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Harmless wrote:Then what do you suggest we do, let them just roam around and do whatever they want? So far Prisons do nothing but just stuff murderers in a cramped space, and after some years just let them out again (unless if it's the life sentence, which does not guarantee they stay inside there with positive results). What does this teach them?

instate proper one-to-one rehabilitation with the knowledge that each entity they are dealing with is a threat to their own government's standing if not dealt with properly, moderation of one-to-ones by other rehabilitators
let them do work while serving a sentence, although preferably nothing that could approach cruel and unusual punishment
have a jury or other (more) reputable crowd along with the rehabilitator judge a prisoner's fitness to re-enter society, if nearing sentence end or when it is deemed suitable to waive the life sentence
keep them under tight watch and perhaps approaching house arrest for a period deemed suitable by assessors (ensure this step is not overlooked)
this is all assuming an ideal government, which has to be assumed in any hypothetical change for the better

if you wish to talk about an actual, more realistically framed government, then you deal with a fundamental problem of "it's not happening"

Harmless wrote:let them just roam around and do whatever they want? So far Prisons do nothing but just stuff murderers in a cramped space, and after some years just let them out again (unless if it's the life sentence, which does not guarantee they stay inside there with positive results). What does this teach them?

you seem to have trouble understanding that more than two things can be done in a given situation

Okay, so their work determines how quickly they get out of jail and re-enter society. How much would they make up for a lost life? As far as I'm concerned, those cannot be replaced or compared to any sort of money value.

*Emelia K. Fletcher wrote:

Harmless wrote:let them just roam around and do whatever they want? So far Prisons do nothing but just stuff murderers in a cramped space, and after some years just let them out again (unless if it's the life sentence, which does not guarantee they stay inside there with positive results). What does this teach them?

you seem to have trouble understanding that more than two things can be done in a given situation

If you're going to keep telling me this, at least tell me what more than two things can be done here.

Harmless wrote:Okay, so their work determines how quickly they get out of jail and re-enter society. How much would they make up for a lost life? As far as I'm concerned, those cannot be replaced or compared to any sort of money value.

i just detailed that one-to-one rehabilitation for their psychological state would determine how much of a chance they have of re-entering society

Harmless wrote:

*Emelia K. Fletcher wrote:you seem to have trouble understanding that more than two things can be done in a given situation

If you're going to keep telling me this, at least tell me what more than two things can be done here.

*Emelia K. Fletcher wrote:instate proper one-to-one rehabilitation with the knowledge that each entity they are dealing with is a threat to their own government's standing if not dealt with properly, moderation of one-to-ones by other rehabilitators
let them do work while serving a sentence, although preferably nothing that could approach cruel and unusual punishment
have a jury or other (more) reputable crowd along with the rehabilitator judge a prisoner's fitness to re-enter society, if nearing sentence end or when it is deemed suitable to waive the life sentence
keep them under tight watch and perhaps approaching house arrest for a period deemed suitable by assessors (ensure this step is not overlooked)
this is all assuming an ideal government, which has to be assumed in any hypothetical change for the better

if you wish to talk about an actual, more realistically framed government, then you deal with a fundamental problem of "it's not happening"

Whoah. What we are really talking about here is the justification of the death sentence.

I am actually a little torn about it. As much as I am rather agreeing that the act of cutting off someone else's life is the most unforgivable act a human can do (especially when intentional), I also believe that the only possible result of a policy of an-eye-for-an-eye is a world full of blind people. If we let our pain and anger get the better of us, and force us to do equal damage to them that they have done to us, we have stooped to their level, and are no better than they are. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. It's what got us into this mess in the first place. The criminal knew no better way to accomplish what they wanted in life, than to commit crime. I say this calls for education, not echoed violence. Teach them a better way, and we have not only removed from the conversation all concepts of staining our own souls with violence, no matter how justified, but we have also added another beneficial agent to the world and made it a better place. This is our truest challenge in this situation. Figuring out how to do that.

Holy maccarroni, over a month since the last update. Sorry hehe, college, exams, all that good stuff. I am updating the corner this weekend, so if you have any ideas of topics you would like to see here you can PM me or contact me in the chat. Merci.

Say what? What a hiatus! Like four months! Well, I needed to take my time and such, but the show is back on, let's get started then!

How can one deal with domestic violence and what is the best way to get out of it? Do you think it is a gender issue, both due to the fact that there are seemingly more cases of female victims and that male victims are less likely to report/are less sympathized with?

Topic and most of the questions proporsed by Bogdan/Arturia. I added a couple of things, also thanks to OJ for helping me out.

Let me talk a bit metric ♥♥♥♥ about sexism as your resident twospirit freakazoid.

Sexism is pictured as, let's say, a game of pinata. The target is there, the person who has the bat will never be the pinata, and they'll get the ♥♥♥♥ kicked out of them until over generations the pinata becomes receptive to reality, takes the bat, and starts beating the ♥♥♥♥ out of the human. That's what makes the MRA types scared of feminism because we've convinced ourselves to ignore the pinata or fear the pinata just wants to beat us up.

Sexism is not that easy. It is not a clear-cut case of one side bad one side good. It's true that the cis male controls most of society, even if change is creeping up. It's been men who have been empowered to make the rules, build the societies, and in general take charge, and do all the insidious little things that blossom into widespread sexism. It's just a simple mechanism of power. People want power, people value power, people will take power where they can. But ultimately although the river flows our ♥♥♥♥ from the male side to the female (and, yes, that's how it is, and if you're a cis male you're not scum and you should only be personally ashamed if you're actively sexist or in denial) people determine "reverse sexism" to be the receptors to throw it back at you.

It is not.

The cycle is a mobius strip. An infinite loop. And even if most of the ♥♥♥♥ society spews hits women, some slip through the cracks in very insidious ways, rides the Mario Circuit from MK8, and hits us in the ♥♥♥ when we least expect it. What I'm trying to say is, we recycle our own ♥♥♥♥.

I'm in the process of experiencing this. My dad is a wonderful human being. His antiquated views are at a surprising minimum for someone who's been alive since the sixties. But he was raised by a man who had rigid gender roles set in place, and by the way was an absolute megalomaniac sociopath. Men were tough, showed no weakness or emotion, held the power even when they couldn't bear it, and controlled everything. Because of this, my grandfather committed some pretty atrocious acts, including not allowing my father to acknowledge he was mentally unwell- like me, he is bipolar. A combination of an age where mental health was a new issue and a father who refused to let his son be weak repressed him. And for awhile, as a grown man, those weaknesses showed. He struggled openly with his bipolar disorder, only hitting a steady stride of wellness over the last seven to eight years. My own treatment would follow a couple of years after, when my father finally acknowledged that only so much of the "be a man" schtick his father taught him was usable in society.

Why was this the case?

Well, because men are supposed to have power. Women are emotionally weak, women's roles are set for them. Housekeeper, immediate parent, the looks-focused, the self-modifying, the subservient. Not all relationships need or really should have power structures, but as unfair as it was to make the woman subservient, the misconceptions of her ability to handle strength meant the men would carry more than they can bear. This is of course the fault of the (yes I'm using this word, it is not as bad as you think it is) patriarchy. That seems like an exaggerated word of evil like the big bad corporations like Monsanto or EvilCorp, but a patriarchy is by definition a house led by the male paternal figure. Some families function this way. Even the most feminist, self-aware woman on the planet should and can have the desire to be the stay at mother June Cleaver role if that's what they want. However, if we have a desire for an equal society, we cannot have a patriarchy, or a matriarchy, or any system where we are on a sliding scale of power.

This is a long way of saying that the roles of men in society are constructed by this patriarchy, the same one that interpreted or created the concepts of religion, depending on your belief, that often started governments like the ones we know today. And because of how we strip the power from women, it puts that extra burden on men. The one I'm experiencing being born male is the fluctuating gender whose final destination I am not sure is yet in sight. I want to be feminine. I want to wear skirts and have long hair and be a f.ierce g.oddess. Hell, if I want I'll be a goddamn drag queen whose entire inspiration is Stevie Nicks. This is a train of thought that even two decades ago, just when I was born, was a novelty. Therefore, my father, in all his talks to me about what it takes to be a man, even when his experiences made him ever the wiser, fell on flat ears until I came out, and my father had someone in his life who did not- could not- conform to gender standards. ♥♥♥♥ this is long. Let me say again, my father has been great about it. Not perfect, sometimes ignorant, never malicious, and I treasure that. But like him, I am having to learn that the roles I have set for myself are not the roles I have to take.

So after some pretentious me-centric rambling, I'm getting to the point.

Domestic violence is a gender issue that hurts everyone. Because of the drilled-in power structure, we already see women as inferior and automatically weaker than men. True, generally their body structures are different, that's biology. But that puts the idea in our head that men, the ones with power, are the physically abusive ones. Flip the genders, and there are two reasons caused by sexism that this is dismissed or mocked. One, men are powerful, they can't be toppled by the inferior women. Inversely, the weak woman cannot beat the strong man up, that's impossible. This is caused by patriarchal thinking, and it hurts everyone, and that's the thing that most people who argue against the idea of patriarchal sexism don't get. Name a form of "reverse sexism" and I can probably trace it to the steady flow of ♥♥♥♥ that's on the loop-de-loop right back to our asses. The still-growing intelligent human being is learning to treat each other equally, and that is a hard process, but the key is to realize the flow of ♥♥♥♥ is circular, not a food fight.

Could the patriarchy enable men with a disrespect of women drilled in by millenia to empower them to be violent or controlling? Sure. I think it leans male--->female because of these societal flaws. But domestic abuse is possible, and can be executed, by anyone. And it's not just rape or violent fights. It is social manipulation. It is fear. It is messing with one's mind. It can literally turn a person into a shell of themselves, to the point where they have no way out of the situation or they simply are made to believe the situation they are living in is okay. My father was in his thirties before he cut ties with his abusive, sociopathic father, and to protect his life and his family he gave up the dream he spent his life aspiring for- a permanent, solid home, which we still do not have. But to this day my father inspires me to break the chain, the mobius ♥♥♥♥, no matter the cost.

Abuse is not easy to get out of, and it is insanely more intricate than the idea of he-man punching poor woman will ever seem. But it is a gendered issue. It builds in the worst way of gender roles and sexism cemented by millenia, and again, it HURTS EVERYONE because of that gender situation.

MessengerOfDreams wrote:Men were tough, showed no weakness or emotion, held the power even when they couldn't bear it, and controlled everything.[...]

[...]Well, because men are supposed to have power. Women are emotionally weak, women's roles are set for them. Housekeeper, immediate parent, the looks-focused, the self-modifying, the subservient.

Probably this kind of stereotypes and society imposed "standards" are the main reason there might be an imbalance when it comes to domestic violence (and not only). Due to the fact that the society expects men to be "though and show no weakness" and "have power over the emotionally weak women", a male victim may not get the sympathy a female one does if the case does make it to the court, there being cases which are not reported simply because those stereotypes make them feel ashamed or the society shuns them for "not dealing like a man you're supposed to be".

And frankly, domestic violence and rape cases aside, even in everyday living the stereotypes do have an impact on individuals. What happened to gender equality? What happened to "everyone has a word in a relationship"? There are even those small things, when men show a little respect for women (ex. holding the door, "ladies first" and so on) there are those ♥♥♥♥ that begin with "oh we don't need your favours, we are strong independent jada-jada it's rather disrespectful for you to imply we are weak" and yet if you don't do those small things, there are the other ♥♥♥♥ eaters that go like "oh? what happened to chivalry? men those days".

There are just little things that 'poke' people so one can never be trully "blameless" no matter what they do. "Oh men are supposed to be strong and protect us"; "I can help myself alone creep"; "Women are so fragile and weak emotionally"; "You insensitive and stereotypic ♥♥♥♥, women are just as strong as us".

I still think it depends on the person. If everyone is different individually on the outside, they gotta be different on the inside.

Depending on the severity of the domestic violence, there are multiple ways you can get out. Speaking from personal experience, DO NOT JUST IGNORE IT.
It only makes things worse, and eventually you may be faced with a situation you never expected would happen, and it will destroy your hope of ever returning back to a healthy relationship with that person. That's exactly what happened to me.

But if the person in your family is experiencing difficulties of their own and this is causing them to lash out at you or someone else, your first step is to help them as well as yourself. It might be hard especially if you're in the mindset of "they hurt me, and I can't forgive them for that". But if you can, just try.

If you're in a situation where this is beyond your control, and the person hurting you or whoever else is absolutely at a refusal to be reasoned with or is simply treating you in a way that is far too unacceptable to be forgiven, then getting outside help is the best option IMO.

I think the view on male violence is changing, though. Female violence has been considered as one of the worst things you can do for many years now, but society is changing and there are charities out there purely for male rape and abuse. I like this because finally people are understanding that it's traumatic no matter who the victim is, it's not okay no matter what. Just as long as it doesn't go in the opposite direction where one gender is considered a higher priority than the other.

The main thing to recognise is that we are all human, we are all the same species, we should be working together to stop people from being victimised, regardless of their background or gender or anything.