Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Modern "Love"?

I just saw this from same studio who made "Jobs" (biopic about Steve Jobs with Aston Kuchner - who looks identical to Jobs) - and it seems an interesting look at current challenge for romance - male and female "porn".

http://vimeo.com/67149874

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Edmonton MRA gets some press

Over this past week there has been a flare-up over "Don't Be That Girl" counter-poster campaign run by (MR-E) MenRightsEdmonton.com to counteract the SAVE "Don't Be That Guy" campaign.

Here are the original SAVE Edmonton Campaign posters.


And here was one of the MR-E "parody" posters:


The feminist reaction in Edmonton was surprising and it was quickly picked-up across the country and then elsewhere.  A University of Alberta Women's Studies Prof - Lise Gotell and Cristina Stasia -
who had helped design the campaign alerted her comrades and the media "pile-on" was on. 

But it appears many didn't buy the charade.

Commentary by many on various news sites has been on balance against the Feminist interpretation.

And I kept track of some comments:

HuffPo July 10 - "Posters Say Women Lie About Sexual Assault" (CBC xPost)  149 - largely pro MR-E
Metro YEG Jul 11 - "Controversial poster group now taking aim at Edmonton Slutwalk" 36 - split
CBC Edmonton Jul 9 - "Posters say some women lie about sexual assault"  1,118 (closed) Pro MR-E
National Post Jul 10 - "Sometimes, assault accusations are false. A little awareness is OK" 262 Comments - Pro
Ed Journal Jul 11 - "Simons: True sexual equality the best way to fight rape culture"  Comments OFF

Some of the interesting articles:
A Voice For Men - Jul 7 by JtO  34 Comments
A Voice For Men - Jul 11 by Robert O'Hara  102 Comments
A Voice For Men - Jul 11 by James Huff (and Aisha James)  27 Comments
A Voice For Men - Jul 12 by Janet Bloomfield (Judge Bitchy)  42 Comments
A Voice For Men - July 13 by JtO    22 Comments
Meet the Predators (GirlWritesWhat cited source on serial rapist data) 370 Comments - not applicable
Sexual abuse on the rise at U.S. juvenile detention facilities Salon Jul 4, 2013 (Female staff rapists)

Finally, here are some Video Segments
MR-E targets(?) Slutwalk Edmonton - CBC Edmonton Jul 12 (2B held Sat July 27 - about 7mins in)
Don't be that Girl - CBC Edmonton Jul 10
Radio Canada Interview - CBC Jul 11  (only 10 sec used)

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On the issue of False Rape Allegations - an ancient canard was trotted out by Karen Smith - Executive Directors of the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton - that False Allegations are only 2%.  It is almost embarrassing. She should get out more often.  Besides this being a U.S figure pulled out of no-where by Susan Brownmiller in her book "Against our Will" - it was actually an estimate of a range of 2-8% for all Crimes with 8% being the rate attributed to Sexual Assault.  But even that has been seriously doubted based on many studies.

Prevalence of Sexual Assault/Rape in Canada.
A very difficult topic with many confusing and seemingly contradictory explanations.

1) Very scary, big picture most often promoted by Women's Groups usually quotes a StatCan report  "Sexual Assault in Canada 2004 & 2007 by Shannon Brennen and Andrea Taylor-Butts p.12"
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85f0033m/85f0033m2008019-eng.pdf

This reports that according to results from the GSS (General Social Survey - conducted every 5 years asking a large sample of Canadians about issues that effect them and their families) where it was determined that almost 2,000 out of every 100,000 person aged 15+ was "*Sexually Assaulted" - except that 81% of those "Sexual Assaults" were "Unwanted Sexual Touching" defined overly broadly as:
"Unwanted sexual touching: During the past 12 months, has anyone ever touched you against your will in any sexual way? By this I mean anything from unwanted touching or grabbing, to kissing or fondling."
 So - in fact - if we remove these inflated and vague characterizations we get 380 "true" sexual assaults per 100,000 persons.  This figure has been falling over the years consistent with other crime trends - but has not been updated for this survey since 2007Even 380 per 100,000 would imply 131,100 Sexual Assault incidents across the whole country (based on Canadian population of 34.5 million).

2) The next level of data are Police Reported Statistics.
Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2011 by Shannon Brennan.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2012001/article/11692-eng.htm#a20
 These cover 90%+ of the population's incidents reported to Police and under-write the opinion that many Sexual Assaults/Rapes are NOT reported.   Sexual Assaults of 21,800 in 2011 would imply that only 1 in 6 actual Rapes are reported (63/380).  The official Feminist line believes this to be more like 1 in 10 as they go with the laxer Sexual Assault/Rape definition described above.


3) Then the rubber hits the road with Actual Sex Assault cases.
Adult criminal court statistics in Canada, 2011/2012 by Jillian Boyce
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2013001/article/11804/tbl/tbl04-eng.htm




We can see that at 6,200 Adult Cases and 1,250 Youth Cases (7,450 Total) are a far cry from 21,800 incidents reported to Police (as above).   This suggests that on;y 1/3 of incidents actually make it to the stage where formal charges may proceed.

Even then - of this reduced number - only 41% (for Adult Sexual Assault only) result in a Guilty verdict and almost half (47%) of these cases are thrown out. 10% are Acquited of the charges and free once again.

So is it now clear why there is so much confusion?

UPDATE (July 22)
It appears other centers are getting involved.  Here is a report about these posters popping up in "next-door" Saskatoon SK.  PDF

Also, here is GirlWritesWhat's final word reply to the kerfuffle over the feminists reply "Don't be THAT Anti-Rape Campaign".

Apture