taking into consideration the fact that women are weaker into account. But here, such lack of physical strength should be irrelevant when deciding the contorts of family law, which is litigated out not by physical strength, but by lawyers and courts. In that case, if you've already conceded that men and women are equally abusive in rate, then here, in a context without a physical advantage, it should naturally follow that in fact, "feminists being scared that men will abuse through family court" is no more justified than the male activist's perspective that women currently do abuse through family court.
Beyond this, I think there's some weird inconsistency between how you treat male on women domestic violence, and women on children domestic violence. I presume that just like for men to women, women similarly enjoy a physical superiority to children, especially babies. Yet when speaking about men abusing women, your perspective is:
"I'm aware that women are equally or more likely than men to haul off and slap a partner, and I'm aware of the (so far still fairly limited) statistics on domestic violence rates in same-sex couples. I am nevertheless not terribly swayed by the "reciprocally violent" characterization of most abusive heterosexual relationships. Size and strength differences significantly change the context for violence. More women end up in the hospital or the morgue."
You would presume then that there would be very little sympathy for women abusing children, yet instead, when provided evidence that women are in fact, when given the opportunity to do so, seem to abuse children at a higher rate then men, instead of similarly emphasizing the consequences of the situation, you instead run cover for women:
"Women are more likely to abuse children, but most of this is explained by the fact that they are much more likely to be primary caregivers spending far more time with the child. The opportunities for frustration that escalates to criminality are multiplied."
I'm not sure it's to the point of saying that you're excusing the consequences of female violence, but it was enough that I had to make a note of it.
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