Thanks Pippo, good article. The article speaks mainly to Western cases of violence against women. However the situation of violence, in its many forms, against women and girls in the East, Africa and the Middle East is just as bad, and in some areas so much worse, since it is institutional in the "policies of the area."

I just finished reading a book by a West Bank Palestinian woman calling herself "Souad" who was set on fire 20 years ago by her brother-in-law "to save the honor of the family." Her teenage crime was falling in love and getting pregnant,a death sentence for the girl. She was accussed and tribal justice was taken by her family. First her brother-in-law sets her on fire, after having 90% of her body burned, her mother followed her to the hospital, where the girl had been taken by a good samaritan,and attempted to give the girl poison. She was stopped by a doctor.

Nothing was done to the young man who impregnated the girl.

Her memoir is titled, Burned Alive: A Victim of the Law of Men (New York: Warner Books, 2003, this is one of the first first-hand descriptions of this tragic tradition of "honor killing" among Arab tribal societies and Islamic fundamentalist traditions against the women in these societies. In most cases the only crime of these victims is in being female.

She was saved by a Swiss hospital worker who brought the girl to the attention of the Swiss humanitarian group: SURGIR which is a movement that individually targets the defense and rescue of girls and women subjected to criminal traditions. This is their website : http://www.surgir.ch/en/nous.html.

A chilling read.

If u see the numbers of woman killed by million (in nations of first world) it´s really curious to see that three of the four countries with less murders are euro-catolics:

USA (8,70), Finlandia (8,65), Australia (8,15),Noruega (6,58), Luxemburgo (5,56), Dinamarca (5,42), Suecia (4,59), Reino Unido (4,36), Alemania (3,58), España (2,44), Irlanda (2,01), Holanda (1,83) y Polonia (1,85)

hey everybody!!

here you have more information about this problem (lacra) in spain and in europe. Its in spanish but it worths reading it.

http://www.observatorioviolencia.org/informacion.asp?id=424

I was just looking at the top ten videos on Yahoo in Spain and there was a song called
Malo by an artist called
Bebe from the Pafuera telarañas album. It treats the subject of domestic violence and although it is a very disturbing subject, this is a good song. I really thought it was hypnotic...I really like her voice. I copied the lyrics below and you can see the video here

Malo

Apareciste una noche fria
con olor a tabaco sucio y a ginebra
el miedo ya me recorría
mientras cruzaba los deditos tras la puerta
Tu carita de niño guapo
se ha ido comiendo el tiempo por tus venas
y tu inseguridad machista
se refleja cada día en mis lagrimitas

Una vez más, no por favor que estoy cansá
y no puedo con el corazón
Una vez más, no mi amor por favor,
no grites que los niños duermen
Una vez más, no por favor que estoy cansá
y no puedo con el corazón
Una vez más, no mi amor por favor,
no grites que los niños duermen.
Voy a volverme como el fuego
voy a quemar tus puños de acero
y del morao de mis mejillas sacar valor
para cobrarme las heridas.
Malo, malo, malo eres
no se daña a quien se quiere, no
tonto, tonto, tonto eres
no te pienses mejor que las mujeres
Malo, malo, malo eres
no se daña a quien se quiere, no
tonto, tonto, tonto eres
no te pienses mejor que las mujeres

El dia es gris cuando tu éstas
y el sol vuelve a salir cuando te vas
y la penita de mi corazón
yo me la tengo que tragar con el fogón
mi carita de niña linda
se ha ido envejeciendo en el silencio
cada vez que me dices puta
se hace tu cerebro más pequeño

Una vez más, no por favor que estoy cansá
y no puedo con el corazón
Una vez más, no mi amor por favor,
no grites que los niños duermen
Una vez más, no por favor que estoy cansá
y no puedo con el corazón
Una vez más, no mi amor por favor,
no grites que los niños duermen.
Voy a volverme como el fuego
voy a quemar tus puños de acero
y del morao de mis mejillas sacar valor
para cobrarme las heridas.
Malo, malo, malo eres
no se daña a quien se quiere, no
tonto, tonto, tonto eres
no te pienses mejor que las mujeres
Malo, malo, malo eres
no se daña a quien se quiere, no
tonto, tonto, tonto eres
no te pienses mejor que las mujeres

Thank God that the women in Spain don't have "free access to abortion". I feel great horror at the thought of the carnage all over the world in places that have such access -- Russia, China, Scandinavia, Canada -- in many places practically up to time of birth. Can't everybody see that this evil of the highest order?
Our much sneered at President is on the side of good on this issue, and I will do everything I can to get him reelected.

What about the genital mutilation of young women in many (or at least several) African countries? I have been researching the psychology of sexual insecurity/violence for about five years as part of a proposed doctoral project. Very, very wierd stuff.

When I was attending art school in Laguna Beach, someone (and I think I know who) put out a vicious rumor that I had a history of being a rapist! I only found out after I left the school from a friend. In fact, I have been active for over twenty years in teaching women self defense for free, (I have advanced rank in several styles of martial arts which I have studied for over 30 years) and have personally intervened in serveral incidents where a woman was either in immediate danger of being attacked or was under attack. Interestingly, the woman who was being attacked by her boyfriend turned on me along with him when I tried to interceed. This is not unusual...

Police will tell you that the call they absolutely hate to roll on, the most dangerous is one involving domestic violence. I lost a good friend who was sniped from a trailer as he prepared to go protect a woman who had a restraining order against her boyfriend. He didn't know that the s.o.b. had murdered her, her sister and her sister's son just before he arrived. The women had gone to the trailer to retrieve her belongings before the State Trooper arrived.

this is for pat burger

It´s amazing how we are manipulated about the facts on this and other matters by the media. I didn't know the world percentages that Pippo showed until I saw his post. The media have made spanish, and everybody who reads about spain, believe WE have an EXTRAORDINARILY HIGH rate of home violence, and in truth we are close to the minimum within the developed countries analized (and obviously there is less of THIS violence in developed countries).

About the one that I am including now (follows), it's pretty obvious that in Spain, the feminists' lobby is pretty strong with no counterpart to balance, thus forcing laws more and more men-chasing, with the argument of the supposed EXTRAORDINARY HIGH violence rate here.

Sorry it´s in spanish, but it speaks on how statistics are manipulated to hide that not only women, but men too are victims of violence, and kids and elderly, and that those who do the violence are also women:

Link to the (only) tiny newspaper which publishes the news

Like now. I think it may be a good idea to give each menaced woman a GPS phone so that she can be traced through satellite. The problem is that a GPS phone costs about 3.000 euros if I am not wrong, and that calls are extremely expensive, and we´ll have to pay for this. Of course, 10 people (experiment these days in Alcorcon) is nothing regarding expense, but, considering that many judges and prosecutors declare that many women say in court that they suffered violence, lying, because this gets them better divorce conditions, just imagine 100.000 phones of these... Tis would mean 300 million euros only the phones, plus calls, plus police after the phone. And, why not give these phones to any menaced people? Not only home violence. Like people who face gangs in thier neighbourhood or by enemies, ...

And the times judges, having limited police resources have decided not to give police escort to some obvious liars, they are ferociously attacked by the media and the feminist lobbies (who have as much space as they want in the media news). We urgently need 'masculinist" lobbies to stop this chase-of-the-man, fortunately, a couple of associations (mainly divorced fathers, who have to buy the hours the spend with their children) are beginning to move, out of rage for this abuse upon us, but they are still scarce, scattered, and almost ignored by the media.

AND there is the matter with the law project about forcing those who have been found guilty of agressions to carry a wrist that can be tracked too. Even judges can sometimes be wrong (there are several known cases of people found guilty of rape who were found innocent several years after they were declared guilty- and after they themselves were raped in jail- ) and innocents would have his life completely controlled.

If we allow this, why not following with terrorists?, if so, why not murders?, then, why not thieves?, it would be a good idea too, to punish car rules violations, ...

Remember that words supposedly by Bertholt Brecht (and in truth by Marin Niemoeller, a protesntant preacher):
This is the way liberties are taken, don't be surprised if we are someday, carrying such devices around our neck, and having 3000 volt discharges if we do something the Government doesn't like.

Good grief, Ignacio! The world really got you down!

It's like a pendulum. If you make a force strong enough to stop the movement, once you do it, it begins to move the other way round, until it reaches the opposite position.

With feminism (and I consider myself pro-feminist, since I want us to have EQUAL rights- not more for women, just EQUAL), it's happening that, within the complex conflict of powers of lobbies that's in all aspects of life, where there is a lobby fighting to push one way ,and other pushing the other way, thus reaching a changing equilibrium, in this matter there is a kind of culpability complex in men that makes us feel guilty and accept any restriction in behalf of the "poor women". The problem is that here we have ONLY ONE LOBBY, without opposition of a "masculinist" lobby, and they have displaced the equilibrium far too to their field.

It's just like the germans with the jews, just to clarify with an example. They feel so guilty of the horrible, terrible things the nazi german state made the jews, that now critizising any jew behaviour is a big no-no for most. And one of the worst epithet you can get is anti-jew. What nazis did was terrible, but this doesn't need to give a "carte blanche" to jews around the world forever in any matter.

It's the same with women. It's pretty obvious that they were discriminated, and in some aspects may be they still are, a little, like at work where the media keep on and on pressing with the bullsh*t that they get less money than men for the same position.

But the ommit that many women (because they take more hours of work at home, this is very true and also very unfair of us, I acknowledge, but is changing fast) don't accept so easily the exploitation we suffer here, working 9 or 10 hours a day for a bad salary. They are more reluctant to being exploited so they don't compromise so much, missing, thus, the possibility to promote. I applaud them, I did the same, I am comfortable with my salary and a 7.30 hours labour day, and I don't want to change more time for money.

Also, they many times have half day works, because of the family. This is NOT counted in the statistics when they calculate what they get. In my firm, for example, regulated by general wages agreement, any women gets exactly the same per hour salary as any man in the same position, ut to the euro cents.

But the media, pressed by the powerful feminist lobby makes everybody believe otherwise.

Another example: Any ad with a woman ironing while his husband rests or alike, is promptly asked to be retired from TV by official institutions like the "Instituto de la Mujer", depending of the Ministerio del Interior (Department of State), but the newspapers are full of letters of people complaining that there is a lot of the very same publicity against the man and nobody does anything; an example: There is an ad these days on a woman resting in a sofa while his husband washes dishes, and then the ad says that "had she a dishwasher make XXX", she could be lying in the same sofa, but the guy would be masssaging her feet.

This ad would have been a blast for feminists the other way round, as some have been, but it happens the one we laugh at is the man, the role of the servant, then it's ok. Some years ago I spoke with a 12 years old friend's daughter, and she told me they were taught at school that "women were superior to men". Is this becoming equals? She looked puzzled when I said I thought we were the same in intelligence, and many other aspects. THat's the kind of poison thst's being spread too.

I could be writing for ages on the negative discrimination of man in Spain , but I think I should get back to work. Is it very obvious that these days there is a lot less work?

And, o, Booklady, I am not embittered, depressed or down for this. I would if there is nothing I can do about it, but there is! I can fight the man discrimination, and I do. Day after day, like other causes, with the paople I know, and in the newspapers or the Net.

Fighting for what I believe fair is one of the things that give sense to my life, the most important of them, in fact. I fought for women bravely 20 years ago, now it's time to fight for the newly became weak part, man.

Un beso, aunque seas mujer, y porque lo eres.