The challenge of The Myth of Male Power, then, is to care enough about men to spend as much of the next quarter century helping men become Stage II men as we did the last quarter century helping women become Stage II women; to move toward equality of obligation for the death professions and combat roles, not just the pick-and-choose liberation of female opportunity when desired; to cease expecting men to earn more money than a woman before they are ‘ eligible" and then calling the expectation "power,’’ "patriarchy," "dominance," or "sexism" rather than "pressure" and "obliga tion", to develop affirmative action-type outreach programs for men until men and women have the same life expectancy; to give men special outlets and special incentives to express their feelings and perspectives until men commit suicide no more frequently than women, to confront our monetary incentives to keep men disposable rather than pay, for example, what it would cost to have a house built half by female construction workers, to monitor media sexism that defines relationship issues disproportionately from the female perspective in books, magazines, newspapers, talk shows, and sit-coms; to care as much about battered husbands as battered wives; to acknowledge the working dad as much as we acknowledge the working mom; to give fathers as much right to their children as we do mothers; to not stop merely with caring as much about saving males as saving whales, but t< > stop only when we care as much about saving males as saving females; to go beyond woman as sex objects and men as success objects to both sexes as objects of love.
[1]The biblical quotes are all from Genesis. See endnotes.
[2] The husband defense
The film I Love You to Death was based on the true story of a woman who tried to kill her husband when she discovered he had been unfaithful. She and her mom tried to poison him, then hired muggers to beat him and shoot him through the head. A fluke led to their being caught and sent to jail. Miraculously, the husband survived.
The husband’s first response? Soon after he recovered, he informed the authorities that he would not press charges. His second response? He defended his wife’s attempts to kill him. He felt so guilty being sexually unfaithful that he thanked his wife! He then reproposed to her. She verbally abused him, then accepted.
/ Love You to Death was a true story produced as a comedy. Imagine the protests if a true story of a husband attempting to murder his wife was produced as a comedy.
Is this husband defense an isolated example? No. You won’t believe this °ne. . The headline summarizes it: "Woman Who Shot Mate 5 Times Gets Probation5
[3]The founeen studies are described in my forthcoming book. A couple of these are in the endnotes.
[4] know of no example of a fan club for a man killing a woman — especially a woman who had never abused him.
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Perhaps the most appalling dimension of the nonprofessional contract killings is the use by many of these women of teenage boys to conduct the murder — usually boys from disadvantaged backgrounds. These women have committed both murder and the psychological rape of a boy. Any adult man hiring a 15-year-old girl to kill his wife would be on death row. Especially if he had had sex with the girl.
When professionals are hired to do contract killing, the ability to pay the money to hire a professional implies a middle-class background. Women who hire professionals are often middle-class women who kill their husbands with money that their husbands earned. Thus Constantina Branco took money out of her husband’s bank account to hire a man to kill her husband.*4
[5]A transcript Is needed to prove a mishandling of the trial and is thus a prerequisite for the appeal.
[6]If we adhere ю the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, then the constitutional equivalent of an Equal Rights Amendment already exists: inequality of rights Protects the sexes unequally and is therefore unconstitutional Although the ERA does have 8Уп’Ьо1іс value, if it is to symbolize genuine equality, it needs to be an Equal Rights and tesponsibilities Amendment.