> John: > You are crowding this list with comments that some of us might >find offensive. I agree with Donna Cunningham completely. And Missy. >Do we have to continue to make the point about violence directed against >women by pouring our hearts out with real life stories before you >can be convinced that women are indeed victims? AAAAAAaaaawwwwwwwww---right, folks, I've been sitting on the sidelines here for almost 4 days, biting my feminine tongue for fear of being decried as a "traitor" by members of my gender, but this has gotten out of hand. The point of discussion isn't to pound on the correct drum....it's to present all sides of the story. And contrary to the comments that have made it seem otherwise lately, men ARE abused by women. This whole issue doesn't boil down to "men bad, women good." The facts (yes, silly me, I never bought into the fuzzy-logic tres fashionable postmodern 'there are no facts' school of thought) are there, and they're undeniable. Abuse is a two-way street in this society, and all the media-screaming about poor, poor women and the big, bad men who beat them isn't going to change that. What appalls me about this whole discussion is this: we don't seem to be addressing the fact that there are PEOPLE getting hurt. There are WOMEN being abused, and MEN doing all the abusing, according to the list. And no matter how many times you say it, that just AIN'T SO| Why is it OK to be concerned about the women, but not the men? Why are we concentrating on Males-As-Abusers and decrying all possessors of Y-chromasomes without acknowledging that the same behaviors are engaged in by women? > And what's with this idea of normality & facts? Didn't anybody >teach you that there are no facts per se but interpretations of facts? >That the scientific knowledge you invoke can become dangerous when it >innocents itself and therefore eludes scrutiny? These are fairly simple >concepts, of which I hoped that subscribers of this list would have a basic >understanding. This take on things is hopelessly relativistic and FAR from the "accepted" paradigm. It takes a good idea (don't believe everything you read) and turns it into "don't believe anything you don't WANT to believe," which is a FAR more dangerous thing. > Maybe the time has come to drop the subject altogether. "Let's take our ball and go home and not play with John anymore, kids." Good. That's constructive. Flame away, O members of my own gender who no doubt now think I watch Rush Limbaugh and voted for Bush. Neither, by the way, is the case. Denise M. Bryson [log in to unmask] Language and Literature Northeast Missouri State University Kirksville, MO 63501 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :: Meet The New Boss.... :: :: Same as the Old Boss.... The Who :: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::