The critiques of the Men’s Right Movement and AVfM produced by this collection of august personages and part-time interns suffer from a woeful lack of mastery of the ideas and facts germane to the subject they claim to wish to explore. Central to the knowledge-gap observed in their works is an absence of familiarity with plain old ideology-free factual history pertaining to the relationship between the sexes preceding the 1960s. The authors might have, if they were more inclined to do broad research, to examine the texts selected by Mr. Elam for special attention in the Mission Statement. There is a short list and a long list. It could not have been made easier. But the journalists missed the scoop. Ranking number 2 on the long list of fundamental reference reads is this humble Gonzo author’s own effort entitled “Setting the Record Straight,” an essay designed specifically to undermine a copious number of historical falsehoods and to introduce quite a few large facts that somehow our educational overlords forgot to tell any of their students about.
The article is long, but there is a lot of bang for the buck there: its a last-minute-before-the exam crammer’s dream come true. It ought to have been read and digested by our critics before, not after, publishing their celebrity-gossip style screeds. But that’s life in the age of mainstream university-produced journalistic flabbiness. They might have learned that the Men’s Rights Movement has been in existence scores of decades preceding the Great Age when Joan Baez warbled folk songs in barefoot for big bucks — and rich-kid Bill Ayers, the infamous Weather Underground advocate of social justice, planted bombs and cohabited with Charles Manson’s biggest fan while dreaming of establishing death camps for tens of millions of American “reactionaries.”
Perhaps these folks will note the present post and try to get all caught up on their knowledge pre-1960s happenings. One might hope so.
In any case, this post you’re looking at right now is dedicated, with full ceremony and honors, to that fearsome foursome, — hook, line and sinker. Its their big shiny prize: a sort of “participation prize,” if you will.
The following text reproduces an article published in 1922 that explores a question that had in the early 20th century been very much discussed for many years in the United States: “Why do juries keep allowing women to get away with murder over and over again?” It is recommended that the reader take a look at another 1922 item on the same subject offered on AVfM, but with a different treatment: “Woman’s Right to Kill.” The article quotes the most prominent female judge of her time, Florence Allen and celebrity lawyer Clarence Darrow, defender of guilty-as-hell murderers and murderesses (such as Leopold and Loeb and Mrs. Emma Simpson). Contrary to what we are led to believe, female judges of the 1920s were proud of their merit as equals in the art of law and were equally condemnatory of the excesses of women who practices the excesses of long-standing privilege. Indeed Chicago lawyer Agnes McHugh (featured in a post on AVfM) was, in 1917, one of the most eloquent opponents of misandry. Yes! there were indeed female lawyers in practice way back then before the marxist-feminist stampede of the post-Redstockings Manifesto era.
The 1922 discussion, “Why Do Juries Acquit Women,” is in the form of three interviews with some of the leading experts on criminal behavior in the United States of their day. Though the term misandry does not appear the related term “chivalry” does. And despite the claims of present-day gender ideologues, it is female privilege and the principle of male disposability that comes to be the explanation for woman’s de facto right to kill, not the idea that their wantonness, cynicism and unaccountability is the product of brutal patriarchal oppression.
The forgotten words of these authorities — Cleveland Judge Florence Allen, Chicago lawyer Clarence Darrow and Los Angeles Prosecutor Thomas Lee Woolwine — are more than worthy of the close attention of today’s witnesses of the “gender wars”: especially those witnesses who wish to publicly speak about it from prominent pulpits.
•◊••◊••◊•
The
NBA Service put this question to three of the foremost jurists of
America — a judge, a prosecuting attorney and a famous, defense
attorney.
Judge
Florence E. Allen of Cleveland, the first woman ever to sit on a state
supreme court bench, speaks for the judges. Judge Allen won wide
commendation for her handling of several murder cases when a common
pleas judge.
Thomas
Lee Woolwine, nationally famous for his prosecutions of women in famous
murder cases, and who recently convicted Clara Philips of second,
degree murder in the “hammer slaying” case, gives the prosecutor’s
opinion.
Clarence Darrow of Chicago, preeminent as defender in many murder cases, tells the reasons from the standpoint of the defense.
By CLARENCE DARROW, Famous Defense Attorney.
Chicago, Nov. 25. — It is idle to talk about judging men and women alike. Nature does not do it. Man cannot do it.
For hundreds of years, in what are called the civilized nations of the world, women have been looked upon somewhat as children.
A
feeling of what is called chivalry has grown, as a consequence of this
attitude. Men are taught many courtesies and considerations which men do
not give to each other.
Every
one with common experience knows that in every way, the law has been
both made and administered to give women privileges which men would
never claim. If a man kills his wife he is almost sure to hang. But a
wife can kill her husband and run little risk of punishment.
If
a man strikes his wife, he is a brute and no sentence is too severe.
But let a woman strike her husband or nag him or make his life
unbearable, and the public applauds her conduct and says he deserves it.
~ Sex as Cause ~
Most
all murders committed by women grow out of sex relations, whether in
the family or outside. Is there any biological reason for this, or would
the indiscriminate hanging of women restore equality and prevent this
class of murders?
Nature
seems interested mainly in the preservation of life, and in its
preservation women are the most important. Both as to the bearing and
rearing of children, women necessarily take the responsibility and must
take it.
This is not, only true of human life, but it is a law that reaches all animal life us well.
Neither
with men nor animals does the newly barn offspring make any strong
impression upon the male. Whereas with the normal female, in most cases,
she is ready to give, up her life for an offspring that is not even of
sufficient age to appeal to her on account of association.
~ Maternal Instinct Strong ~
It
is then quite beyond question that the strength of the maternal
instinct is fundamental to the preservation of the species. All normal
life, and most abnormalities relating to sex is based upon this primal
feeling.
With
a woman, her relations to man, whether conscious or unconscious, means
the preservation of the species, and the love of the man is really the
love of the child born or unborn. To most women this is almost all of
life. No other instincts interests, feeling of customs stand against it.
When
it is interrupted, either directly through the child or indirectly
through the male, it means to her an interruption of life, it means that
the fundamental law of being is raised in protest. Laws, customs,
institutions, and even common kindness are, of no effort to control
conduct.
~ Equality Impossible ~
For
these reasons equality of justice between the sexes is impossible. If
men and women could be judged alike, it, would ultimately mean the
extinction of the human race. Human laws and human customs cannot undo
the innate, feelings and instincts which are. the basis of life.
If
human institutions could be evolved where complete justice would be
melted out to all, then every person would be judged not only according
to his actions, but according to the physical and mental makeup of his
machine, and according to full considerations of time and place.
If
this were done, probably no one would condemn another. There are very
few women who commit murder who could be deterred from it, or in any way
influenced, no matter what the consequences might be.
A
general crusade, or a general feeling in favor of visiting severe
penalties on women who slay, would simply result in sorrow, disgrace and
misery to thousands of women and their families without in any way
changing the conditions of life.
Not
only is it unscientific, and cruel to judge men and women alike, but it
is really unjust to judge any two human beings alike, and the safest
way is not to judge at all.
~ ~ ~ JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE WOMEN ~ ~ ~
By THOMAS LEE WOOLWINE, Los Angeles District Attorney
Los Angeles, Nov. 25.— There can be no question that it is more difficult to convict a woman for any offense than a man.
My
office has had unusual success in establishing the guilt of women
charged with crimes of violence. Within the past two years we have
convicted Mrs. Louise Peete and Mrs. Maybelle Rowe of first degree
murder, Mrs. Clara Phillips of second degree murder, two other women of
manslaughter and one of deadly assault.
The
reason it is well night impossible to punish women for crimes of
violence in particular is simple: It is because they are women, and
because sex plays a vital part in every such trial.
~ Chivalry Plays Part ~
Men
are innately loath to punish women. Women naturally arouse a feeling of
false chivalry in men which allays and tempers their judgment upon the
evidence.
It
is more difficult for a prosecutor to overcome this powerful factor
than it is to convince a jury upon the state of facts presented.
This
sex advantage, under the circumstances, is as natural as that we breath
and eat. It no doubt always has obtained and always will, and there is
no way to avoid it.
I
have seen no indication that this fact is being modified by the mixed
jury as though I have never known of a case where the jury was composed
entirely of women, and can only speculate on what the result might he
in that circumstance.It may be said that even the prosecutor himself,
being a man, cannot by nature fight a case against a woman defendant
with quite the force and vigor he would exert in appearing against one
of his own sex.
~ ~ ~ “WOMEN ARE MORE CLEVER” ~ ~ ~
By JUDGE FLORENCE ALLEN, First Woman Criminal Court Just Elected in Ohio Supreme Court
Cleveland, O., Nov. 25.—There are a number of reasons why women are so often acquitted in murder cases. Here are some of them:
1. Men have always sat on juries
and men instinctively shrink from holding women strictly accountable
for their misdeeds. Now that women sit on juries I expect the percentage
of convictions in cases of women to be greater.
2.
Women are more clever than men in arousing sympathy. I had one woman, a
hardened criminal, stage a terrific fainting spell in my courtroom
after the jury found her guilty. It took four men to carry her to jail.
She continued having these spells, so long that I had to defer
pronouncing sentence. Finally I sent her word that the longer she acted
so, the longer she would be in jail. Within a few moments she sent up
word that, she would be good and received her sentence meekly, with no
trace of feeling.
3.
Cases in which women are tried for murder usually involve
circumstantial evidence only. A man may be tried for murder arising out
of a robbery, or some case in which direct evidence of the past crime
may help to prove the murder.
But
when a woman murders someone it is apt to be through jealousy or some
personal reason. Women have murdered for life insurance, but in general,
personal reasons are involved oftener than with men and, because
motives and the workings of the human heart are so hard to trace, the
murder case against a woman is really harder to prove than the case
against a man, which so often arises out of some other crime.
[NEA, “Why Do Juries Acquit Women – Judge, Prosecutor and Defender
Tell Reason,” syndicated (NEA), Freeport Journal-Standard (Il.), Nov.
25, 1922, p. 7]***
NOTE: The 20/20 TV report on the Men’s Rights Movement by Elizabeth Vargas, “Marriage ‘Unsafe’ for Men, Says Men’s Rights Activist,” was scheduled to air October 18, 2013, but it was pulled. It is not presently known whether it will be broadcast. An excerpt featuring a brief dialog between AVfM publisher Paul Elam and Elizabeth Vargas is at this date still available for viewing. It shows Vargas in a disapproving school marm mode as she officiously interrogates the man whose activism she so sternly condemns.
Robert St. Estephe–Gonzo Historian–is dedicated to uncovering the forgotten past of marginalizing men. “Gonzo journalism” is characterized as tending “to favor style over fact to achieve accuracy.” Yet history – especially “social history” – is written by ideologues who distort and bury facts in order to achieve an agenda. “Gonzo” writing is seen as unorthodox and surprising. Yet, in the 21st century subjectivity, distortion and outright lying in non-fiction writing is the norm. Fraud is the new orthodoxy. Consequently, integrity is the new “transgressive.”
Welcome to the disruptive world of facts, the world of Gonzo History.
•◊•This post is dedicated to R. Tod Kelly of Daily Beast, Alyssa Pry, Alexia Valiente and Elizabeth Vargas, the Three Damsels of Men’s Rights Distress of ABC 20/20, the group of mainstream journalists who managed to miss the point of the Men’s Human Rights Movement in their frantic efforts to turn this major civil rights movement into a gossip and personality-obssessed festival of hit-piece hack journalism. — RSE
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