And all the major patriarchal religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormons) and our patriarchal political/economic structure (mostly males run governments and corporations) only contribute to the warped view of "normality" that men must be in power and have control.

Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade dissects our species' 5,000 years of partriarchy and all its violence.

I have seen the suffering of women so many times and in the worst possible ways. Men like me also pay the price for the suffering of women. Here's a list of what I mean.

1. Lost my wife to cancer
2. Struggled to help my two daughters recover from their nasty divorces and help them find better partners to remarry
3. Rescued one of my nieces earlier this year from sexual assault and tried to help her overcome the trauma despite my limitations
4. Tried to help my two female coworkers recover from sexual harassment but they left out of anger and my company collapsed without them and I'm now unemployed.

After reading this article on the mistreatment of women, I once again ask myself why good people especially women are punished and mistreated the most.

This piece is so right. I just commented on Pat LaMarche's Culture of Violence article because she does not notice that the violence is so overwhelmingly male. It feels as though the violence has worked to scare women into being afraid to even call it out anymore. Certainly the mainstream media won't do it and most independent media aren't all that good on the issue either.
In the 70's the women's movement did call it and started women against rape and battered women's shelters. Ever alert to their entitlement, men began a backlash movement to discredit reality. We desperately need a reinvigorated women's movement and for men who don't identify themselves with violence and militarism to speak out more as well.

Sioux Rose

Well, it's early, but so far only 2 have posted, and both appear to be males who "get it."

When I read Robert Jensen's book on pornography, "Getting Off," I was morally sickened. I happen to LOVE sex, and think it's a very positive, therapeutic interchange between the genders; but this that passes for porn is closer to a degradation/desecration/demonization/debasement of the female, the intended equal partner.

One notices violence towards women as a form of machismo that often pops up when MEN feel dis-empowered. Although the cause of that lack of power generally stems from the elites who cut the pie tighter and tighter offering male laborers peanuts for their efforts, the men aim their RAGE at women.

In porn, what I read made me think of little boys in the school yard who are called sissies if they play with, or talk with "the girls." They are told the girls have "coodies" or whatever the stigma to keep the genders apart. In soiling women, doing ugly, disgusting things TO them, men who are emotionally frozen at a pre-adolescent level of development find sexual excitement in such degrading images. And these DO feed into violence against women which IS rampant!

As ED mentioned, patriarchal religions have made state-enforced policy based on erroneous beliefs such as: women did not possess souls, that they were foul, that they needed to be controlled/disciplined by men, a sentiment still found in the military as a 60 Minutes expose aired about 10 years ago related. When battered women pleaded with their husbands' sergants, the matter was handled "in house" as if these fellows (who beat their wives) just lacked the know-how for keeping their mates, the "little ladies," IN LINE.

The greater the authoritarian direction of any society, the more its women suffer. Nor is it coincidental that the agonies waged against MOTHER nature, her resources everwhere co-opted, corrupted, or contaminated happen to simulate how MANY men treat and regard women.

I must say that for all the intelligence in this forum, the author of this article's contention proves true here as well. The article, for example, posted a few days ago about the murder of so many women in the U.S./Mexican border town prompted VERY few comments.

You boys in this forum prefer to rally 'round topics that are about the political contest, which itself reflects the trained mindset/programming that typically emerges from sporting arena and its competitive context. Although probably none of you practice violence towards women, you do not seem particularly moved or interested in its pervasiveness!

In other words, for all the intellect found on this site, EMPATHY is at times as much lacking as anywhere else in this Mars rules/battering Ram nation! Unfortunately, we will ALL be in line to get the return in the form of karma's inevitable blowback. Mars = violence and macho force, and it is UTTERLY out of control in America. Weapons of war are trafficked around the globe, while women end up the collateral damage of conflicts, are kept from too many decision-making tables, and the presence of VENUS (counter-balance to Mars) is everywhere in deficit. This is NOT a sane or balanced way to run a planet. Without both oars (gender input) operating, chances for surviving this era of uber: machismo remain remote.

I would like to respectfully disagree with the feminist default position that pornography is some sort of "trigger" for misogyny. A clear-headed look will reveal that even violent and degrading material has little causal relationship with misogynistic violence; the problem is American culture as an entirety. I point interested parties to Japan, from where much of the worst excessive porn emanates (or serves as inspiration to Western pornographers) yet where violence against women (or against anyone) is far, far rarer than in the US, whose porn is in general much milder. The issue, instead, is Power... men who feel disempowered in their lives try to empower themselves by violent fantasies, often racist and/or sexual. The most disturbed act on them. Attacks on porn will not save one battered woman but focusing energy on the positive empowerment of underclass males will have constructive results. Unfortunately, as we see daily on the news, these are exactly the people who will fight hardest against the things that are most likely to re-empower them...
unions, free health care, less war, increased taxes on the wealthy (and less, therefore, on them), and common cause with other races and the opposite sex to battle against their true enemies.

In other words, fighting porn (or horror movies, for that matter) makes feminism "the enemy" to the type of male we're talking about for no good purpose except some ephemeral moral "high ground"... whereas finding common cause with this underclass will achieve actual real-world results.

This really annoys me.

Stating that women are being targeted by men assumes all men are the same. It also assumes that all men have equal power.

The biggest number of victims of violence and murder are men. Man on man. Socially and through war. Are these men victims of sexist thinking? In a way they are.

Who will champion these men, these targets of a system that treats men as disposable.

Legalizing prostitution could go a long way towards reducing this problem.

Ray Berthiaume

What a powerful article. And the responses were so wise. I always feel blessed to read Sioux Rose's comments - to me she is a medicine woman.

Here in British Columbia we have the case of one Robert Pickton.

The murder of Some 49 women attributed to him.

He would prey on the poor women many of whom worked the streets or had drug problems and when relatives went to the Police asking for an investigation of all these women gone "missing" the police would merely dismiss their concerns claiming that these kind of women moved town to town and were likely plying their trade on the streets of Calgary or Edmonton.

Now the point here is that were two or three women to have been gone missing from West Vancouver, no expense would have been spared to investigate and ensure there not some serial killer on the loose.

As much as violence against women is a problem as equally as important is the utter disregard the Police have for the POOR.

Again it almost like they feel that if you are POOR or POOR and female you DESERVE the violence visited upon you.

People will remember the case of that American Tourist gone missing in the Caribbean. The airwaves were filled with stories on what might have happened to her and pundit after pundit spoke about how disgusted they were by this.

Yet every year thousands of women in America are murdered or go missing or are dumped in some ditch. Why do certain ones merit all that attention while others ignored?

My own belief is that Violence against women stems from a Culture that sees women as merely extensions of the man rather then as seperate and unique persons.

MUCH of this comes from religous teachings. I point to the recent example of a Father in Ontario who has been charged with the murder of his daughter and three others (two friends and an ex wife).

His justification was that she was dating a man whom he disapproved of and thus she had "dishonored" the family.

It was an "honor" killing.

When ex husbands kill their ex wives the rationale seems to be "if I can not HAVE her no one will". Again the woman seen as Property.

In the Bible Eve is said to be made from Adams rib as a "servant" to Adam. Seeing it written by men and written for men, one can all but see the "Birth Envy" that Sioux Rose related to in another article.

I was wondering when an article here would mention Sodini. I blogged about the incident, called it a "hate crime" and everything. It happened in my city. Even before they described the victims, I had a terrible feeling in my gut that it was gender-based. Hardly anyone reads my blog though. Too many people want fluff.

It's been all over the local media obviously. Of course, if there was more outrage, some people would be complaining that people care too much about white suburban women and "missing white woman syndrome."

It's a way for the elites to fracture the human family. They don't want men and women to understand each other and instead to use each other. They want men to feel powerless and humiliated in the hopes that they'll subjugate women. And of course the misogyny fuels the misandry.

Didn't Oprah say once that she usually votes Republican? Dr. Phil is just another "bootstrapper" who lambastes the poor and acts as if the only real problem with the world is that people are lazy and irresponsible.

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=37805381

There, I set it to public for now so people can read it. Scroll down to Aug. 6.

I can't say I totally agree with this article. Though, I do think there should be more outrage, support and sympathy for the victims of Sodini. But the basic premise of this article does not quite fit together.

George Sodini is unusual in that he was a mass murderer. Usually, psychopathic men who have sexual hang ups with women are serial killers. The main point is that Sodini was crazy. Sodini's crime and rape or domestic violence against women are two different things. I wouldn't even lump Sodini in the same category as rape and domestic violence against women. Sodini is a flat out psycho.

On the other hand, violence against women is a serious problem around the world; which is often done by men who are perfectly sane. There is another article here today about Hillary Clinton confronting mass rape in Africa. In fact, women in poverty stricken countries have it far worse than women in Canada, Europe or America.

I think the reason is that men or males are genetically wired to have more aggression in them than females do. Not to say females can't be violent or aggressive, just men tend to be more so. Couple this tendency with a modern society that inhibits such behavior along with modern weaponry and culture and you end up with the crisis we have.

I would also question whether pornography has anything to do with this. In fact, as one commenter here pointed out, it may even help to reduce crime. Men in modern society need outlets for their sexual and aggressive behavior. Also, there are many women who also like porno-it's not just a male thing.

Most of the porn I have seen is more robotic than anything. There's no passion, even the male actors seem bored. It's the same positions, poor acting. The real degrading stuff is the gonzo porn where women are having sex with 3 or more men at once. A lot of porn isn't sexist in itself, but in terms of how it's presented. A certain piece will be described as "dumb bitch gets defiled" or something like that, but if you watch the scene, it's just a man and a woman having sex.

I think there can be healthy porn (some would call it erotica), and then there's the stuff where women are being spanked, spit on, etc.

Porn also distorts body types for women and men. Any woman can get a breast augmentation, yet what man can legitimately get his penis enlarged? What woman can take a penis that's 10 inches?

There's certainly a lot of bad porn out there, and it is a rotten industry. I will admit that most of what I've seen at the very least bored me. The really bad stuff failed to turn me on. The stuff I liked was where it seemed as if the particpants really wanted each other (a lot of kissing, fondling) .But is there anything inherently wrong with watching people have sex, granted the sex itself isn't degrading and men and women are depicted as equal partners?

Alan Moore wrote a lengthy article about pornography and how he felt good porn could be beneficial to society. I can't seem to find it though.

Bottom line-Society is churning out people like Mr. Sodini more and more. None of this came out of a void. The war between men and women only benefits a select few.