Per's MANifesto: A newsletter of news and opinion on man-bashing, anti-male stereotypes and other great moral principles. April, 1998. WELCOME, READERS, to an issue where we say "To Health With Men." You probably know that women live an average of seven years longer than men and that feminists are stridently insisting that we spend more on women's health. It's the Titanic Syndrome all over again. Men's lives are considered more expendable than women's, and feminist are determined to see that this traditional gender role is enforced. But in this issue of MANifesto we look at some myths surrounding both the Titanic and men's health. Prosit! MANifesto is available on the web at http://idt.net/~per2/manifest.htm INDEX: I. IT'S MEN'S LIFESTYLE THAT KILLS 'EM II. CLINTON TO VETERANS: DROP DEAD III. TITANIC MYTHS IV. THE CHEAPNESS OF MALE LIFE V. WIL HETHERINGTON AND FRED DEVER. VI. ADDENDUM VII. A LETTER TO MANIFESTO ========== IT'S MEN'S LIFESTYLE THAT KILLS 'EM If you've engaged in any debate with feminists over health issues, then you know the drill. The feminist will insist that if men aren't living as long as women, it's because men do stupid things. So we might as well go on taking the tax dollars that all of us pay and shoveling them disproportionately to ensure the health, safety, and self-actualization of women, they will say. Feminists will say that any difference between men's and women's health is because of lifestyle choices men make -- to smoke, drink, take stressful jobs, etc. If you point out to the feminists that men make up 96 percent of the people killed on the job, they will shrug it off. It doesn't matter to them that society places a much higher burden on men to be wage earners -- it's still seen as a lifestyle choice when men have no choice but to take dangerous jobs. However, as soon as you point out that dangerous jobs pay more, feminists suddenly demand equality. Any "gap" in wages between men and women is unfair, they say. It doesn't matter to them if women drop in and out of the workforce, or get college degrees in areas that are less financially rewarding, or if women pursue jobs that are "fulfilling" rather than well-paying. All of the sudden, the lifestyle differences no longer count. Now it's time for "equality." And when it comes to health, lifestyle differences *do* count, and there's no need for equality. For example, men in Western societies die about ten years earlier than women from heart disease. The "lifestyle" argument is a convenient way for feminists to avoid equality. Instead of insisting that more of our shared tax money be spent to improve men's health, they stereotype men, then demand the money be spent on breast cancer or girl's "self-esteem" programs. This despite the fact that heart problems are the leading cause of death among men and women. However, new research is showing that differences in liver proteins may account for men dying younger from heart disease. According to an Associated Press story: "Differences in traditional risk factors -- high blood pressure, smoking and obesity, among others -- do not entirely explain this disparity, nor do the obvious hormonal and physical differences. ... a liver enzyme called hepatic lipase may well explain why women typically have better cholesterol levels than men, especially before menopause when their risk of heart trouble is very low." (Source: "Liver protein may explain younger women's low risk of heart disease," By Daniel Q. Haney, AP Medical Editor.) So now that we know it's not just lifestyle choices, can we expect feminists to lead the charge for equality in health care? Don't hold your breath: that's as futile as looking for a fair feminist. Feminists have always demanded that they retain their traditional rights and privileges while men give theirs up. Feminists have not slackened for a moment their drive to have your money spent on improving their health. And here's more news on the notion that boys have it so much better than girls in our world. From an Associated Press story: "Some studies have indicated male fetuses are more vulnerable than females to prenatal exposure to toxic substances, and either die before birth or are born with defects or a susceptibility to cancer." This might help explain the fact that the ratio of male births to female births has dropped slightly between 1970 and 1990 in the United States and Canada. Environmental factors such as prenatal exposure to pesticides are some of the suspected causes. "The declines began even earlier in several other industrialized countries and corresponded with increases in some male birth defects and prenatal exposure to pesticides and industrial chemicals, said Devra Lee Davis, an environmental epidemiologist at the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based policy-research institute." "Some, as yet unrecognized, environmental health hazards are affecting the sex ratio of births as well as other unexplained defects in male reproduction," Davis and her colleagues concluded. Their analysis appears in the April 1st edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Source: "Report suggests environmental factors might be behind dip in male births" By Lindsey Tanner, Associated Press Writer.) Why do feminists demand so much more money for women's health when women outlive men by seven years? It certainly makes feminists look as though they are hostile to the lives of men -- or at least that they are showing a remarkable lack of respect for human life while they also demand absolute respect for women's sensitivities. Feminism's attitude smacks of the Titanic Syndrome: that the lives, safety, and property of women must be guaranteed by sacrificing the lives of men. But of all the money that is being shoveled into women's health research, the largest share of it is coming from men. Males start work at younger ages, stay in the workforce more consistently, and work more years than women. Thus they pay more taxes. Then feminists demand that this money, created mostly by the labor of men, goes to the continuation of female privilege. It is time for feminists to stop looking on men as pack animals who exist for the purpose of delivering goods for the benefit of feminists. That attitude is the antithesis of equality. ========== CLINTON TO VETERANS: DROP DEAD In order to save money, President Clinton wants to deny service-connected disability benefits to military veterans who have smoking-related illnesses. The exception would be for those who could show they developed the illnesses on active duty. But, as we all know, those illnesses don't always show up until years later. Clinton says that denying such benefits would save an estimated $10.5 billion over five years. We're not really surprised that Mr. Clinton feels this way. His administration has been singularly hostile toward men in general and the military in particular. But Clinton is ignoring the long and active role that the military and government have played in getting soldiers to smoke in the first place. From the Civil War until 1956, Congress instructed the Army "to cause tobacco to be furnished to the enlisted men ... at cost prices, exclusive of the cost of transportation, in such quantities as they require, not exceeding 16 ounces per month." Free cigarettes were included with C-rations given to troops in the field well into the 1970's. Post exchanges have continued to sell tobacco products at discounts. But health warning labels that were put on tobacco sold to the general public were kept off products distributed to the military until 1970. In addition, the military always made sure that tobacco had a part in military life. "The smoking lamp is lit. Smoke 'em if you got 'em." The government drafted men, placed them in dangerous and stressful situations, then offered them cigarettes and encouraged them to smoke. Then, when the men are no longer of any use, when the men might ask something back from their country, people like Clinton want to throw those men away like a smoked butt. Clinton says the estimated $10.5 billion saved over five years could be used to increase highway construction. So we have a Modest Proposal. Mr. Clinton, why not just start plowing our veterans under as the bottom layer of our highways? You would save on gravel, and still have billions more left over. Meanwhile, let's turn to a group called the Society for the Advancement of Women's Health Research. Yes, there is a group with such a sexist name and sexist purpose. While women outlive men by seven years, groups like this are determined to push for greater inequality, so long as it favors women. Still not convinced this group is sexist? Well, check out its recent initiative to ban all tobacco advertising targeted at women. The group isn't out to ban all tobacco advertising, mind you. The group wants yet another special protection for women, and wants to revive the Victorian notion that women must be protected from thinking for themselves or making their own choices. The group bases its sexist campaign on the idea that women are more likely to develop lung cancer than men. We don't know where they got this piece of propaganda. Last time we checked the figures, men were dying at younger ages from virtually all of the major killers, from disease to accidents. Be that as it may, we wonder just how it would be perceived if some group launched an initiative to protect only men. Since men make up 96 percent of those who are killed on the job, what if a group launched an initiative to save only the lives of men? You can bet feminist leaders would attack that group with all the vitriol they can muster. Thinking only of the lives of men would be seen as sexist. But thinking only of the lives of women is par for the course. It's been drummed into us both by centuries of patriarchy and by decades of anti-male feminism. The Society for the Advancement of Women's Health Research is just the latest example of the Titanic Mentality. The fact that such a group can exist without being shamed out of existence is further proof how little we value the lives of men -- and how anti-male bigotry has become entirely acceptable today. ========== TITANIC MYTHS One of the great canards of feminism is that women on every social level were always at a disadvantage compared to men on that same social level. You can point out to feminists that there were wealthy, upperclass women and poor men, but feminists will always finesse this. They will claim that whatever the social level, the women were at a disadvantage to the men there. Thus they claim victimhood for upperclass women while pretending that poor men somehow had some massive "privilege" of being male. Actually, it might well be the other way around. Consider the most important aspect of life: whether you get to keep it. Spurred on by the blockbuster film "Titanic," The Daily Telegraph newspaper of London examined documents from the Britain's Public Records Office. In particular, it looked at survival rates for those traveling first, second, and third class. This was prompted by the film's depiction of third-class passengers being locked below decks as the liner sinks. The documents showed that more men from third class survived than men from second class. So much for the class-warfare propaganda of this commercially successful film. The paper also gave survival rates by travel class and by sex. The results are revealing. The survival rates: First-Class Women: 97 percent First-Class Men: 34 percent Second-Class Women: 84 percent Second-Class Men: 8 percent Third-Class Women: 55 percent Third-Class Men: 12 percent So poor women from third-class, women supposedly facing all sorts of cultural and economic prejudices, were much more likely to survive than men from first class! In second class, women were ten times more likely to survive than men. Women had great survival rates in all classes. The lowest survival rate for women -- 55 percent in second class -- is almost double the highest survival rate for men! Particularly interesting is 97 percent survival rate for women in first class. The upper class has always been a breeding ground for feminist elitists -- privileged, university-educated women who live better that nearly any group in history and still insist they're oppressed. Maybe such women have simply come to expect total deference, safety, and protection. Perhaps such prosperous, pampered, protected feminists have come to expect aristocratic privilege and are outraged when society treats them equally. ========== THE CHEAPNESS OF MALE LIFE When men and women are discussing the harder, more dangerous work that men do, one example that keeps cropping up is mining. And the feminist response is often predictable: she'll say there aren't that many miners anymore, and that mines are pretty safe anyway. But a recent in-depth series by the Louisville Courier-Journal shows just how dangerous mining still is. More to the point, it shows that mines are dangerous because the lives of men are considered cheaper than the costs it would require to make mines safe. And the numbers are not small. "Between 1972 and 1994, the deaths of 54,248 U.S. miners were blamed at least partly on black lung. ... The number of (currently) sick miners is unknown, but government studies indicate that between 1,600 and 3,600 working miners -- and many retirees -- have one of the lung disorders collectively called black lung." These are just the documented cases. There is such a push on to save money by denying disability benefits to miners, we wonder how many men have died without being diagnosed. The government orders mines to test the air for dust particles. But large numbers of miners interviewed by the paper in a year-long investigation said that these tests are regularly falsified, and that miners themselves are ordered to fake the tests under fear of being fired. The tests are faked for one basic reason: complying with clean-air standards in mines would be too expensive. So it's easier and cheaper to sacrifice the lives of men. "You either do it (cheat on the air tests) or the mine shuts down," said Elmer Causey, 43, of Viper, Ky. He left mining in 1992 with black lung. "And if the mine shuts down, you ain't got no job. And if you ain't got no job, you got no food on the table." Most damning of all is this finding: "While the federal government has known of the widespread cheating for more than 20 years, it has done little to stop it because of other priorities and a reluctance to confront coal operators. ... The Mine Safety and Health Administration ignored these obviously fraudulent samples for more than 20 years, until The Courier-Journal began asking about them late last year. The agency also paid little attention during the 1970s and 1980s to government auditors and outside experts who repeatedly warned about dust-test fraud. ... But black-lung researchers said the lower incidence of the disease among British miners -- who work in government-owned mines where dust-test cheating is rare -- is strong evidence that hundreds of American miners fall ill every year because of widespread fraud." So, Americans, this is your government. The same one that curries the favor of feminists by spending countless dollars on improving girls' "self-esteem." This government cannot be bothered to clean up the dust that scars men's lungs and eventually causes them to literally die of suffocation. Maybe we need a "Take Your Feminist To Work Day" in the coal mines. Moreover, many of the men who come down with black lung are then denied disability payments. After all, if the mines are clean, how could they get black lung? "In the past 10 years, just 4 percent of those who applied for (federal) benefits won them on the first try, according to a federal analysis. When appeals are taken into account, the number rises to 7.5 percent. In fiscal year 1997, 418 people won benefits while 6,791 filed claims. The appeals process sometimes takes as long as 20 years, and hundreds of miners die before a decision is reached." One surprise in the series is the danger of mining that goes on above ground -- surface mining, or so-called strip mining. The dust is often heavier in strip mines that it is underground. "Miners who spend at least 20 years as strip-mine drillers have a 61 percent chance of contracting silicosis, a virulent form of black lung. No other job in coal mining has such a high risk. ... It's an epidemic that experts say could have been prevented by a few simple precautions by coal operators and better monitoring by the federal government." Various surveys found that 9 percent of strip miners had symptoms of black lung. "You can't run a mine, make money and pass a dust test. The profit margins are too slim," said Paul Gilliam, 46, of Mayking, Ky., who retired in 1991 after 22 years as a mine superintendent and foreman. So if you are reading this anywhere in the U.S. where your electricity is generated by coal, you are reading this because the lives of men have been sacrificed to provide your electricity. Maybe you remember how Gloria Steinem, Naomi Wolf and other anti-male feminist helped foster the myth of an anorexia "Holocaust" in which, supposedly "about 150,000 females die of anorexia each year" in the United States alone. The claim was shown to be bogus, though it attracted widespread belief at first. Safe, privileged feminists like Steinem and Wolf need to create false states of victimhood to distract us from the fact that a great deal of commercial activity is built on the principle that it is cheaper to risk a male life than to make the work safer. So imagine all those feminists sitting at their computers, typing up new theories of how they are "oppressed" -- and sending them along with the help of power made cheap because the lives of men are cheaper. ========== WIL HETHERINGTON AND FRED DEVER At Per's MANifesto, we don't often ask readers to take pen in hand and take action on individual cases. We kind of leave it up to you to get involved if you see something that motivates you. But this time we're asking you to do something for a pair of men who have faced some of the ugliest injustices we've ever seen. We don't ask you to write letters very often, but this time we're really pleading. Please help. The two cases involve Wil Hetherington and Fred Dever. Wil Hetherington was convicted of spousal rape in 1986 despite a total lack of evidence -- and a good deal of evidence that today proves his innocence. His wife accused him during a bitter divorce and custody dispute. It was expected that Will would win custody, because his wife had abandoned the family for more than two months. The doctor who examined her testified that he found no injury whatsoever and that this was unusual when a woman is claiming forceful intrusion. The prosecutor introduced a pair of his wife's blue jeans containing sperm. Yet there is no sperm in Wil's semen, because he had a vasectomy several years before. This fact was not realized until Wil had been in prison for nine years. There is no way the substance on those jeans was from him -- even though it was used to convict him. On the day of the alleged rape, Linda Hetherington had visited her boy friend before going to visit Wil. It is suspected that the semen on the blue jeans is that of the boy friend. He was never called to testify at the trial. Although sentencing guidelines call for 1 to 10 years, Wil was sentenced to 30 years, amid suspicions that several of the officials involved were grandstanding for feminist votes. At the time of Wil's trial, his assets were frozen because of the divorce proceedings. The court refused to recognize this and would not appoint legal counsel for him. Meanwhile, his accuser had the power of the state behind her, for free, as accusers usually do. Wil was unable to file an appeal since he did not have the funds for a transcript of the original trial. This case is an absolutely shameful miscarriage of justice that should make everyone cringe, no matter what your politics are. There are two pages that we know of for Wil: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/4398/wilh.html and http://www.ncfm.org/will.htm Please visit these sites and learn more about how you can help Wil Hetherington. Donations to The William J. Hetherington Defense Fund can be sent to: NCFM (Wil Hetherington Defense Fund) PO Box 129 Manhasset NY 11030 ----- And now for the tragedy of Fred Dever and his daughter. Fred is in prison for eight years on a charge of raping his daughter -- although his daughter herself has repeatedly told everyone that this never happened. He was convicted on hearsay testimony -- incredible as that seems. The judge would not believe the daughter when she repeatedly said it never happened. According to the Fred Dever Page, the judge had political aspirations and wished to show he was tough on crime. Though videotapes show the daughter repeatedly denying that any incident occurred, she was ruled "incompetent" to testify. She's now 13 and continues to insist nothing happened. From a web page on his case: "Noted psychologist Hollida Wakefield, an expert in the area of child abuse, viewed the videotape of Kristen's interview and found that "The 10/23/87 interview of Kristen Dever ... is extremely leading, suggestive and coercive." Debbie Nathan, another expert in this area, interviewed on the Donahue show, said the methods used to interview Kristen Dever have long been abandoned as inappropriate in such cases." The Dever case may be featured on "Turning Point" and the Montel Williams Show. See the page at http://members.aol.com/jlaigle/home.htm You can snail mail him at: Fredrick M. Dever, Jr. #206-152 P.O. Box 69 LoCI 8 Dorm London, Ohio 43140-0069 Please, readers, visit these sites and take action. If our system is a system of justice, it must admit when injustice has occurred. Thank you in advance for your time and effort. ========== ADDENDUM Well, the National Organization for Women should be changing its name pretty soon to "The National Organization for Some Feminists Whose Politics are the Same as Ours." NOW has declared that it will not file legal papers on behalf of Paula Jones in her sexual harassment case against President Clinton. Moreover, this was not some top-down decision of the national leadership of NOW. The group said that local chapters nationwide as well as its national board were overwhelmingly opposed to helping Jones. NOW President Patricia Ireland said contacts with about 500 chapters around the country indicated that members opposed filing a friend-of-the-court brief, by margins of at least 8-to-1 and possibly 10-to-1. Ireland said the group believes such a "highly charged political" lawsuit should not be used as a test case. Of course that never stopped NOW from joining in highly charged political action against Clarence Thomas. Or against Bob Packwood. Or against Mitsubishi Motors and any of the other cases in which NOW and other feminists have sought to play unproven accusations for political and financial gain. Ms. Ireland also said her group "decided not to work with the disreputable right-wing organizations." NOW's hypocrisy on this issue guarantees its status as a disreputable left-wing organization. And in another matter. You may remember the case of the British nanny Louise Woodward, who bashed in a little boy's skull while in the United States and got away with a slap on the wrist. People around the world, but particularly in her native land, insisted that there was no way she could possibly be guilty. Well, we hate to call it poetic justice. But in London, a nanny is charged in the death of a six-month old baby, Caroline Jongen, who suffered severe brain injuries. The nanny, Louise Nicole Sullivan, 26, is from Australia. So far there have been no massive outbreaks of protest in England declaring that Sullivan can't possibly be guilty. ========== A LETTER TO MANIFESTO At Per's MANifesto, we get lots of letters from irate feminists. Most are brief flames and insults, and we post many of these on the MANifesto letters page at http://idt.net/~per2/letters.htm. But recently we received a letter that plumbs the depths of feminist thought and double standards so well that we thought we'd pass it on, with our comments. (The feminist's comments are in quotation marks below, and our comments are in parentheses.) The letter began "Dear Par." (So much for feminist research.) It then went on to say: "The greater problem with extremist *anything* is that there is ALWAYS a hidden agenda which is often far more sinister than the "face value" of the cause. What I see here is "extremist ANTI-feminism", and I'm just wondering what YOUR hidden agenda is? Not that I'd expect you to tell me, of course. That fact that you have single-handedly (apparently) devoted the time and energy to a work of this magnitude suggests a very large and sinister hidden agenda indeed." (This feminist finds it astounding that anyone would object to man-bashing, which, of course, has become the norm in much of Western society. It boggles her mind that anyone would object to demonizing half the human race in the name of "equality." She can't seem to comprehend that any man would object to being denied a job because of his sex -- or that any wife would object to her husband facing anti-male discrimination. Unable to comprehend such acts, she is sure that there must not only be a hidden agenda, but that the agenda is "sinister." As a feminist, we think the lady protests to much about hidden agendas.) "The best way to deal with extremist *anything* is to completely ignore it, (unless they are packing a nuclear weapon or some other un-natural force, of course<g>)." (This is a standard line from feminists when confronted with the extremists in their own ranks. They demand that we ignore the extremists. Of course, they never ignore extremists on the other side of the political fence. Nor should they, in our opinion. But the demand that we ignore extremist feminists is a curious one. If feminists were truly opposed to gender hatred and gender stereotypes, they would be leading the charge against man-hating extremists, rather than trying to throw a protective cloak around them. Also, it's interesting that she's not ignoring Per's MANifesto, even though she's just appointed it to be some sort of extremist conspiracy. Funny how the standards she preaches are not the ones she obeys.) "Extremists thrive on the attention they receive. What you are doing here is adding fuel to the extremist feminisim fire." (Actually, the only thing necessary for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing. If extremist feminist thrive on the attention they receive, why would they work so hard to silence and censor those who disagree with them?) "Feminism is fizzling out. People are sick and tired of hearing about it. Even many one-time feminists themselves." (Is this woman trying to claim she's not a feminist? Her defense of feminist extremist and her own anti-male attitudes below indicate this is a bit of a ruse. At any rate, with anti-male attitudes so common today -- you can't turn on TV without witnessing man-bashing ads and shows -- we wonder if feminist extremist has fizzled out or merely gone mainstream.) "Here, you continue to turn over the logs, add a bit more kindling, and occasionally, a good dose of petrol to really keep the fire burning. You're failing to realise a very simple, time-worn, overused-cliche-but-underused-in-principle, basic rule of common sense. That is, you can't fight fire with fire." (With feminists, this comment translates to: "I support feminists using firing and demand that you don't use it." But anti-male feminism is a real force in the real world, and it's not something that men and women can always just ignore. When you're denied a job or promotion because you're male, or when your husband is denied a job or promotion, it's no good to say "just ignore it." When up to 30 percent or more of rape accusations are against innocent men, it's not good enough to say we should just ignore it, and when feminists work to reduce the burden of proof and make it harder for innocent men to defend themselves, those men have no luxury of just ignoring it. Wil Hetherington and Fred Dever, cited above, are sitting in prison -- which makes it hard to ignore the hysteria that put them there. When feminists get innocent parents -- mothers and fathers -- arrested on spurious charges arising from "recovered memories," having your family destroyed is not something you just ignore. When men are fired or punished because feminists use false accusations of sexual harassment as a tool of office politics, it's not something a man can ignore.) "Now remember, we are only talking about extremists here. Nobody can deny that women have suffered poorer conditions in the past. But all that has changed to some degree, and continues to change today, and will continue to change in the future. But an inherent equalibrium WILL be reached over time. It has to - it is the way of things. This process will happen naturally." (The sexism comes shining through. Women always "suffered poorer conditions in the past," even when getting on the lifeboats first. The fact that women have never been drafted, that men have always done the worst of the heaviest, dirtiest, most dangerous jobs, and that men make far greater personal and physical sacrifices to achieve their goals is turned by feminists into victimhood for women! If men made greater sacrifices, we'd expect some difference in the outcomes of their lives. Feminists demand equal results without equal work. And they assume this will come to them naturally -- like some sort of entitlement.) "Many people probably aren't even aware of the slowly, but steadily encroaching masculanism movement. What then? We will eventually see the same old bullshit replayed in an inverted format." (The advancement of democracy has been made possible by men making sacrifices and then passing rights and freedoms on to women. The advancement of feminism has always been women demanding men make more sacrifices while feminists reduce men's rights to hold jobs or speak freely. The flow of rights and the sacrifices has so far been a one-way transaction. You can talk to us about the "same old bullshit replayed in an inverted format" when you get drafted and we get to take away your rights to free speech because we deem you sexist.) "The critical failure in society is people failing to love and appreciate themselves for their own merits and to develop their own sense of character. Instead, they take the (apparently) easy path of trying to tear down everybody else to their own level, whilst scoring a few brownie points from misguided followers along the way." (Scarcely have we seen a better description of feminism.) "This is what I see here. So, I would ask you again. What drives YOU to this extremist course of action?" (Interesting that objecting to anti-male sexism and anti-male feminism is now classified as an "extremist course of action." Notice how feminists always try to demonize anyone who objects to their prejudices.) "ON ANOTHER ISSUE... The cases of injustice that you have pointed out throughout your web site are simply pathetic when compared to the grand schema of things. Have you bothered to do this at all??! How can you compare a psychotic prostitute who kills a couple, (even in the most gruesome way), with a guy who rapes then kills a teenage girl? How many guys have raped and killed teenage girls, (let alone adolescents, toddlers, and even babies), versus psychotic prostitutes killing couples - in the most gruesome of ways??" (Here is where her anti-male bigotry shows most clearly. When confronted with multiple and irrefutable evidence contradicting the stereotype that violence is a male thing, she simply dismisses it. It doesn't fit into her "schema of things." She quickly dredges up stereotypes of male violence in order to return herself to her morally superior self image. Unlike feminists, we have always condemned violence by members of our own sex. But feminists like this one aren't much interested in condemning violence by member of their sex. Instead they find ways to ignore it. They then return safely to their illusion of pure women and evil men. But we can't help feel that helpless children killed by their mothers, or toddlers abused and starved by their grandmothers, or husbands killed because of a woman's jealously, ego or greed, are more than just inconvenient details in the "schema of things." Actually, when a child is killed by a parent, the parent is usually female. And mothers tend to kill boys more than they kill girls. I don't think we can play scorecard with such deaths. The victims are just as dead. Female violence is not an *exception*to the grand scheme of things.) "How do you account for the fact that a good 90% of the worlds hardened criminals are male??" (We'd account for it in many ways that are never apparent to those who wish to label men as evil. Hardened criminals are the ones sent to prison to become hardened in the first place. If women get offered lighter, shorter sentences -- or no sentences at all -- and counseling and therapy while men get sent for hard time, is it any wonder the men turn out harder? British nanny Louise Woodward got hardly a slap on the wrist for bashing in a little boy's skull. Woodward will go home while a man would have gone to prison. Woodward will not be given the chance to become a hardened criminal. (Overall, males are treated far more harshly from the very beginnings of their lives. As infants, they are held less often, left alone more, comforted less. As toddlers, they are told to suppress their emotions and are ridiculed or punished if they don't. They are put into activities designed to "toughen" them. Punishment for boys is always harsher and more physical than punishment for girls even for similar actions. Boys are far more likely to be struck, slapped, spanked, yanked, shaken, pushed, etc. This builds up an anger in boys, and it teaches them that violence is acceptable. (And then we act surprised when boys commit violence, and sexist bigots like her conclude it's their maleness that's the problem. (Feminists claim that most differences between men and women are due to socialization. But when we treat little boys far differently and far more violently, we somehow seem to assume that the outcome is due to the *boys* being innately bad.) "I would bet anything that that prostitute was at some time sexually abused earlier in her life - possibly by her father or close male relative. Where does the blame then lie??" (Of course you would. Whenever a woman commits an offense, feminists look for the man to blame. But when you were claiming that 90 percent of the hardened criminals are men, you didn't bother asking if they had been mistreated.) "These are greater questions than the floss that makes up the bulk of your web site. Sincerely, Rede Satelle" Subject: RE: Your Web Site... From: Rede Satelle <[email protected]> Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 (Ms. Satelle has presented here a fair compendium of anti-male stereotypes and double standards. Her attitudes are not particularly unusual among today's anti-male crowd. She merely presented a rather extensive catalogue of them in one missive.) ============================= THE FINE PRINT Per's MANifesto is a monthly newsletter containing news and opinion for people interested in gender equality and gender stereotypes. FEEDBACK: Send comments, kudos and castration threats to [email protected]. SUBSCRIBING: To get MANifesto by e-mailed, send an e-mail to [email protected] with "subscribe MANifesto" in the subject line. What if you subscribed but did not get the latest issue? Our experience is that the issue "bounces" for a couple of people every month -- probably because some server between here and there is on the fritz at the time. If you don't think you received the latest issue, please e-mail us again saying "subscribe, send latest issue." Each month's current issue of Per's MANifesto is on the web at http://idt.net/~per2/manifest.htm And the Per's MANifesto Home Page is at http://idt.net/~per2/index.htm featuring links to back issues. With a link to The POW Page! -- a collection of favorite satire featuring Colleen Hyphenated-Lastname and the Propaganda Organization for Women. You can find Per's MANifesto on the Usenet each month in soc.men, alt.feminism, and alt.mens-rights. (MANifesto is copyright 1998by Per. Please feel free to copy, forward, repost, fax and otherwise distribute MANifesto. If you excerpt any section, please excerpt it in its entirety.) ==========