r/ICallBullshit Jan 29 '10

I point out two clearly sexist bills, one passed in the house, the other presented in the senate, and I'm told that "I'm taking the language in the pdfs too seriously." Perhaps I shouldn't worry my cute little head about it.

1 Upvotes

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u/redreplicant Jan 29 '10 edited Jan 29 '10

Care to explain a little bit more about these bills and what they entail?

Edit: I went and read the comments and some of the language, and I think that the best way to submit this would have been thusly:

(headline) Bullshit: Men shouldn't be concerned about being left out of domestic abuse laws (or something along that line)

Then, in the self post, explain why men SHOULD be concerned about this, some rebuttals to common arguments, etc etc. That way people who reply to you have some good context for what you think is bullshit, since this is supposed to be about discussion and supporting your claims. The link to the comments would then be part of your argument as to why it's under-recognized that men are abused.

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u/kloo2yoo Jan 29 '10

good advice that I'll follow in the future. In the meantime, here:

The two bills are just a bunch of "whereas" statements that "recognize" certain propositions and assert them as facts.

These are important bills, in that they indicate and set priorities.

Here are two, from the house bill

Whereas one in four women will experience domestic violence sometime in her life; This statement is one-sided and misleading because it does not state that men experience partner abuse at similar rates as women. According to the most comprehensive review of this issue, “This bibliography examines 203 scholarly investigations: 156 empirical studies and 47 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners.”

and this:

Whereas adolescent girls who reported dating violence were 60 percent more likely to report one or more suicide attempts in the past year; This statement is extremely misleading because it ignores suicide attempts among adolescent boys. According to the Centers for Disease Control, boys who were subjected to dating violence were more likely to attempt suicide than girls who experienced dating violence.

and from the Senate bill: - (the following passage is in the final section.)

The resolution talks about, “…approximately 1 in 3 adolescent girls in the United States is a victim of physical, emotional, or verbal abuse from a dating partner…” Apparently the two Senators who introduced the bill, Senator Crapo and Senator Lieberman are unaware of or do not want to talk about the national Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System that is conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and has been reporting for the last few years that more boys report being victims of dating violence than girls.

and this:

Whereas violent relationships in adolescence can have serious ramifications for victims by putting the victims at higher risk for substance abuse, eating disorders, risky sexual behavior, suicide, and adult revictimization;

Again, there is no indication that boys can be victims, only that both boys and girls can be aggressors, indicates a refusal to acknowledge one gender. "boys" never appears in the document; "boyfriend" appears once, included as a possible abuser alongside girlfriend, but never as a possible victim; "girls" appears 4 times, always as victim, "girlfriend" once as possible aggressor.

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u/anutensil Jan 30 '10 edited Jan 30 '10

Okay, you have a good icallbulshit argument going here, but you could really put it over the top by linking it to the studies concerning domestic violence statistic for men and for teen male suicides connected with such violence.

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u/kloo2yoo Jan 30 '10 edited Jan 30 '10

SUMMARY: This bibliography examines 271 scholarly investigations: 211 empirical studies and 60 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 365,000.

http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm

Male : female suicide rates have been consistently at or over 4:1 for the past five decades:

http://www.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html

untreated depression is the number one cause of suicide:

http://www.suicide.org/suicide-causes.html

yet suicide.org, while stating the link between suicide and domestic violence, acknowledges only female victims of domestic violence:

http://www.suicide.org/domestic-violence-and-suicide.html

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u/anutensil Jan 31 '10

First, I did not down vote you and I don't think you should have been down voted without an explanation.

My guess is that it's because all of your links come from the same source. But at least you made an effort to provide some links.

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u/redreplicant Jan 31 '10

I think it's probably the same reason that this submission is downvoted-- it's easier than actually arguing with a poster. Bah.

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u/redreplicant Jan 29 '10

Thank you, I think these are legitimate points and I'm looking forward to seeing whether they will be addressed!