It's all your fault

Under the innocuous headline Matchmaker's Dating Dos and Don'ts CNN and Oprah.com have managed to bring together a variety of the most harmful gender stereotypes and promote them as "cute." For this article, Oprah.com interviewed Patti Novak from the A&E show "Confessions of a Matchmaker."

Patti says her years of experience have taught her one thing -- millions of women have missed the mark when it comes to love. "Somewhere along the line, and I'm really not sure [when], we lost our common sense," she says.

Unfortunately, Ms. Novak's definition of "lost our common sense" is that women are gradually abandoning the trend of manipulating men into thinking that women are weak, simple-minded, dependent, or just overall less than human. The most telling example of Ms. Novak's view is the "pickle-jar" scenario she uses to illustrate how women could better help men "feel like" men.

Allison's take-charge attitude is what Patti calls the pickle jar effect. "We are so successful today, women. We're fabulous. We work hard. We make good money. We parent. Sometimes what happens when we spend a lot of time alone, we forget to let them open the damn pickle jar," Patti says.

Patti says that if he's not in the room, go ahead and open your own pickle jar. But if he's standing there, Patti says it's just as easy to ask him to open it. "And know that you are the smarter, clever one for doing it," she says. "It's about attitude."

This type of advice, especially when it is distributed through mainstream media, does not reflect positively on men or women. It puts forth the thesis that a woman must be manipulative to be in a relationship and that manipulative behavior is a natural part of being a woman. It also portrays men as insecure and kind of stupid. Blogger Arkades at Shakesville explains this point quite clearly.

I don't think validation based on manipulation is helpful. For one thing, it's a trivial and exceptionally shallow form of validation. It's also easy to see through, at which point it becomes patronizing. Why, it's hard to see how men could possibly survive out in the world at all, so easily and capriciously are our poor egos pumped up and beaten down at every turn!

My advice, to women *and* men: no one rational cares about stuff like who opens the jars. No man should feel slighted if a woman opens her own jar of pickles. Any man who *would* feel slighted by this is clearly not ready for a relationship among equals. Furthermore, a woman *pretending* that she can't do something may indeed be coy, but it isn't cute, it isn't sexy, and it isn't relationship-affirming.

A woman capable of doing something for herself ought *never* feel self-conscious about her abilities, and a man shouldn't take a woman's capability as a sign that his own abilities aren't appreciated.

Carol Lloyd of Salon.com also takes exception to Ms.Novak's version of dating advice stating "What's obvious is that these formulas for harmony between the sexes request that women, no matter their empowerment in the workplace or their personality, should dumb themselves down to placate their lovers. " We would argue that Ms.Novak's line of advice also portrays being in a relationship as more important than being secure in who you are and having people appreciate you for that.

To recap, according to Ms. Novak, the following are impressions women want to avoid giving out if they want to find love.

"[It's like,] 'I love my life. It's great. It's perfect.'"

"I'm content. I'm having fun,'"

We are so successful today, women. We're fabulous. We work hard. We make good money.

With some parts of the mainstream media encouraging women to be manipulative and ashamed of themselves and other parts proclaiming that women are naturally stupid and deceitful, it's not hard to see why violence against women is so prevalent and misunderstood in our society.

Call to Action: Deadline March 14th

President Bush's 2009 budget proposal will make devastating cuts (almost one-third of the funding or $120 million) to the Violence Against Women Act program.

Why should you care and what can you do?

"The Administration's budget for Violence Against Women Act programs is an outrage," said Sen. Joe Biden, author of the Violence Against Women Act. "Domestic violence impacts one in every four women, yet the Administration proposes cutting spending by almost a third. If allowed to go forward, this Administration's disastrous budgeting priorities could roll back more than a decade of success in investigating, prosecuting and preventing domestic and sexual violence."

Stop Family Violence.org is mounting a campaign to prevent these budget cuts from becoming a reality. Recently, the House of Representatives has provided an opportunity for opposition to these cuts to be heard. Below is an excerpt from open letter written by StopFamilyViolence.org's Executive Director, Irene Weiser.

If allowed to go forward, this Administration's disastrous budget priorities could roll back more than a decade of success in investigating, prosecuting and preventing domestic and sexual violence.

But something hopeful is happening in the House of Representatives!!

Leaders from the Victim’s Rights Caucus and the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues are circulating a 'Dear Colleague" letter (congress' version of a petition) urging other members in the House to support full funding for the Violence Against Women Act.

The deadline to sign the Dear Colleagues letter is Friday March 14. For more information and to send a pre-written e-mail to your representative, click here .

Since this is such short notice we don't have time to outline the many important things that VAWA does and the horrible consequences the proposed changes will bring. Fortunately, StopFamilyViolence.org has outlined all of those things at the above link.

Mother Murdered while Children Were Present

A Boston tragedy shows us once again that the effects of domestic violence are not confined to adults. Police found Melissa Santiago, 29, laying face down on her kitchen floor on Sunday. She had been stabbed multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Hours later, Santiago's boyfriend, Jose Torres, 26, was arrested for her murder. Police said the murder seems to be "the result of domestic violence."

According to Santiago's neighbors, the children were all at home during the slaying. The police were called after the children ran outside saying that their mother had been killed. Neighbors report that Santiago's eldest child is five years old.

On a positive note, neighbors on scene were very vocal about the need for law enforcement to take domestic violence seriously. One woman stated:

They've got to crack down more on these people who are killing their spouses and stuff, because they're not doing enough for domestic violence, I think. Otherwise, you wouldn't be finding dead bodies like this.

This call for reform is supported by statistics from the Boston-based domestic violence organization Jane Doe Inc., who said the number of domestic violence related homicides have risen nearly 300 percent since 2005.

For more information the effect domestic violence has on children, click here.

Media Coverage and DV

From the publication that brought you Ike "Beats" Tina to Death, comes this charming and poignant piece, Miss-Leading: The truth about gal's serial fibbing.

Now, strictly speaking, this is not an article, it's a sub-par book review. However, The Post presents the findings in this book as factual news rather than the results of an extremely small and flawed study.

Deceit, thy name is woman. Most females lie "more cleverly and successfully than men" about everything from infidelity and facelifts to barhopping and shopping binges, according to a new book.

Susan Shapiro Barash, author of "Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Why Women Lie," claims to have done a study encompassing 500 women nationwide. However, The Post discloses that Barash obtained the subjects of her study through an ad on Craigslist where she solicited women who wanted to confess fibs they had told in the past. She put out an ad asking for liars, and claims the fact that liars have lied is scientific proof that women lie more than men. In addition to the flawed method of gathering subjects, there was no male control group for comparison.

The mainstream media portrayal of women as inherently stupid, or inherently deceitful is not only offensive, it's dangerous. These stereotypes are often used by batterers in domestic violence situations to justify on-going abuse, or are used as a vehicle to deny to the public that abuse ever took place by making the victim look dishonest. This type of thinking leads to disclosures of violence not being taken seriously by friends, family, clergy, law enforcement, etc. If you're doubtful that these portrayals are in line with mainstream attitudes about women, just ask yourself how a piece this offensive and deeply flawed got through an editorial board, into a newspaper, and remained there with little public protest, or how a book based on this premise was deemed shelf-worthy.

Murder-Suicide Leaves 4-year-old Trapped

6News in Indiana reported yesterday that a four year-old girl in Elwood Indiana was trapped in her home after her stepfather killed her mother and then himself. According to the article, Robert Lamberson shot Kristina Lamberson on Sunday, just one day after Robert was arrested for violating the Protective Order Kristina held against him.

The girl, unable to leave the home because she couldn't undo the front door's lock, called her aunt for help. The aunt called 911, and officers broke into the home and found the dead couple, police said.

6News reported that Elwood Police Chief Jack Miller said it was hard knowing that the Lamberson's daughter was in the home at the time. Relatives tell 6News that the girl has talked repeatedly about her mother's death, and they are angry that Kristina was not told that Robert had been released from jail.

This tragic situation carries two important lessons. The first is that there needs to be a better system for keeping victims informed when someone who poses a known threat, like Robert Lamberson, is roaming free. The second comes from the statement of a family friend: "He liked to run his mouth a lot and I don't think anybody took him serious...." Domestic violence is a serious and often hidden problem. When someone "runs their mouth" about harming another human being, it should always be taken seriously.

Update: 6News has posted a follow up story under the headline Mom Defends Son Police Say Killed Wife, Himself. There are several problems with this new story, starting with the headline. The fact that this man murdered his wife is not contested and this headline waters down the blame. The second problem with the way this story is framed is the insinuation that, because Kristina had been in contact with Robert, she did not consider him a threat and was partially to blame for what happened. Many people in domestic violence situations are not sure of the proper conduct, particularly when there are children involved. It is important to remember that these relationships did not begin this way. These women simultaneously care about their abusers and are afraid of them. Either as a result of concern for their abuser's future or out of fear that engaging the legal system will enrage their abuser further, many women feel that it is better to deal with the situation on their own, rather than go through the legal system. This does not mean that they deserve to be shot or are to blame when violence takes place.