VICTIMIZATION IN GENERAL INDEX

If any single concern about crime has dominated all others in recent years in our society, it is that of "violence against women". Traditional attitudes of protectiveness toward women have joined with modern feminist sexism to exclude men as a category from compassionate concern. Now, it is certainly appropriate to offer special solicitude to those who are more vulnerable, of either sex. But this attitude and its publicity is not one of merely offering a greater degree of concern; it is an extremist black-and-white approach. The reasons for and consequences of this general type of bias are to be discussed here at length. The general discussions (labels beginning with A) and individual accounts (labels beginning with B) below are meant to reveal the problem graphically in hopes of spurring all the needed reforms.

Even more extreme than this one-sided caring is the accusation of many sexist feminists that it is actually women who receive less concern for their wellbeing in our society. That is grotesque. Though this culture has certainly, and regrettably, been male dominant, with that dominance has traditionally gone a strong protectiveness toward women. Some of the discussions below also address this false claim, and how it has contributed to further injustices.

Originally printed in Balance Magazine (a former publication of MERGE) in 1994, this article reveals how influential Canadian media grossly distorted the facts about events on four campuses in 1989-90 in order to create the appearance of widespread hostility toward women which did not exist.

Underlying much of the world's bigotry, including anti-male sexism, is the kind of reasoning analyzed here.

This article is a brief general treatment of the ideological myth that our society feels and acts upon less solicitude for women than for men. It was written on the tenth anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.