More unfounded propaganda

When political correctness and radical feminism take over at an international human rights organization, it's not a pretty sight.

Or so Carey Roberts of Redstate.org would have you believe. That's right! Redstate has uncovered Amnesty International's true agenda: to promote feminist ideas and downplay the rights of men.

"So despite the fact that women are equally likely as men to commit domestic violence and even though men are twice as likely to die from violence-related causes [www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/en/, Amnesty International has opted to mortgage the credibility of its organization with the misleading message that women are more susceptible to violence."

Go ahead, try the link for yourself. It wouldn't work for me. You'd think if someone has the balls to make such a claim, they'd want readers to confirm the facts for themselves...no, wait...I forgot that this is Redstate.org. I think the page the are referencing is here, and it says exactly the opposite of Roberts' claim: "...the overwhelming health burden of partner violence is borne by women at the hands of men." Back to the redstate article:

"Here's an eye-witness story from its 1995 report, Women in Afghanistan: A Human Rights Catastrophe: "Fierce fighting broke out and we were all running away in the streets of Kabul...Suddenly, I noticed that my husband was not with us. I was crying hard calling out his name. A guard from one of the checkpoints came to me and told me to keep quiet. I told him that I had lost my husband."

The full account leaves the reader with the impression that the woman's grief deserves more sympathy than her husband's death. That's an abuse of the traditional notion that the taking of life is the greatest human rights violation of all."

I'm glad Roberts gave a reference for the story so that we can read the whole thing for ourselves...oh, no wait...there is no reference. But Roberts is so trustworthy--don't question authority. Here is where you can find the whole account, folks. Roberts completely misrepresents the story and ends the passage right before the climax:

"Then he looked at his commander who was standing in the nearby house behind a window. I heard the commander ordering the guard to kill us."

That's how republicans are-- always undermining our climaxes. I think this part of the account certainly puts it in a particular light that I like to call sympathetic. The whole thesis of the article is ridiculous. Doesn't the call to end torture in Guantánamo Bay qualify as pro-men? But then again, we're dealing with someone who writes:

"But one day someone noticed that women were "underrepresented" in the body counts. That's not good for feminist theory, which holds that women are always the victim in patriarchal societies."

Roberts, what the fuck would you know about feminist theory?

Update: Reader Monjo has kindly pointed out that this may be the reference Roberts uses to support the idea that women and men are equally violent. To which I have these major criticisms:

1) If this is the pdf that Roberts was linking to, it is even more indicative of the attempt to mislead. The statement that Roberts seems to be referring to, "university studies have also indicated similar rates of physical assault by men and women" is directly followed by except for sexual assault when women are overwhemingly the victims.

2) This study does not include sexual assault in it's definition of violence

3) This study does not differentiate between violence and self defense, it just gives rates of violence against a partner in general.

4)This study only addresses violence in university students which may not be representative of the mass population (considering that many studies cited in this report say there is an extremely high rate of violence among dating university students.)

5) Roberts is clearly trying to link to a World Health Organization article in the original post, yet I cannot find the pdf you suggest anywhere on the WHO site. I'd appreciate it if anyone can provide some insight here.

These are just some of my major criticisms; I have left several more in the comments section.