Peer into the dark heart of radical feminism, and you'll get a glimpse
of a seething caldron of delusion, phobia, and paranoia.
Visit the N.O.W. website and you'll see dark warnings that "women are
still not receiving equal pay for equal work." Things are even worse at
the National Abortion Rights League, which alerts us that President Bush
"has waged a tireless war on women's reproductive rights and personal
privacy."
But the greatest feminist boogeyman is domestic violence. No other issue
so propels the luna-chicks into a wailing convulsion of breast-beating
and hair-pulling.
As a service to my readers, I must state the following warning: DV
HYSTERIA IS HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS. The only known way to prevent the spread
of this condition is to inoculate yourself with the facts. So let's see
what the research has to say.
Recently the Journal of Family Psychology reported on a
national
survey
of married and co-habiting partners. In 4.6% of the couples, the woman
had engaged in "severe" partner violence, compared to only 2.1% of
couples with male violence.
Just two weeks ago University of New Hampshire researcher Murray Straus
spoke at a New York City conference to share his
latest research on
dating violence. His conclusions told the same story: female-only
violence is twice as common as male-only violence - not just in the
United States, but in 32 nations around the world.
Got that? More often than not it's the woman who's violent, and the man
is on the receiving end of the abuse.
Now prepare yourself for the ideological onslaught.
Here's feminist icon Gloria Steinem: "Patriarchy requires violence or
the subliminal threat of violence in order to maintain itself... The
most dangerous situation for a woman is not an unknown man in the
street, or even the enemy in wartime, but a husband or lover in the
isolation of their own home."
But it's not just a few miscreant wife-beaters -- "It's every man and in
every class of society," according to Gudrun Schyman, founder of the
Swedish Feminist Initiative.
That settles it, hubbies. All these years you thought you were a dutiful
protector for your family. But it turns out you're really a perpetrator.
Sometimes DV hysteria erupts into an incoherent rant. Here's Lis Wiehl
writing for Fox News just last week: "This is one plague that doesn't
discriminate. It affects all women equally, whether rich, poor,
religious, non-religious, black, or white."
Not to interrupt a good catharsis, Ms. Wiehl, but you might want to
re-read the fifth and sixth paragraphs of this column. As I'm sure your
Harvard Law profs told you, always read the evidence before you render
an opinion.
Feminist dementia even impairs persons' ability to perform simple
arithmetic. This month's issue of Mother Jones features
domestic
violence statistics. Blithely ignorant of the research, the issue claims
that 73% of abuse victims are female and 15% are men.
Let's see, 73 plus 15 equals 88. Whatever happened to the other 12%? Oh
there I go again, being so linear.
Ann Coulter's latest book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism devotes an
entire chapter to our national epidemic of "Sobbing, Hysterical Women."
This coming week thousands of these sad-sack fems will congregate in New
York City to attend a VDAY celebration organized by Eve Ensler. Anyone
who has heard of Ensler's raunchy Vagina Monologues knows this will be
no ladies' sewing circle.
On Monday, June 12 the faithful are being summoned to attend Ensler's
"once-in-a-lifetime" reading of her play Necessary Targets. The story
highlights the plight of female refugees in the Bosnian civil conflict.
The moral of the play: if only peace-lovin' women were put in charge,
war would come to an end and the gender utopia could commence.
This time around, a two-week purification ritual is being called for.
So VDAY
will continue with late-night monologues, rants, and ritualistic
chanting about female genitalia. The festival will conclude on June 27
with a 5K run through Prospect Park to exorcise any remaining demons.
Feminism has morphed from an enlightened social movement into
high-octane mass hysteria, shunning reason and fact in its compulsive
quest to flog the long-dead horse of patriarchy. This movement has
become the beneficiary of billions of dollars in government largesse,
much of which is channeled in programs designed to recruit ever-more
women into its seductive fold.
Abuse hysteria is on the move and poses a threat to the well-being of
millions of normal, happy women. That makes it worthy of a full-fledged
psychiatric diagnosis. Here it is: FIPH - feminist-induced phobic
hysteria.
Carey Roberts has
been published frequently in the Washington Times, Townhall.com,
LewRockwell.com, ifeminists.net, Intellectual Conservative, and
elsewhere. He is a staff reporter for the New Media Alliance.
