Charlie Sheen: Hollywood’s highest paid misogynist

The other day, on a talk show, I heard a host say Charlie Sheen was displaying arrogance, selfishness and anti-Semitism. And, I thought, how about misogyny?

It’s on blatant display both in his personal and work life. I stopped watching Two and a half men when they started having so many scantily-clad women on the show – I had been putting up with the horribly negative stereotypes of women (and often enough, men), but the stupid but perty women did me in.

And then today – finally, New York Times writer David Carr – and hallelujah it’s a male!! – wakes the public up to the misogyny in Sheen’s personal life:

Insulting Chuck Lorre, Not Abuse, Gets Sheen Sidelined

In 2006, his wife at the time, Denise Richards, filed a restraining order, charging that Mr. Sheen had pushed her down, thrown chairs at her and threatened to kill her in person and on the phone. The couple eventually divorced.

Mr. Sheen then had a series of very public relationships with sex film stars, which is certainly his prerogative — talent is as talent does — but he also continued to exhibit a pattern of violence toward women.

Mr. Sheen was charged with a felony for an incident on Christmas Day in 2009 in which he threatened to kill his wife, Brooke Mueller, while holding a knife to her throat. According to the police report, Mr. Sheen “started to strangle Mueller then he pulled out a knife he always carries on his person and held the knife to Mueller’s neck and threatened, ‘You better be in fear. If you tell anybody I’ll kill you.’ ”

Last fall, Mr. Sheen went on a rampage in the Plaza Hotel in New York. A hired escort who had locked herself in the bathroom claimed he had put his hands around her neck and threatened her while his former wife Ms. Richards and his children slept down the hall.

Yet none of these incidents got Mr. Sheen fired from his lucrative day job as a sitcom star, not even suspended. What did? He insulted his boss.

 Mr. Carr, we are familiar with this scenario. Violence against women teeters on one of the lowest rungs on the ladder of priority, especially when it comes to men who are celebrities, politicians, athletes, or anyone whose career is more important than assaulting women (and that includes almost all men). Even harming animals (remember Michael Vick?) gets more outrage than harming women. So, insulting a boss? Yeah, far more important than harming women.

Carr mentions some men who’ve lost their jobs due to committing violence against women; but in my experience, many men (even police officers with guns) get to keep their jobs and hit their women, too. (I’ll try to put some resources up on a post later.) After this, Carr says:

Is Mr. Sheen excused because he manufactures laughs, not widgets, for a living? For years on the show, Mr. Sheen has been playing to type as a naughty boy in a man’s body: the result was often scabrous and funny and a hit in the ratings. It also fits another depressing pattern. From “Animal House” to Howard Stern, from “Pretty Woman” to “The Hangover,” Hollywood has long had a soft spot for male misbehavior and, in claiming to parody childish misogyny, it seems to provide an excuse to indulge in it further.

Women who lie, and the men that put them up to it

Okay, I give – I’ll post an article on women who lie…and the men that put them up to it:

Abuse suspects, Your calls are taped. Speak up.

The men charged with beating, stabbing or burning their wives or girlfriends have plenty to say. Lately, their words have been used against them in New York courts as never before.

Please read this article – it really is revealing. As one advocate from my list serv said, maybe we’ll get past the silly “he said, she said” and realize, quite often, it’s he said, he said.

“We have the ability now,” Mr. Kessler said, “to prove what we’ve always suspected, which is that the defendants in domestic violence cases are in constant contact with their victims, and they use various means and methods to try to have the case dropped.”

The jailhouse calls are almost always flagrant violations of court orders directing men charged with domestic violence not to contact the women who were attacked.

Deirdre Bialo-Padin, the domestic violence bureau chief in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, said the tapes gave jurors a vivid understanding of men who can be masters of manipulation.

In one Brooklyn case, she said, the defendant has called the victim from jail 1,200 times.

In the cases in which victims stop cooperating with prosecutors, the recordings plug crucial holes. District attorneys use the recordings partly to explain why injured women are not testifying for the prosecution.

In those instances, the law often permits prosecutors to introduce statements — that would otherwise be barred — made by the victims to the police or hospital workers before they stopped working with prosecutors, including identification of attackers and descriptions of the attacks.

Custody catastrophes

Lesbian moms reluctant to report abuse by partner fearing child’s custody loss

and, on the subject of custody…

Child custody expert tied to lewd Web photos 

A prominent Beverly Hills psychiatrist who has helped decide hundreds of child-custody disputes was thrown off one recent case and has been challenged in at least two others after posting lewd photos of himself on Facebook and allegedly promoting illegal drug use, unprotected sex and male prostitution.

Dr. Joseph Kenan, president of the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry, is also being investigated by the Medical Board of California on at least four complaints by parents who hired him to do custody evaluations, according to records and correspondence reviewed by The Times.

Dr. Kenan, president of the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry, was also mentioned in an article posted on a Fathers Rights site: Sexual Abuse Accusations Color Custody Battles  Notice the ads about female sex offenders and women who lie about paternity on the right hand side.

Kenan believes in the discredited idea of parental alienation syndrome, an idea created by Dr. Richard Gardner, who defended child molesters, and promoted by fathers rights groups:

“Parental alienation—when one parent programs a child against the other parent—is one reason for false allegations of abuse by a child: one parent encourages the child to accuse the other. The parent can be subtle in encouraging the child to make sexual allegations by not supporting the child’s relationship with the other parent and by criticizing the other parent in the child’s presence, which can cause the child to adopt one parent’s negative view of the other. However, it is important to avoid jumping to conclusions that the accused parent is guilty, or that the other parent is behind the allegations.”

He seems to think children who repeat themselves are likely to be lying:

“Review the initial statement made by the child or adolescent, if it is available as a videotape, audiotape, transcription, or police report. “The first interview done by police and CPS is often videotaped. If that is available, watch it. The more the child or adolescent repeats the statements, the less reliable the statements are. If you are able to view an older interview, it may be more truthful than your own interview with the child,” he said.”

Kenan is not just one bad apple, he’s one of many child custody evaluators who uses bias and high fees to taint the family court system. It’s nothing short of scary that family court has such little oversight of custody evaluators.

Caution: Women’s “signals” lead to rape, per Justice Robert Dewar

Women, did you know you send “signals” to men to insert their penis into your vagina without your consent? There is no known list of “signals,” so, of course, it’s very subjective. One judge called make-up, tube tops and mentioning ‘going swimming’ as signals that lead to rape:

Rape victim ‘inviting,’ so no jail time

Since she clearly sent “signals” to Kenneth Rhodes, he won’t get any jail time. Does this mean we need to conform to some people’s idea of what conservative or modest attire/behavior is in order to get protection from rapists?

If we are going to be blamed for “signals’ we send to men to rape us, I think we deserve to be given this list so it won’t be left to subjective views of how women dress and behave.

Care2 also has a post on it with some good comparisons to other crimes.

Media and honor crimes

Haven’t had a chance to read this yet, but it looks interesting:

Religion, Culture and the Politicalization of Honour-Related Violence

The authors suggest that policy responses will be effective only insofar as gendered violence is understood within its social, cultural and political context and if that context is not seen as foreign but rather as part of the new social relations in the immigrant-receiving society. Hence, they argue that honour-related violence needs to be understood not as a “cultural” or “religious” problem that afflicts particular immigrant communities (in this case, often those perceived and represented as Muslim) but as a specific manifestation of the larger problem of violence against women (which concerns all communities, whether immigrant or not) that in the case of immigrant communities is shaped and informed by the immigration experience. Only a contextually specific approach allows for this understanding.

Is the Washington Post running a scam?

Here’s info from Change.org:

Here’s how the Washington Post Company makes billions of dollars:  

Veterans, single moms, and working parents are lured in by admissions counselors at Kaplan University Online (a for-profit college owned by the Post). Students use federal loans to sign up for classes that can be 14 times more expensive than a comparable community college class. 

It’s basically a scam. Sixty-nine percent of students drop out. A third of students default on their loans, meaning taxpayers are stuck with the bill and the students have their credit destroyed — while Kaplan keeps all the money.

Read more

Violence against women: Progress or Propaganda?

I haven’t had time to read this yet, but it looks interesting:

Protection and Justice for Women, Progress or Propaganda?

Media headlines, as well as law enforcement rhetoric, frequently tout claims of the great strides being made in reducing and responding to rape, domestic violence, and other violence against women. But recent research and analysis of governments’ own figures suggest that, in reality, there has been little to no significant progress at all—not in the U.S., nor in other developed countries. And in developing countries the violence against women only seems to be getting worse.

Misogyny in the USA, Men bounce back from the “mancession” & Media-driven body dissatisfaction

The following links come from an email alert from The Women’s Media Center.

Misogyny Cuts Across All Cultures: Oppression in the West and Arab World
2/20/2011
Huffington Post:Are women in the Arab world “worse-off” than in the West? An editorial examines the ways in which oppression and misogyny cut across every culture, and how media handles the issue.

Excerpt:

I do not want to live in a country that forces me to smother myself in veils, a country that threatens me with violence for an inch of visible wrist, a country that does not allow me to vote or drive.

For the record, I also do not feel safe in a country with a House of Representatives that is capable of canceling all funding for Planned Parenthood — which happened in the House just a day ago. I do not feel safe knowing that in South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that could make it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortion care to women.

The state legislature of Georgia would like to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking and domestic violence to “accuser” — in effect, denying victims their right to accurate representation by description.

In Congress, Republicans have put forward a bill that would force hospitals to let a woman die rather than perform an abortion that would save her life.

Programs for low-income women and children are being slashed left and right and MoveOn reports that there is a move to eliminate all funding for the only extant federal family planning program — though there is a bill that promotes contraception for wild horses. (For human women, they are neigh-sayers.)

Misogyny keeps this country’s brutality to women — rape, murder and domestic violence — at staggering levels, along with the pitched battle against a woman’s right to control her own body, her right to choose.

That women often do not support each other or offer sympathy for abusive treatment of other women is indeed part of the problem — witness the reaction of some female journalists to the attack on Lara Logan.

Men bounce back faster from recession’s unequal blows
2/21/2011
Miami Herald: After the recession of the late 2000s, the early stages of the economic recovery are benefitting men far more than women. While men have gained438,000 jobs since June 2009, women have lost 366,000 over the same period.

African-American Women Less Vulnerable to Media-Driven Body Dissatisfaction
2/21/2011
University of Florida News: As National Eating Disorders Awareness Week gets underway, a University of Florida researchers emphasizes a 2010 study that shows African-American women are less susceptible to pressure from mainstream media about their body image.

Round up of posts and articles on the Republican’s War Against Women

I’ve never been more angered by the Republicans – at a time when they *say* they want to see less government –they put more government interference in women’s lives – at a time when they *say* they want budget cuts, they slash programs for women and children (meanwhile, the Fatherhood Initiative, which funds the unethical experiment of reuniting children with their ex-convict fathers and “marriage promotion” programs). Here’s a round-up of various posts and articles on the subject.

Weekly Pulse: The Republican’s War on Women

The New York Times:  The War on Women

Republican House Leaders Launch New War on Women

While proposing wiping out domestic family planning, Republicans are drastically cutting, by $758 million, the Women Infant Children (WIC) program which provides food and nutrition for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women. The Republican bill also includes a proposed $210 million cut in Maternal and Child Health block grants and $1.83 billion cut in Head Start from 2010 spending levels and $2.27 billion from the President’s 2011 request. The Republicans would also cut dramatically Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) funding by $170 million.

Obama’s 2012 budget – A contrast to Republican’s

Jon Stewart struggles to understand GOP’s Planned Parenthood cuts – Below is a quote from the article on Salon:

Jon Stewart does his best think think through the GOP’s recent budget cutting measures for women’s health and child services:

They want to cut everything from family care to prenatal care to child nutrition. It’s like the Republican Congress is saying, “You can’t prevent an unwanted child. You can’t get care if you do get pregnant, and you can’t get any help after the baby is born. But — for those two minutes when the skull is crowning your baby is the most precious thing on Earth.”

Abortion in the United States Bible Belt: Organizing for Power and Empowerment – posted on AWID

Violence

Anti-abortion protestors harass women clients, physicians andtheir staff at clinics, and at home. Threats on the lives of clinic directorshave become so common that they are no longer reported in the public press. Forexample, in some states, Catholic school children wearing their school uniformsare brought to protest in front of abortion clinics by adults screaminginvectives of “baby killer and murderer” at clients and staff. Andthis sort of behavior seems normal across the conservative states. Protestorsroutinely sneak into the clinics causing havoc. In two Southern clinics,protestors cut holes in the wall and pumped butyric acid into the clinicscausing them to be closed for weeks. Operation Rescue/Operation Save Americahave printed WANTED posters with photos of doctors who perform abortions andhave distributed them at the doctors’ homes, offices and in theirneighborhoods. This extremist tactic was carried out in Pensacola, Florida inthe 1990s and preceded the murders of two other providers and a clinicvolunteer [13]. The increasingly violent rhetoric about”baby killers” can result in real violence as seen in the recentmurder in Kansas of physician George Tiller who provided abortion care. Amidstsuch domestic terrorism, few physicians are willing to provide abortions inthese states.

Why men need to speak up on abortion – posted on Salon and includes several other articles on the subject

Women human right defenders experience prejudice, exclusion and violence

There’s been a lot of talk lately about women in journalism facing risks their male colleagues don’t. (Even us female bloggers face more threats and intimidating comments than our male counterparts.) And, similar to female journalists, women human rights defenders face risks and attacks that are specific to their gender. I went to Guatemala on a human rights delegation and witnessed this first hand. Most of the women working in domestic violence (for instance Norma Cruz, recipient of the Women of Courage award), violence against women, and women’s issues/rights had received death threats or were attacked (either their person or their office was attacked). Here’s a recent report announced on AWID that provides more details:

AWID

The report affirms that “women defenders are more at risk of suffering certain forms of violence and other violations, prejudice, exclusion, and repudiation than their male counterparts. This is often due to the fact that women defenders are perceived as challenging accepted socio-cultural norms, traditions, perceptions and stereotypes about femininity, sexual orientation, and the role and status of women in society.”

Report’s Findings

The risks and violations reported in the period 2004-2009 include (a) threats, death threats and killings; (b) arrest, detention, and criminalization; (c) stigmatization; and (d) sexual violence and rape. Some of the striking findings include:

• “An alarming number of women human rights defenders and their relatives have paid the highest price for their work.” There were 39 communications to the Rapporteur regarding killings and 35 communications regarding attempted killings.
• Defenders in the Americas are most likely to face threats, death threats, killings and attempted killings; more than half the communications relating to death threats concerned defenders working in the Americas, highlighting Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, Honduras, and Peru. “Among the groups which appear to be most at risk are women defenders working to fight impunity for alleged human rights violations”. Special mention was made of risks to women trade unionists, women indigenous rights activists, and women environmental and land rights activists.
• Violations against defenders working on LGBT issues were also noted.These ranged from judicial issues (arrests, judicial harassment, administrative detentions, etc.) to restrictions in freedoms of assembly, but also killings,rape and sexual violence, physical attacks, and stigmatization. Concern for LGBT defenders were specifically highlighted in Africa (Sudan and Uganda).

The report “reveals a worrying trend of criminalization of the activities carried out by women human rights defenders and those working on women’s rights or gender issues throughout the world.” This includes arrests and criminalization of the defenders’ work, as well as criminal investigations and irregularities relating to due process and fair trial procedures. “By contrast to Central and South America where threats and death threats are most commonly reported, arrests and criminalization were most commonly reported in Asia and the Pacific.” China and the Islamic Republic of Iran are mentioned in relation to concern for arrests and prison sentences. Europe and Central Asia are also mentioned regarding arrests, detentions and criminalization.