4A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
WEDNESDAY,OCT.10,2001
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
ADAM PRACT/KANSAN
SENATE FUNDING
Dear Editor,
Deal Luroi,
The KU Liberty Hawks, a student group representing the Libertarian Party, would like to respond to the recent article informing us that the KU College Republicans are trying to receive Student Senate funding.
Unlike the KU Young Democrats, we are firmly opposed to partisan political groups receiving funding, and we denounce the actions of the College Republicans.
Republican. The KU Liberty Hawks have taken a principled stand, and will not ask Student Senate for money. We do not believe it is right to make all students pay to support our group or any other group, especially not a partisan political group that will be using the funds to promote goals many are against.
This applies to other parties as well the Reform Party took matching federal funds, and the Green Party's campaign centered around receiving matching funds. Only the Libertarian Party has taken a principled stand of not forcing students to pay for us.
goons many times. This mirrors how political parties act at the national level. Republicans and Democrats both accept federal money for their conventions, for their exclusionary debates, and even for their campaigns. This unethical use of the taxpayers' money is taken for granted by the unprincipled politicians of these parties.
Stephen Duncan Lawrence junior Vice-President, KU Liberty Hawks
POLICY ON LETTERS AND GUEST COLUMNS
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editors and guest columns submitted by readers.
PERSPECTIVE
The Kansan will attempt to run as many submissions as possible that conform to the guidelines below.
the Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length, or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Erin Adamson or Brendan Woodbury at 864-4924 or e-mail at opinion@kansan.com. If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the readers' representatives at readersrep@kansan.com.
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Clothesline Project sheds light on domestic violence problem
In a society where the victim is often blamed for crimes such as rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, and hate crimes, many survivors learn to stay silent. To help the community learn about and experience the stories of the victims and survivors of these violent crimes, Women's Transitional Care Services will be displaying The Clothesline Project during the month of October.
If a woman is date-raped, she is told she should have known better or that she could have somehow prevented the attack. If a woman in a straight relationship is abused by her partner, she is blamed for staying; if a woman in a queer relationship is being abused, it is suggested it is just "mutual" fighting.
However, if a man has his wallet stolen he is shown sympathy and compassion. He is not drilled with questions or comments on what he could have done to prevent it. Of course not
he is the victim, and he should not be made to feel ashamed, guilty, or dirty because he was victimized.
Sexualassault, rape, hate-crimes and domestic violence are unique crimes because the victims, not the perpetrators, are the ones blamed and the victims are encouraged to be silent. These crimes affect the victim's body, mind, spirit, and perception of safety in the world. Because these are "silent"
To find out how you can make a shirt, or more information on the project, please call WTCS at (785) 865-3956
Lea Carland
Guest columnist
opinionkansan.com
Commentary
To make the change toward a safer society, it is imperative that survivors have a chance to speak about their experiences and heal. It is necessary that we see and listen to their stories and break the silence surrounding these crimes.
crimes, it is easy for the general public not to think about it.
The Clothesline Project is a display consisting of colored shirts with personalized messages and drawings. The shirts are decorated by survivors of abuse in our community. The project was started in Hyannis, Massachusetts in 1990 through the Cape Cod Women's Agenda. The group decided to use a clothesline as a visual display, after discussing how many women have traditionally exchanged information over backyard fences while hanging laundry out to dry. The idea caught in on many communities, including Lawrence, where they decided to start their own "clothesline."
The Clothesline Project breaks the silence by giving a voice to survivors, a memorial for the victims, and by giving the community a chance to witness the effects of violence and abuse.
Carland is outreach coordinator for WTCS.
The Clothesline Project attempts to document the extent of violence against women and children, and the toll taken on their lives. Creating and hanging a shirt on the clothesline offers survivors an opportunity to leave behind some of their pain and move on to the next phase of their lives. For family and friends of victims who have died, designing a shirt offers a way to express their loss and demonstrate how their lives have been changed by violence.
In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Women's Transitional Care Services will display The Clothesline Project to honor victims and to raise our community's awareness about the reality and prevalence of these "silent" crimes. Violence feeds on silence, and by helping to break it we can come one step closer to living in a more accepting, peaceful community.
PERSPECTIVE
Feminists ignore half the problems
For some people, October means baseball. For others, it means Halloween. For me, it means an avalanche of sexism and questionable methodology. In fact, the first ominous pebbles began tumbling down Mt. Oread in the form of a hysterical column by Shay O'Brien about the "domestic violence epidemic."
According to this piece, the age group with the highest rates of abuse, women ages 16 to 24 experienced "rates of domestic victimization at 19.6 per 1000." In the general population of women, the rate is about "240 women every day." Pretty scary, huh?
But let's look at them again. In the group most likely to be abused, less than two percent of women encounter domestic violence. Moreover, assuming what the column reports is true, in the general population only about one-tenth of one percent of women ever encounter domestic violence. Not exactly an epidemic.
Commentary
Robert Chamberlain
Columnist
opinionansan.com
But that's only the beginning. Given that abuse rates are 10 times higher for women age 16 to 24, it stands to reason that something is unique about the group. I would say it is their proximity to 16 to 24-year-old men. Given that young men are both disproportionately likely to commit violent crime and also more likely to hang around young women, I would say that the underlying cause of abuse isn't societal indifference. In fact, abuse is only symptomatic of a larger social problem: the plight of young men in our country.
Unfortunately, the womyn's movement is uninterested in helping young men. Thus, while you're sure to hear that women are far more likely to attempt suicide, you won't hear that men are far more likely to succeed. You won't hear that prostate cancer affects slightly more men than breast cancer does women. You won't hear that even though women aren't "natural" homemakers they are overwhelmingly given custody of the children in divorces.
You won't hear about all this because so-called Third Wave Feminists still adhere to Second Wave ideologies and tactics. This October, feminist activists will undoubtedly trot out the same old tired (and inaccurate) numbers about 1 in 4 women being raped and a 27 percent wage gap between the genders. Personal experience will continue to trump careful analysis in academic gender debates. And silly references will still be made about an invisible, oppressive patriarchy that selectively subjugates women to advance the interests of men.
However, in order to really make a difference in solving the problems it
identifies, feminism must move past gendered analysis. Disenfranchised young men, a phenomenal gap between the wages of workers and managers, and an underclass that goes without enough food, health care, and opportunity for advancement aren't gender-specific issues. Yet in our community there are those who select issues only on the basis of their effect on a single gender. In Women's Studies 201, I learned a label for this sort of selection criteria: sexist.
Unfortunately, this sexism is insidious because it is well-meaning. The exist activists are by and large good people who want to make our community better. But they fail to realize that unless the old models of single gender activism are rejected the only debate that can ensue will be the standard gender bickering that has occurred for the past 20 years.
I fearlessly predict that for the vast majority of Third Wave Feminists at KU this article will be filed in the "Robert Chamberlain is sexist and we don't like him" archive. However, I sincerely hope that a select few will read it and take it seriously. It is only through the efforts of these motivated post-feminist scholars that a broader new movement for social justice will coalesce. And it is this movement that offers the best hope for our abused women, our forgotten men, and our nation as a whole.
Chamberlain is a senior in political science from Topeka.
FREE for ALL
864-0500
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Not all of them will be published. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed.
You know that commercial for those low-cut jeans with the talking bell buttons. Wouldn't it be cool if they made a commercial just like that, but for Vagisi?
I love Chinese women.
I am an embarrassment to the Taliban.
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Does anyone else out there understand the symbolic stupidity of beginning a non-crusade on a Sunday and then sending humanitarian aid which is labeled only in English, French and Spanish, which is 70 percent illiterate?
just wanted to thank the Department of Student Housing for providing my room in the Jayhawk Towers with an empty fire extinguisher. It makes me feel really really safe.
My girlfriend spends hours online talking to other guys. Should I be worried?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humaniatian eat?
四
The way is to a man's heart is straight through his ribcage.
I wish the bars wouldn't take credit cards, that way I wouldn't be in so much debt right now
I wish that the college football team would get canceled because KU is ahead of K-State in the Big 12 standards. Go Hawks!
The next time you see a smoker throwing a cigarette butt on the ground, tell them it's littering and tell them to pick it up and throw it away.
配
Non-smokers unite. Demand a litter-free campus.
四
Does anyone else agree with me that the sex columnist doesn't know what she's talking about. It's crazy huh? What's up with that?
I called KU info last weekend and they told me that she was a home game. Thanks a lot.
KU Info should be called KU Zero
What's with KU Ethernet anyway? My parents have a $40 a year dial-up connection that's faster.
So what is it about the green ones?
Should I get my hair cut?
I petted a squirrel last week.
Please print something I say.
I think you should cut your hair.
解
Hey KU Info, if I want to be talked down to when I have a question, I'll ask my professors.
my friends are all creepy. Where am I going to get some new friends? somewhere out there please. I need some new friends. I can't stand these people anymore!
Why is that at midnight I'm ready to tackle the world, but at 8 a.m. I can't even find the energy to get up?
--my friends are all creepy. Where am I going to get some new friends? somewhere out there please. I need some new friends. I can't stand these people anymore!
There's a shady guy with a red hat that lives in my computer. What's up with that?
I'm one of those poor students who only read the Free for All. Who's Justin Mills?
Our calculus teacher said that sex is more constructive than drugs. It gets more work done.
To the guy that left the roses outside of my room. When are you going to call me? What's up with that?
Why did Puff Daddy change his name to P. Diddy and now he's calling himself Shiny Soup Man? What's up with that?
I don't really have an opinion on the Free for All line. Thank you.
What is ESPN thinking when they reared the jumprope competitions. This is ridiculous.
my friends are all creepy. Where am I going to get some new friends? somewhere out there please. I need some new friends. I can't stand these people anymore!
This chocolate chip ice-cream is delicious!
For all the people that are against fighting Afghanistan, I'd like to remind them of how this country gained its independence, how the slaves were freed, how the Jewish people got out of the Holocaust in WWII. So if you're against fighting, I advise you to shut your mouth, and just enjoy the freedom that fighting gained for you.
Why do they make the pre-Journalism advising session on Tuesday 2:30-3:20 when all the Pre-Journalism students are in Journalism 101 class at that time? Real smart. Coordinators don't you think?
my friends are all creepy. Where am I going to get some new friends? somewhere out there please. I need some new friends. I can't stand these people anymore!