The Concerns of Women

I visited the website feminist.com today. The site is fairly extensive, covering all the usual "women's issues" and providing quite a bit of information and resources. While there, I noticed, unsurprisingly, that everything that fell under the mantle of "women's concerns" mimicked the typical 'women are victims/men are evil/down with the patriarchy' mantra.

There were, of course, multiple links on violence and a section entitled, 'Facts about Violence'. In any legitimate section entitled 'Facts about Violence', we would expect to see a comprehensive list of actual facts about violence. Instead, I was met with the usual skewed, distorted feminist version of "facts" about violence; focusing solely on violence committed by men against women.

I wasn't surprised, but I was a bit angry and frustrated. Quite frankly, I'm tired of seeing those who profess to speak in behalf of women completely neglect some of the most important issues facing women. I'm sick of the utter disregard of integral values for women....for the state of the female conscience and soul. If they want to discuss the concerns of women; if they actually care about women, then they should start addressing those issues that are really hurting and negatively affecting women.

I composed the following letter to feminist.com and I intend to send it to NOW as well. I doubt I'll receive a response but I'm sending it anyways. If they want to address helping women, then they should stop refusing to acknowledge some of the greatest of problems that women face today.

To Whom It May Concern:

As I was perusing your website, I took the time to check out the numerous resources on violence and other issues impacting women.

I noticed that, while every aspect of violence perpetrated against women by men was amply covered, I found nothing pertaining to violence committed by women.

The majority of child abuse with parents as perpetrators is committed by mothers(61.2% of cases involved the mother as opposed to 35.6% that involved the father). Mothers are also significantly more likely to kill their children (52.7% of fatalities involve mothers, while 35.3% involve fathers). Additionally, spousal abuse committed by women, while largely under reported, is hardly an unknown occurrence.

I would think that a comprehensive discussion of violence in regards to women would touch upon such statistics, yet, nowhere in your “Facts about Violence” did I see such statistics mentioned.

For clarification, I am a woman, and, as a woman, I am concerned with issues that affect the lives of women. How can we pretend to be concerned with the state and health of women if we completely ignore the fact that there is a real problem when it comes to women being violent?

While I appreciate that it’s much easier, not to mention infinitely more popular, to portray women as the innocent victims, and focus all negative energies upon the bad behaviors committed by a minority of men, I fail to see how this, in any way, is constructive or beneficial for women. Conversely, it is damaging. Damaging to men, to women, to children and to society as a whole.

As a woman, I am concerned that mothers are abusing and murdering their children. I am concerned that women are increasingly violent at home and in public. I am concerned that I can’t listen to the news without hearing of yet another incident of an adult woman in a situation of authority taking advantage of and sexually abusing a minor that has been entrusted to her care. I am especially concerned that those who purport to speak in behalf of women, who claim to further the causes and concerns of women, continue to completely ignore these issues.

Some of the gravest issues facing women do not come from their husbands, boyfriends, or strangers on the street, but from themselves. If you want to help women, why not attempt to help them better themselves.

Why not address the myriad of false rape allegations being made by women? Shouldn't we be discussing this disturbing trend and the appalling lack of moral integrity it implies?

How about we address that, in order to feel “empowered”, our young women are walking around looking and behaving in manners frequently attributed to those employed in prostitution?

THESE are issues that concern women. There is a plethora of information, laws and resources that address any evil done to women by men, but what about the evil women do? Is this not a concern of women….should this not be among our greatest concerns? It is impossible to truly address the concerns of women while blithely ignoring such issues. If we would begin to address these issues instead of simply disregarding them, we might truly begin to help women.

Yours truly,