V-Day: Until the Hysteria Stops
June 21, 2006
by Carey Roberts

If you happened to take in a Yankees game last week, you probably saw the message flashing on the stadium's giant screen: "Until the Violence Stops: NYC." Next Tuesday you can trot over to Prospect Park and "Run Until the Violence Stops." And the colorful posters dotting the subways constantly remind us to "make New York City the safest place on the earth for girls and women."

What's going on? An invasion of the New Jersey purse-snatchers?

Well, if you haven't heard, Eve Ensler, that nice lady who brought us The Vagina Monologues, decided it wasn't enough to get college girls to ritualistically chant that three-syllable word that starts with a 'V.' "When I started this 10 years ago, no one said the word 'vagina,'" Ensler notes with satisfaction. "Something has shifted in people."

Now there's an accomplishment to put on your resumé.

And a two-week "arts festival" (that's what the New York Times calls it) is just the beginning. The NYC event soon will be serialized with encore performances in Chicago and elsewhere. And for V-Day's 10th anniversary, we'll all be snapping up tickets for the big do in the New Orleans Superdome.

Before long the Girl Scouts will be selling cookies stamped with the letters "VDAY" and school textbooks will hail Ensler as the reincarnation of Florence Nightingale.

Any way you cut it, VDAY is beyond absurd. Men are four times more likely to be homicide victims than women. And the latest research shows women, not men, are more likely to engage in domestic violence.

Of course if a couple gets into a mix-up, the lady is more likely to get hurt. But can we expect men to tolerate the abuse forever, especially when the domestic violence hotlines treat men who call for help like perps trying to game the system?

And police officers treat male victims like they are the aggressors, no questions asked. Remember former NFL quarterback Warren Moon? His wife started the fight by hurling a candlestick. But when Moon tried to act in self-defense, the police took him away in hand-cuffs.

Maybe we're being too harsh on Miss Ensler.

After all in the feminist worldview, violence is not just being punched, kicked, or shoved. To the luna-chicks, careless facial gestures and inconsiderate name-calling are all proof of the epidemic of violence that those strong, invincible women must endure.

And then there's the rampant garden-variety caterwauling -- shameful!

We know that caring, emotive women are far more likely to make facial gestures than those unfeeling, stoic men. So when the Goofball Girls talk about violence against women, they're really referring to those villainous ladies who cast grimacing looks.

This is not the first time in recorded history of an outbreak of mass hysteria. The Salem witch-hunts. The recreational lynchings of Black men. McCarthyism. The Vietnam War demonstrations.

But there is something especially frightening about the contemporary outpouring of feminist angst. Because as the recipient of billions of dollars in government largesse, the domestic violence crusade carries the imprimatur of political legitimacy.

Even the titans of industry have begun to smile on VDAY. The Rockefeller Foundation kicked in $500,000 for the New York City program. I wonder what John D. would have to say about dissipating his oil fortune on a high-estrogen rant?

Verizon was another VDAY Sugar Daddy. And the Avon Foundation coughed up profits from sales of beauty products. Mascara to cover up the bruises -- get it?

Our nation's frenetic crusade to "stop the violence" is steadily taking us away from our fundamental notions of freedom and protection from government intrusion. It is making a mockery of equal justice under law. And it has destroyed countless families thanks to false charges of domestic abuse.

Every person who cares about saving our country from government tyranny dressed up as gender liberation should read last month's bell-ringer by Phyllis Schlafly:

"Violence Against Women Act money is used by anti-male feminists to train judges, prosecutors and police in the feminist myths that domestic violence is a contagious epidemic, and that men are naturally batterers and women are naturally victims."

The result is a constitutional nightmare:

"This criminalizing of ordinary private behavior and incarceration without due process follows classic police-state practices. Evidence is irrelevant, hearsay is admissible, defendants have no right to confront their accusers, and forced confessions are a common feature."

It's time for outraged citizens to voice their opinions to corporate America:

• Rockefeller Foundation: Telephone 800-645-1133; e-mail media@rockfound.org
• Verizon media contact John Bonomo: Telephone 518-396-1095; e-mail john.j.bonomo@verizon.com
• Avon Foundation: Telephone 866-505-AVON; e-mail info@avonfoundation.org