Wendy McElroy on Hoax Bomb Threats in Great Britain

In August, Wendy McElroy wrote about a large number of bomb hoaxes directed at more than 60 family court offices in Great Britain, apparently by what McElroy calls “fathers’ rights extremists.”

McElroy notes that such threats and hoaxes are simply intolerable of any reformist movement,

Violence is the worst possible “strategy” for anyone who seeks social reform. It is not only immoral and illegal, it is also counter-productive to the cause being advocated. The first time an innocent human being is injured, a movement using violence loses all moral credibility; it also creates a justified backlash of anger from the public and repression from authorities.

Let me first state that I agree wholeheartedly with McElroy’s condemnation of even hoax threats of violence. These are wrong and those who engage them should find no sympathizer in any sort of men’s movement.

Unfortunately, Great Britain’s political climate is such that at the moment is rewards this sort of hooliganism. The person who committed these acts was likely aware, for example, of how extremists in the animal rights movement have used such tactics to great effect and results in Great Britain. No, such acts haven’t actually created a lot of warm fuzzy feelings for the animal rights movement, but the British government practically encourages these sorts of threats with its failure to seriously respond to animal rights and other extremists who have been treated as nuisances rather than serious threats to reasoned debate in a democratic society.

Which is one of the reasons this sort of strategy is unlikely to be replicated in the United States. Unlike in Great Britain, acts of animal and environmental terrorism in the United States have produced not only a moral backlash, but a legal one as well that in many cases straddles the line between permissible law enforcement and unconstitutional overreaching. But the American body politic will not stand for such acts and threats of violence and such actions would almost certainly produce a similar legal backlash directed at the various groups and activists in the men’s movement.

One area I disagree completely with McElroy, however, is that it is worthwhile to consider what drives nutcases like this to make such threats. McElroy writes, for example, that

Those who initiate force are responsible for their criminal actions and no one should negotiate with someone who is threatening them. That is the point at which negotiation and reason end. Having stated this, however, it is productive to ask why people become frantic or enraged enough to use violence.

I just don’t see the need for it. As McElroy herself points out indirectly, you can just cruise Usenet groups like Soc.Men and find plenty of the sort of disturbing comments from people on the fringe who are present in pretty much every social movement to one degree or another. It’s both amusing and disturbing to see people in the mens’ movement making threats against McElroy because she uses the word “feminist” to describe her political viewpoint. This exactly mirrors some of the amusing animal rights Usenet battles where those who want to gradually abolish all animal use are called sellouts by the people who want to do so immediately — neither group has much chance of convincing their true targets, so they spend most of their time concentrating each other.

McElroy’s explanation of the bomb threats is exactly what some of the more moderate animal rights activists try to offer — sure it’s wrong, but shouldn’t we take the time to understand why someone would become fanatical in stopping animal experiments? Or, alternatively, abortion? Or . . . pick a cause, any cause (including radical feminism — is it productive to ask why someone would become so enraged as to write the SCUMM Manifesto?)

I don’t particularly see a need to do so. And frankly, the way she gets treated by the men’s movement I’m surprised that McElroy is even willing to carry water for that group (which, in case they haven’t noticed, hasn’t exactly earn her a lot of mainstream accolades).

Source:

Going to extremes. Wendy McElroy, Fox News, August 26, 2003.

Norwegian Man Acquitted in Errant Erection Case

You just can’t make this stuff up. Norwegian television station Nettavisen reports that a Norwegian college professor was recently acquitted of exposing himself to two female students. According to the court, it was simply a case of having erection at the wrong place and time.

The 40-year-old man, whose name was not given in the report, was fired from his job after the students complained to police and a district attorney decided to pursue a criminal case against the man. The man was unanimously acquitted of the crime, however. According to Nettavisen,

According to witness accounts from students, the incident took place when the lecturer got an erection while he was lying on a work-out mat lifting weights. The court bases its decision on the fact that even if one of the women claims that she saw his penis, the majority of the people in court claimed that this was not his intention.

It is like that the erected penis may have been visible between the shorts and his thigh, and the fact that the lecturer can not be held accountable for this to any particular degree was given as a reason for the judgment.

Apparently, an open and shut case.

Source:

Lecturer acquitted for erection. Carin Pettersson, Nettavisen, September 2, 2003.

Sudan Pledges Ban on Female Genital Mutilation

In August, Sudan pledged to ban female genital mutilation in that country.

According to a story carried by the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks,

At the end of a regional three-day symposium held last week in Khartoum, Health Minister Ahmed Osman Bilal expressed his government’s commitment to eradicate FGM at all levels, according to a summary of proceedings provided by UNICEF.

According to the Sudanese government, as many as 90 percent of women in its northern, largely-Muslim states are victims of female genital mutilation. Moreover, female genital mutilation in Sudan is the worst form of the practice involving the removal of most or all of the external genitalia and then the sewing of the vaginal opening — all done on young girls aged 7-11.

Source:

Government to ban female genital mutilation. UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, September 3, 2003.

Sudan: Genital mutilation rises. Agence-France Presse, August 24, 2003.

Leniency for False Rape Accuser in the UK

Kevin Meyers had an interesting op-ed piece in the Daily Telegraph in August about the lack of outrage over leniency shown to false rape accuser Alison Welfare.

Welfare create an elaborate ruse to try to falsely convict her boyfriend of rape. Meyers describes the bizarre lengths which Welfare went to appear a victim of rape,

She sent herself threatening e-mails, and then told the police they came from him [her boyfriend].

She tore her clothes, daubed herself with paint, bound and gagged herself, and allowed herself to be found in a “distressed” condition in a McDonald’s lavatory in Peckham, south London, having been “raped” at knifepoint.

Her boyfriend, Christopher Wheeler, was arrested and spent two months in jail before the ruse was finally discovered.

Yet after being convicted of such an outrageous deception, Welfare was sentenced to only 1 year in jail and could be released after only 6 months. Meyers writes,

There has been no outcry at the leniency shown to Alison Welfare. However, there was an outcry in the last case that I remember in which a woman was charged with making malevolent and baseless accusations of rape. That was from feminists, denouncing the fact that the woman was sentenced to a couple of months’ imprisonment for making false rape charges against two Irish soldiers in Cyprus.

“This case will deter genuine rape victims from reporting rape,” screamed the Irish Rape Crisis Centre, demanding the release of the Irishwoman responsible.

The illogic was breath-taking, for we rightly reserve particular opprobrium for rapists. But by making light of the false accusation of rape, women’s groups are trivializing rape itself. You cannot debase a currency for some of the time; once debased, it stays debased.

. . .

False allegations of rape, however, are about power, for they mobilize the proper revulsion society feels about the crime against the unfortunate target. So we should protect the powerful societal taboo on rape by treating those who falsely allege rape with the severity with which we treat rapists. That is the least the true victims of rape deserve.

Certainly people such as Welfare who go to such extraordinary lengths to subvert legal and cultural taboos against rape for their own purposes should be severely punished. A one-year sentence for such an elaborate ruse is a bad joke.

Source:

Malicious accusers are as bad as rapists. Kevin Meyers, The Daily Telegraph, August 17, 2003.

Jon Holbrook on Domestic Violence in Great Britain

Jon Holbrook recently wrote an interesting analysis (The law and the ‘one in four’) about British government claims that 1 in 4 women in Great Britain have been the victims of domestic violence. According to Holbrook, the government figures intentionally exaggerate domestic violence incidence in order to recast how domestic violence is perceived in that country.

Holbrook writes,

It is interesting that [Home Secretary, David] Blunkett has not relied on the Home Office’s own research of 1999, which dealt in detail with victims’ perceptions of domestic violence. What this showed was not that people thought domestic violence was acceptable, but that only 17 percent of most recent domestic violence incidents were considered by their victims to have been crimes.

Probably part of the reason for victims being reluctant to criminalize their partner’s violent behavior is the fact that, as the researchers say, many of the incidents were perceived ‘as too trivial in intent or action to warrant the attention of the criminal justice system.’

Holbrook notes, for example, that the overwhelming majority of incidents used to support the 1 in 4 claim did not result in any sort of injury, but was instead characterized as either a push, shove or grab.

Such actions are not appropriate, but do they rise to the level of criminal behavior? Clearly most of the “victims” of such acts did not think so. As Holbrook puts it,

But another related factor is that victims of domestic violence, and no doubt other members of the public as well, are able to distinguish between something that is wrong and something that is criminal. Or to put it another way, they are able to distinguish between something that is a private matter to be sorted out by those affected and something that warrants criminal justice intervention.

But, of course, such ideas presumes the sort of autonomy on the part of women which domestic violence rhetoric tends to diminish and deny. Can a woman really decide on her own whether or not to prosecute when her husband or boyfriend grabs her during a heated argument? The answer, of course, is no if you buy into current domestic violence ideology (ironically, when men are the victims of such behavior, the feminist line is that this isn’t really domestic violence at all).

Sources:

The law and the ‘one in four’. Jon Holbrook, Spiked-Online, July 23, 2003.
Thursday, September 4, 2003.

High School Teacher Defends Moonlighting As A Prostitute

WorldNetDaily.Com reported in August about a California high school teacher who was recently arrested while moonlighting as a prostitute.

Shannon Williams, 37, defended her work as a prostitute arguing that, “As a feminist I believe in every woman’s right to self-determination, and that includes sexually and economically. Women who work in the sex industry are entrepreneurs and should be granted the same rights as other business people.”

Williams was arrested in her apartment in August after agreeing to have sex for money with an undercover cop.

Williams was offered a plea bargain whereby she would have plead guilty to a misdemeanor and in exchange would only have paid a small fine. Instead she chose to plead innocent to the charge of prostitution, and apparently plans to defend herself by arguing that she has a right to prostitute herself.

Sources:

Feminist teacher defends her prostitution. WorldNetDaily.Com, August 28, 2003.

Supporters rally for teacher charged with prostitution. John Geluardi, Contra Costa Times, August 28, 2003.