Monday, September 14, 2009

National Coalition for Men

Certainly an interesting group.
The National Coalition for Men (NCFM), formerly the National Coalition of Free Men, is a non-profit educational & civil rights organization based in the United States. The NCFM looks at the ways sex discrimination affects men and boys. The organization has sponsored conferences, adult education, demonstrations and lawsuits. NCFM is the United States' oldest and largest generalist men's rights organization. (Although they have had members operating from Guam, the association is based almost entirely in the US). It professes to being politically neutral, neither conservative nor liberal. - from Wiki
With an interesting web presence as well. Besides good links and a great library, we find some interesting ressources. Excerps:
Myth: “Men are rarely victims of domestic violence.”
Fact: Half of domestic violence (”DV”) victims are men. Although men are less likely than women to call police, randomized sociological (behavior-based) research consistently shows: (1) women initiate DV as often as men do; (2) women use weapons and surprise more than men do; and (3) about 38% of physically injured DV victims are men.

Even the latest fact sheet from the Centers for Disease Control (partly from crime-based data) states: “In the United States every year, about 1.5 million women and more than 800,000 men are raped or physically assaulted by an intimate partner” (i.e., 36% of the victims are men).

Unfortunately, the DV industry has covered up female violence for decades for purely ideological reasons.
(Kelly, Linda, “Disabusing the Definition of Domestic Abuse; How Women Batter Men and the Role of the Feminist State,” 30 Fl. St. U. Law R. 791, 2003,)

Myth:
“Most DV by women is in self-defense.”
Fact: Women commit DV for the same reasons men do. In a large DV study that looked at motives, men and women gave similar reasons for assaulting their partners, usually to “get through to them,” and self-defense was among their least common motives.

(Carrado, “Aggression in British Heterosexual Relationships; A Descriptive Analysis,” Aggressive Behavior, (1996) 22: 401-415.)

A 32-nation study found factors correlating with DV, such as substance abuse, jealousy and controlling behaviors, is found equally in men and women who commit DV.

In a survey of college women at California State University, Long Beach, 30% of them admitted assaulting a male partner, the most common reasons being (1) “he wasn’t listening to me,” (2) “he wasn’t being sensitive to my needs,” and (3) “I wished to gain his attention.”

(Fiebert & Gonzalez, “Why Women Assault; College Women Who Initiate Assaults on their Male Partners and the Reasons Offered for Such Behavior,” 1997, Psychological Reports, 80, 583-590, www.batteredmen.com/fiebertg.htm.)

The only DV shelter we know of that shelters male victims and their children is Valley Oasis in Lancaster, where men and their children desperately travel from hundreds of miles for shelter because nobody else will shelter them. Male victims are already reluctant to seek help due to shame, embarrassment, and lack of outreach, fear of false arrest, or fear of losing custody of their children. When male victims “take it” and don’t seek help, or are denied services, the violence often escalates until someone is injured, and children who witness it are emotionally damaged no matter how severe it is. DV is an inter generational cycle. To end it, we must first be honest about it.
Myth: “False accusations of rape or abuse are rare.”
Fact: While the frequency of false accusations is difficult to measure, it happens far more often than we are led to believe. Almost every month, DNA clears a man after years of imprisonment for rape. A U.S. Air Force study found over one-fourth of women who accused men of rape recanted either just before taking or after failing a lie detector test — their most common reason being “spite or revenge” — and it concluded 60% of the rape allegations were false.
(Forensic Science Digest, v. 11. n. 4, 12/85; Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1994, v. 23, n. 1.)
In divorce proceedings, false accusations of domestic violence or child abuse, and restraining order abuse, are common. Without warning, men are arrested, jailed and barred from their homes and bank accounts without due process. More than 50% of child sexual abuse allegations are unsubstantiated.(Eckenrode, Powers, “Substantiation of child abuse and neglect reports, Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psych., 1998, 56, 9-16; Lewis, “Reliability rather than zealotry,” Summer 1996, Kentucky Bench & Bar, 60, 23-30.) False accusers are rarely prosecuted.
Myth: “Men’s health gets priority over women’s.”
Fact: Men’s health is significantly neglected compared to women’s health. In the 1920s men died one year younger than women (the rate women died in childbirth was almost equal to the rate men died in war). Today, men die 6 years younger than women and have higher death rates for all 10 leading causes of death.
Men also account for about 85% of homeless adults, 90% of prisoners, 65% of dropouts, 80% of suicide deaths, and 92% of occupational deaths.
(Warren Farrell, Ph.D., “The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex.)
Male suicide has skyrocketed in the last 30 years, especially among young men and divorced men. Men are also more likely than women to have mental disabilities but less likely than women to receive treatment, especially in prisons.
Despite these figures, there is still no federal office of men’s health even though there are about 7 federal offices of women’s health. Most states and local governments have offices of women’s health but not men’s health (only Georgia has an office of men’s health). The government has long spent multiple times more on breast cancer than prostate cancer research, despite nearly equal mortality rates.
Fact: Only men are required to register for the draft. Male citizens and resident aliens ages 18-25 must register. Men with disabilities must register if they can reasonably leave their homes and move independently. “Only sons,” “the last son to carry the name,” and “sole surviving sons” must register as well. The fact that a man is the only child or only son does not exempt him unless he survives one who dies in military duty. Men who do not register can be denied federal student loans, grants and other public benefits (even driving privileges in some states). Women are exempt from this law. The Vietnam Memorial has 58,000 male names and 8 female names.
Myth: “Men make war.”
Fact: Both sexes make war. Women have contributed as much to war as they have to science, medicine, literature and everything else. Women have supported wars at nearly the same rate men have (76% of women and 87% of men supported the Gulf War invasion). Women leaders have also supported wars. Women have sat on draft boards. Women even publicly shamed men who refused to go to war by giving them a white feather as a sign of their unmanliness during the White Feather Campaign.
If you want to get active and live in the USA, it is certainly not a bad thing to join them.




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