Domestic Violence Rumor Mill Runs The Weekly Standard
by David R. Usher | View comments |
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We all agree that dowry killings are wrong. But legislation should not create a radical feminist imperium designed to destroy marriage and turn India into yet another western-style predatory welfare state entitling endemic prostitution and single motherhood.
Despite the fact that the United Nations Third Committee did not “acknowledge” the Secretary-General’s study on domestic violence against women, The Weekly Standard (a Forbes publication run by neo-conservative William Kristol) ran an insidious article about domestic violence in India, titled “Dowry Disgrace.”
Forbes supports India’s radical new domestic violence law which is based in part on Forbes' assertion that “70 percent of Indian women have experienced some form of domestic abuse.” This claim is not only wrong: it is also a misquotation of the U.N Secretary General’s Report now-debunked claim that “A 2005 U.N. Population Fund report found that 70 percent of married women in India were victims of beatings or rape.”
I fully debunked this claim in a previous article, "Feminist Takeover of the U.N. is an Issue of National Security," exposing it as a fanatical lie.
This raises a question for all publishers: why do they allow feminist staff writers such as Abigail Lavin to make hateful statements about men, and to knowingly lie about statistics in ways that would result in the immediate termination of any other writer? Issues of race and sex are very serious issues requiring a very high level of editorial vetting.
The article raises another over-arching point: Why did Republicans just lose both houses of Congress? I will answer this question with another question: Why would anybody vote for conservatives who outdo their radical social counterparts on the far left? Kristol is part of the Conservative cabal who sold out social issues to feminists on K Street. This resulted in PROWA, the VAWA reauthorizations, and billions of federal funds given to radical feminists, the majority of which the GAO cannot account for. Voters who expected “family values” reforms know Conservatives sold them out, and voted them out on November 7th.
The Standard article is simply another example of media feminists passively reprinting the dirty work of radical feminist field advocates, so as to legitimize their work.
Abigail Lavin did not do her homework. She failed to look for legitimate critics of the new law. In the article, she conveniently quotes far-left feminist “critics” who did not get everything they wanted in the new law: “the law has come under fire from critics who view it as merely cosmetic.” Let me remind you, Ms. Lavin, that quoting the most radical feminists does not constitute balanced investigative journalism. If I were your editor, you would be fired by now.
There are many legitimate critics of the new law. RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting) is very interested in this issue. In India, RAKSHAK and 498.org have plenty to say about it. There is no excuse for Lavin not representing the issue fairly.
It is quite clear that western radical feminists have undertaken a very dangerous cultural invasion of India. They differ from Attila the Hun only by the weapons they use: hate of men and horrendous lies about them. If America does not stop this invasion, which we are funding, it could easily result in yet another country of deeply religious citizens who hate America to the point of taking up terrorist jihad. We must act now to prevent this from happening.
We all agree that dowry killings are wrong. Legislation must address this problem, but not create a radical feminist imperium designed to destroy marriage and turn India into yet another western-style predatory welfare state entitling endemic prostitution and single motherhood.
I have demanded a full retraction by the Weekly Standard, and requested they do another piece focusing on the legitimate criticism of the new domestic violence law in India. You may send your letters to the editor of the Weekly Standard at editor.
davidrusher@swbell.net
http://www.dadsnow.org/ACFC-MO/
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Not to get nit picky, but what exactly does this new Indian law entail that will "destroy marriage and turn India into yet another western-style predatory welfare state entitling endemic prostitution and single motherhood"? I'm not asking to be combative, but I'm actually curious. I haven't read the law, I don't subscribe to the Weekly Standard, so I really don't know. This, like the last couple of articles I've read from you, is big on claims of impending disaster, but very short on substantiation. I'm by no means a feminist and by no means in favor of the feminist ideology. However, I would be interested in hearing the reasons and evidence for your argument. To say that this law is feminist and man-hating because it is bad, and bad because it is feminist and man-hating is just rhetoric.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | December 6, 2006
Everyone agrees that violence against women or men is unacceptable but I completely agree with Mr. Usher. I am a married Indian male and I can see militant women's organization enter the Supreme court and break furniture because the judge had remarked that certain pro-women legislations are being misused by unscrupulous wives to harass their husband and their families. The most misused of these is section 498a of the indian penal code where, simply based on a wife's complaint, the cops can arrest an entire family without any sort of investigation. What was meant to protect hapless women has now turned into a weapon of malice. Now, if a wife does feels her marriage is being threatened and she wants a quick divorce with a huge alimony she could simply lodge a complaint with the police that she is being harassed by her husband and his family. Since the section invoked is nonbailabe and cognisable, the cops, are forced to arrest all persons named in the first information report even when they are fully aware that the complaint is not bonafide.
The basic flaw with such provisions is that it assumes that only the husband can cause harassment to wife and not the other way round. A harassed husband has no recourse to any law. In effect, a wife could humiliate and harass the husband physical and mentally and yet he cannot seek any remedy under criminal law. All that he can do is file for divorce and if it is not by mutual consent then it would take around 5 years to get a decree.
This is a kind of gender reversed Talibanism whose deadly flames and being stoked by militant women's organizations who are flush with indian and foreign funds. In which democratic country would you find such a draconian law where you are presumed guilty before the trial which assumes only the female species is the opressed and can never be the opressors.
Indian males will soon stop marrying any indian women for the fear of such laws.
Regards
Chris
India
Comment by mail3liam | December 6, 2006