On Good Morning America last week, a spokesman for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children — the people who put the missing kids’ pictures on the milk cartons without bothering to explain that the vast majority were runaways or taken in custody disputes, not nabbed by predators — told parents NOT to teach their kids stranger danger.
And actually, NCMEC told me that, too, when I interviewed them for my book — I quote them. But it always felt like they were talking out of both sides of their mouth, because when they were interviewed by OTHER sources, they kept warning about all the danger out there.
Dr. Marty Klein, whose Sex, Culture and Intelligence blog’s motto is “Changing the Way People, Politics & the Media Look at Sex,” did the heavy lifting on why this late-date “Don’t demonize strangers” statement seems both welcome AND hypocritical:
Yesterday, Callahan Walsh of NCMEC—The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children—appeared on Good Morning America to urge parents to stop using the phrase “stranger danger”—the phrase that NCMEC itself popularized for decades. They rightly noted—finally—that most child sexual exploitation is from someone known to the child, not a stranger.
For decades, NCMEC has told parents to fear “stranger danger,” and instructed them to transmit this fear to their kids. They even got the phrase institutionalized in elementary schools.
NCMEC has been one of the single biggest drivers of parents’ fear in our lifetime. By conflating “missing” and “exploited,” they have panicked Americans into thinking the average child is “at risk” of being kidnapped. By talking about “children” they conflate the experiences of five-year-olds and 17-year-olds. According to their own website, over 90% of “missing” teens are not “missing,” they have run away. Some are no doubt living on the street and risking their health and lives, but they have not been kidnapped. In fact, over 3/4 of runaways are running away from institutions like foster homes and other social services.
And in a note that should calm some of the folks afraid that their children will be snatched by sex traffickers at Ikea or the grocery store, Klein parsed the gulf between our fears of trafficking and the still sad, but less ubiquitous reality:
NCMEC is driving the issue of sex trafficking as hard as it can. By expanding the definition of “sex trafficking” to include every sex worker, porn actress, and minor person having sex with an adult, they have successfully convinced Americans that huge numbers of Americans are sex trafficked. It’s a lie.
This is a point Elizabeth Nolan Brown makes repeatedly — see this investigative piece of hers in Reason (a magazine I also write for). While we’re at it, read this piece of hers from last week: “Enough Stranger Danger! Children Rarely Abducted by Those They Don’t Know.”
As Dr. Klein explains, NCMEC was born in real, undeniable grief. But along with its mission to save kids from a terrible and terribly rare fate, it exaggerated the likelihood of abduction. (For a great book on this, read Joel Best’s “Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern About Child Victims):
Created by a few agonized people who had been devastated by violence against their children, NCMEC’s initial shocking message was (and still is), “You could be us,” creating an atmosphere of fear, rage, and moral panic completely disproportionate to the actual danger. Yesterday on TV, they encouraged parents to ignore what they used to say, and to use different, more sophisticated words. But their fundamental message—that parents should be scared, that predators lurk everywhere—remains the same.
In revoking their position on “stranger danger,” NCMEC still doesn’t tell the key truth—that the rate of kids being molested is NOT increasing (so says the FBI).
And while even a single missing child is too many, it isn’t even a fraction as many as NCMEC invites you to believe.
How many kids are kidnapped each year—150,000? 50,000? The fine print on NCMEC’s own website says the number is less than 1,400—of which over 1,000 are abductions by the child’s own family member. There are about 200 stranger kidnappings in the U.S. every year. Your kid is more likely to get killed by lightning.
And yet by manipulating and reinforcing our deepest fears, NCMEC has entrenched itself as a political player getting significant government funding.
So good riddance to the fear of “stranger danger.” But don’t hold your breath waiting for NCMEC to apologize. Perhaps they could atone by encouraging parents to pay attention to the biggest danger that kids actually face—texting while riding their bikes.
I so agree that the safety messages that should take priority are: Look both ways before crossing the street. Put down that device while moving. Wear your seatbelt.
And I have even better news than Klein. The latest number we have for stranger kidnappings is 105/year, not 200. Still too many. Still not the 50,000/year NCMEC used to claim in Congressional hearings. (And for a good piece on how the number 50,000 is the “Goldilocks number” — big enough to scare people, but not SO big that it gets dismissed as implausible — here’s a story from NPR.)
Okay. Enough with the links. Next week I will try to post about the other problem with the Good Morning America “parent calming” piece. (Hint: It won’t calm anyone.) – L
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57 Comments
While there is nothing wrong with being a bit cautious with someone who you don’t know there is no need to every person you don’t know into a criminal. Even adults need to remember to be careful
Do kids who run away or are taken in custody disputes have less need of being identified when seen by the public? It seems to me they’re the most likely to be so identified, since kidnapped kids tend to be either murdered or kept out of the public eye.
Thank you for posting the real statistics.
Sadly, if you point this out, people say
1- you are being unfeeling or uncaring
2- you are “making fun” of women who post outrageous scare stories.
3-“Wait until it happens to you.”
4-“But it could be true.”
5-“It’s a reminder to be vigilant”.
6-“Even one is too much”.
7-You are “denying sex trafficking is real.”
Then they will talk about all the children who are sexually abused in the US. The fact that these children were never kidnapped, and were abused by their own families or trusted adults, not strangers, doesn’t matter.
Powers,
I have posted here about my friend’s daughters. He was granted full custody of them. He had to find them himself and remove them from their Mother’s house. They were not missing. Everybody knew where they were, yet NCMEC had them on their website for years.
Note the phrase “significant government funding”. That should say it all right there. Make people believe that a problem is bigger than it is to increase your funding.
Teaching a young child “stranger danger” means that if a relative, non custodial parent or even a stranger, takes a child, they are less likely to reach out to a stranger for help if they need it. Just like those kids who get lost in the woods and won’t respond to the people searching for them because they are “strangers.”
Everyone is a stranger until we meet them. I was in charge of my childrens’ safety. They could talk to anyone when they were with me and they weren’t alone until they were old enough to understand “don’t GO WITH ANYONE without checking in with me first”.
If we treated everyone we didn’t know with mistrust, we’d never meet anyone new. How sad.
My niece is an ECE in a daycare. No amount of this type of article could convince her otherwise not to continue using the stranger danger mantra (she also has 3 young kids of her own) She freaks out every time she gets near anyone on an excursion with her young charges from the daycare or her own children. Someone came up to her son at a park they were playing at, right in front of her …. to show her little boy a character on his phone (he was a grandpa with his grandson; totally harmless) Again, she goes bananas and I asked her why. Her answer was that “he could have been taking pictures of my son.” Really? You were sitting right there. This is a subject that makes me tired for sure. Like I keep saying, how many people out in the general public you meet in a day would you think are a predator ready to drag your child away and do God knows what harm to them just because you child dare speak to them? I can guarantee you it would probably be none. They are just citizens like you and me …. and if they saw your child in distresss I doubt they would be whisking them away in a car never to be seen again. They would probably be looking around for whatever adult is with this child and to make sure they were taken care of. <3
The problem with irrational fear, of course, is that reason doesn’t make it go away.
Suze– so sad! I’m am ECE and I’ve seen all the crazy things coworkers would do and say in front of the kids to hype the fear. Especially when we would take them swimming or to the splash pad. People might look at them in their bathing suits!
Personally, I’m now on a mission to reduce the fear and push the facts to all people who work with children! I think so often parents picked up these fear-mongering behaviours because they’ve been hyped up at daycare, preschool, and elementary school. Well, these days the media is probably the main culprit, but maybe if the schools and daycares start introducing more free-range values, it might help people keep a bit of perspective when they see the next “sex trafficking at IKEA” viral post.
I recently saw a teen get hit by a car in a cross walk while she was texting. Cars are my biggest fear for my free range kids.
This is refreshing! I doubt NCMEC will apologize as well, though they should. I noticed a couple months ago that they had finally changed their website to reflect the true stats that they do teach in their classes. I have had to take a few for previous jobs and they are very clear in saying that only 105 are abducted by strangers each year, and make it clear that the majority involved in teen prostitution, otherwise known as “child trafficking”, are high risk teens who are removed from abusive homes. I was always disgusted with the way they used vague and exaggerated stats on their website, but provided a more realistic view in their classes (which are informative).
The mass hysteria/moral panics over child abductions and “ritual child sex abuse” in the 1980s were incredibly damaging and the hysteria never stopped.
Unfortunately radical feminists, who did play a large role in the mass hysteria of the 80s, are at it again with all their communist & Marxist fury. Gail Dines and other antipornographers have been leading discussions about THE CHILD PORN HEALTH CRISIS, our toxic culture that grooms all of our children for the porn industry and BONDAGE!!! for over a year now. According to them parents putting their infant in a onesie that says, “I am a product of 50 Shades of Grey” is sex abuse and grooming. Never mind the fact that infants can not read, or that putting your child in a onesie with a joke about a horrible move, for adults, is nothing more than tacky. No! You are sexually abusing your child.
I shouldn’t be surprised. They believed VCR’s were created for the porn industry alone back in the day, and now think cell phones, and each advancement in tech for cell phones, was created for the porn industry alone. An industry that your baby, and its tacky onesie, in its crosshairs.
They can’t have a discussion without going full blown epidemic conspiracy theory
And of course every other word coming out of their mouth is… child trafficking, sex trafficking and immediate danger caused by a country full of horrible, lazy and absent parents who have put all of our children at high risk, from birth, of being recruited by porn.
“I recently saw a teen get hit by a car in a cross walk while she was texting. Cars are my biggest fear for my free range kids.”
I don’t know the circumstances, but maybe if the teen had been paying attention to her surroundings while walking in a crosswalk, she wouldn’t have been hit by a car. Texting while walking or driving worries me more than cars.
I think cell phones are a bigger risk factor in that situation. There was a peak in pedestrian accidents in 2016 and many believe it is because people are not paying attention. Several have been talking about the number of people hit by cars, as they are looking down at their cell, and not pay attention to their surroundings.
*Paying attention
It’s happened to people of all ages over the last few years, but mainly Millennials. I guess it’s a bit like sky buggin’, but you’re phone bugging.
I personally prefer to not be staring at my phone while walking down or across a street. I would walk into a light pole, quickly.
From an NPR article about the 11% increase in pedestrian and cyclists deaths last year (around 6000 people):
“A perfect storm” of factors spurred the increase, Vogel says: A stronger economy and low gas prices have put more cars on the road and have people driving more often, “but that is really only part of the story … so something else is at play here.”
One possibility can be seen during rush hour in downtown Chicago just by looking at both the drivers of the dozens of vehicles inching through traffic and the scores of pedestrians crossing the busy intersections. One thing many have in common is that their eyes are down, staring at their phones.
“We are crazy distracted,” says Melody Geraci, deputy executive director of the Active Transportation Alliance, a Chicago group advocating for better walking, cycling and public transportation options. “After speeding and the failure to yield, distractions are the number three cause [of pedestrian fatalities], particularly by electronic devices.”
Not just a perfect storm of distracted mind you, but crazy distracted!! Chuckle.
People, people…. the NCMEC has done wonderful things over the years. Mostly for its employees…
Ernie Allen, former CEO of this tax funded private center made well over $1.3 million in compensation in 2011. Same year, Assistant Secretary & VP/COO was paid well over $800,000 – for a reported 37.5 hours of work per week.
Current CEO John Ryan, while not on the Ernie Allen gravy train, still earns almost $450,000 per year. Even Founder John Walsh’s son Callahan Walsh makes over $77,000 from the fambly business. Or your tax monies. Not bad!
We all know how John Walsh has made a small fortune fear-mongering. When, all the while he should be on this list of scary people for dating his wife, errr, raping a 16-year old child as a man in in mid-20s.
These people are shameless.
@M
When people take an opposing side, they need to counter with something. Their argument may or may not make any sense. The priority is, they need a comeback.
Steve Martin help me to understand this when I saw one of his movies. In it, he had a fight with his wife. During the fight, she said something for the purpose of being hurtful. “ALL THOSE YEARS OF LOVEMAKING, YOU NEVER GAVE ME AN ORGASM! I FAKED EVERYONE OF THEM! Steve Martin countered with, “OH YEAH? SO DID I”!
Paying attention and crazy distracted is the cause of more problems that pedestrians and traffic. It’s also a huge reason why fear mongering works so well and businesses such as NCMEC can distract people so easily while they cash out.
The people that are obsessed with stranger danger and the zombies that stare into their phones for hours have a similar insucurity.
“Unfortunately radical feminists, who did play a large role in the mass hysteria of the 80s, are at it again with all their communist & Marxist fury”
Radical feminists = Communist and Marxist? LOL. Point to the Communist or Marxist country run by a woman.
(Hint: Antiporn activists come mostly from the right, not the left. Remember good ol’ Ed Meese? No, not old enough? OK, how about John Ashcroft, who was offended by a statue of liberty in the Justice Department briefing room that had, oops, only one breast covered. He threw a fit and had it covered up. The current bill being offered that would let people sue porn producers comes from the lefty stronghold of Utah.)
Admit it… you used to forward emails complaining about that Communist Nazi Barack Obama, didn’t you?
The biggest kidnappers are cps. They once took a kid because his parents argued with the school over the kid having adhd. Parents said no he fine. School instits that he not fine. School tattles bye bye kid. Aren’t there kids actually need help for them to grab?
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/quasi-governmental-missing-kids-center-enjoys-key-exemptions-from-federal/1067463
NCMEC gets to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to being a government agency that is not a government agency. Most notably, they aren’t subject to FOIA or federal salary caps. Now, i’d love for those who hate that I refer to places like NCMEC a Victim Industry explain why it is not.
‘I’m so stirred up because they are MAKING me stirred up. They kick up controversy in order to be in the spotlight or they do it for profit’
I don’t buy into this line of thinking. There will always be people that will say whatever it takes to be in the spotlight or make a profit. However, the more people that chant, “It’s their fault! The situation is out of my hands!”, then the more exhibitionist and profiteers that we’ll get.
I’m not saying that anyone on here is chanting “The situation is out of my hands”, I’m just spelling out why I keep saying that they are only supplying a demand. I think that we need to address about why the demand it there and the fact that whenever you seek drama whether it’s News, Bones, Criminal Minds, or online, you reward the creators of this every time.
Quote: “By talking about ‘children’ they conflate the experiences of five-year-olds and 17-year-olds.”
This drives me absolutely when we Americans (well, not me) do this! Because a 17-year-old is legally considered a “child” we seem to think there is no difference between him and that 5-year-old kid across the street. A 12-, 14- or 17-year-old is just as tender as a 5-year-old. This is crazy and illogical.
Quote: “by manipulating and reinforcing our deepest fears, NCMEC has entrenched itself as a political player getting significant government funding.”
BINGO
Absolutely NUTS
The side conversation about cell phone use while crossing the street is nothing new.
The inventor of the first cell phone almost got hit using it while making a phone call.
(This was just after making his first call to his competitor.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Cooper_(inventor)#Motorola
@Donald
It’s perfectly fair to be upset with an organization that tell people/parents/the government that there has been 50k child abductions at the hands of strangers when there have been just over 100. I remember them doing this in my childhood and teen years and I have seen how out of hand the hysteria has gotten with several parents.
I do think other forces are at work when it comes to the trafficking issue. People’s personal beliefs are padding the stats. Search for Gail Dines talk at Capitol Hill in 2016. She speaks along with several others who work with child exploitation and trafficking (I hate this word so much).
Gail is being hailed the new Andrea Dworkin (oh, great). She is a radical (translation Marxist or Communist) anti porn feminist who believes, like Andrea, that no adult woman can consent to make a porn. She believes they are all daily rape and abuse victims being held in captivity. In other words… they are Salk trafficked. Considering several anti porn feminists work in the field of child exploitation you see this happening a lot. It’s been happening since the 1980s. Any stat involving Radfems is rarely accurate, and tends to call se hysteria. See the campus “rape epidemic” where college students have been told their campuses are on par with war torn Congo, The Rape Capitol of The World.
And yet they remain open and mommy & daddy have no problems sending you there.
Radfems are also largely responsible for the language change, at they are at it again.
@James
Lol? Not even close. Gail will tell you her politics herself, in video where she bitches about liberal feminists ruining the world. She has been deemed the new Andrea Dworkin. Remember her?
Do you think the large number of social justice oriented college students, at highly illiberal campuses, carrying around communist flags are a fever dream? The 70s & 80s are back, unfortunately.
Watch any documentary about radical feminism and you will see women with pictures of the hammer and sickle on the wall talking about the class struggle, except women are seen as the working class and men the rulers.
I will agree that anti porn feminist often work hand in hand with the right. Why do you think so many republican politicians have been pledging to eradicate porn over the last few months? It’s because Gail has been giving talks on Capitol Hill.
People made the mistake in believing just the right was involved in the Satanic Panic, Day Care Sex Abuse Hysteria.
If there is a sex abuse hysteria, radical feminists are behind it.
PS- Card carrying Liberal of 23 years but if you don’t know part of the reason why the left lost, and it’s not like anyone is hiding it at this point, I can’t help you.
@Dingbat
“I will agree that anti porn feminist often work hand in hand with the right. Why do you think so many republican politicians have been pledging to eradicate porn over the last few months? ”
That’s why people like me cringe when we hear the supposedly-lovely word “bipartisanship”.
“She has been deemed the new Andrea Dworkin. Remember her?”
I do. Her political allies came from the right.
“Do you think the large number of social justice oriented college students, at highly illiberal campuses, carrying around communist flags are a fever dream?”
Well, yeah. Although not in those exact words, maybe.
“Why do you think so many republican politicians have been pledging to eradicate porn over the last few months?”
The same reason they’ve been doing it for the last several decades… it’s what they think their voters want to hear.
This isn’t something that was invented in the last couple of months… Republicans have been railing against porn, and sex in general, for several generations.
Utah is considering a law allowing people to sue porn producers. South Carolina had a bill that would require computers sold in the state to have porn filters installed. You think this comes from pressure from Marxist/Communists? I’m going to suggest that the fastest way to get a law passed in SC is to suggest that Marxists are AGAINST it.
—
Meanwhile, sex-trafficking (including sex-trafficking of minors) IS a problem. People aren’t kidnapped into it, they get sweet-talked in with promises of a better life than the one they have, and learn the horrible truth only after they can’t get back out. Most of the people who are sex-trafficked are either A) economic refugees in the country illegally, or B) people with no support network to help them find another way of life they can support themselves with.
I am opposed to human suffering, and don’t differentiate between people who are suffering because they were kidnapped and people who are suffering because they ran away from home. (for that matter, there are people who suffer because they DON’T run away from home, too.) I like to think that I would walk away from Omelas, though I’m honest enough to admit to myself that I’m not certain.
Oh, and James… You must not be keeping up with what liberal universities have been like for the past 17 years, since they reimplement speech and conduct codes written by Radfem Cat MacKinnon in 1989 (when I was a freshman in high school), that have been deemed unconstitutional and rights violating in multiple courts for almost 3 decades.
Cat was a self proclaimed fervent communist at one point, who used Marxism in her feminist critique. She was also a rabid anti free speech and due process advocate (only in relation to rape cases) who declared the scientific method and scientists themselves akin to serial rape and rapists. She also publicly declared her belief in the Satanic Panic. I wish I was kidding, but an ungawdly number of Radfems were involved, leading ritual sex abuse task forces.
Perfect person to write conduct codes, right?
Anywho, the feminist driven conduct policies being used in colleges make it incredibly easy to censor any and everything you don’t like. Harassment, racial or sexual, is defined as anything you don’t like. This is why college students have been quickly and easily declared guilty of “racial harassment” in kangaroo courts, given no due process, and expelled for reading a historical library book in public.
https://www.thefire.org/cases/indiana-university-purdue-university-indianapolis-student-employee-found-guilty-of-racial-harassment-for-reading-a-book/
^ this happened in 2007-2008 and there is a sickening amount of persecutory more where it came from. You should read about all the students charged with coercion – rape and expelled for saying non threatening statements protected by the first amendment.
https://www.thefire.org/colleges-policies-against-sexual-coercion-prohibit-honest-discussion-of-feelings-and-intentions/
(There have been several cases, also void of due process)
Gen X students shut these policies down rather quick in the early 90s. Millennials, not so much, though Z is fighting the totalitarian terror harder. They are unfortunately being met with violence.
Anytime you see young college students going to the right in droves, you can rest assured something is very wrong with the left.
https://www.thefire.org/fire-notes-uptick-in-student-driven-calls-for-art-censorship-as-salem-state-shutters-exhibit/
Make sure you read about the Sleepwaker statute debacle. Lenore’s article on it is linked. Mini Radfem students demanded it be removed because it may trigger rape victims.
I would be hesitant to automatically believe all the Millennials in media out there declaring everything and everyone sexist, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, islamaphobic, anti feminist… blah blah blah… NAZI!!!!
It’s what they have been taught to do through very vague and rights violating policies.
“Most of the people who are sex-trafficked are either A) economic refugees in the country illegally, or B) people with no support network to help them find another way of life they can support themselves with.”
And (c) people so traumatized by the events of their lives that they have little ability to make positive life decisions, control their emotions or live within societal norms.
“Oh, and James… You must not be keeping up with what liberal universities have been like for the past 17 years”
I guess not. I have four degrees (the most recent in 2011) and my job title was “Instructor” for about half of the last 17 years, Oh, and my daughter is graduating from university this year. How would I know what’s happening on college campuses?
“‘Most of the people who are sex-trafficked are either A) economic refugees in the country illegally, or B) people with no support network to help them find another way of life they can support themselves with.’
And (c) people so traumatized by the events of their lives that they have little ability to make positive life decisions, control their emotions or live within societal norms.”
I would have considered category (c) to be a subset of (b), but if you see enough differences to warrant listing a separate class, so be it.
I think we agree that if we go down the list of smaller and smaller subgroups of people who actually are trafficked, we’re going to run out of letters before we get down to “suburban kids with strong families who are kidnapped out of public places.”
I watched the GMA piece and hoped Lenore would blog about it. In an exercise, children pretended to be separated from their parents in a grocery store and were watched to see which adults they’d ask for help. Some children wouldn’t speak to anyone. The “funniest” part about the exercise in the video was that *none* of the children approached the young man. And a young man was not on the list of suggested “safe” adults to ask for help. So they’re still perpetuating the “eek! A male!” mentality.
Also! I can’t link to it (on my phone), but a professional fighting human trafficking has written an excellent op ed response to the Ikea post on the LA Times. Definitely worth checking out and trying to make it go viral.
Yes C is a very different class than B. Not.having a support system at all and refusing to reach out to that support system because you are mentally unable to are two very different things.
https://www.thefire.org/the-misapplication-of-peer-harassment-law-on-college-and-university-campuses-and-the-loss-of-student-speech-rights/
It was 2 decades in 2009. I remember the initial court cases well. There was yet another feminist war over it, and several public debates. Many students were being falsely accused and charged with rape then as well, due to women’s studies students being taught to conflate sexual violence and rape with regrets due hurt feelings, much as they are today, which the coercion policies illustrate.
Radfem Victimologists are a load of fun!! The man… the stranger… the danger… is lurking in every corner ready to victimize and oppress you all day, every day. This is what Victimologists in Australia are now implementing in pre and primary schools, along with classes that teach your children how to feel about all the ism’s in art and various media.
From the article (FIRE is a very good non partisan civil liberties group, btw. One mini Radfem’s have been calling a radical right wing organization of late, despite many liberal constitutional lawyers who have worked with the ACLU, before they went crazy, being employed there)
A significant problem has presented itself on campuses across the nation: some colleges and universities have misapplied hostile environment sexual and racial harassment law to suppress and punish much constitutionally protected speech. Despite clear holdings in the case law counseling against this practice, those colleges and universities have applied “overbroad harassment rationales” against student expression simply because it is deemed to be offensive, disagreeable, or critical of another person or group, even though such speech falls well short of the legal standards for sexual and racial harassment. The Third Circuit’s recent ruling in DeJohn v. Temple University,[1] in which it struck down the University’s sexual harassment policy as facially overbroad, is the latest decision to recognize the problem. DeJohn is only the most recent in a line of cases, spanning the past two decades, which have uniformly struck down college and university harassment policies.[2] As a strongly worded federal circuit court decision, DeJohn should send an unequivocal message to institution administrators, one which is much-needed in light of the misuse and abuse of harassment law that has long been a problem in the college and university setting.
IM DONE NOW!!
@ James
Well then you would know it’s the crazy radical, communist, Marxist, anarchist, right wing anti fascists… fascists censoring predatory, creepy and obscene statues of sleepwalking men in underwear on liberal campus now.
And also declaring you a racist, and trying to officially getting you expelled, if you paint a picture of the KKK that examines race relations or read a historical book about Notre Dame students fighting the Klan in public because the cover triggered you.
MOAR IDENTITY POLITICS, PLEASE!
“From the article (FIRE is a very good non partisan civil liberties group, btw. One mini Radfem’s have been calling a radical right wing organization of late, despite many liberal constitutional lawyers who have worked with the ACLU, before they went crazy, being employed there)”
Radical? No. Firmly right-leaning? Oh, yeah.
(This doesn’t make them WRONG, of course, but fervent support of FIRE severely undercuts a claim of being a “liberal”. Seeing Marxists everywhere kind of seals the deal.)
I think I’m more firmly convinced of my initial impression. You ARE one of the people who forwarded emails complaining about that Marxist Communist Fascist Barack Obama.
(Oh, and BTW… this piece ( the Majeed piece you cited most recently) was rather obviously written for a law review. But… there’s no citation to which law review published it, which rather strongly suggests that it wasn’t published in a law review. Does that make me suspicious as to the quality of its scholarship? Yes, it does. I only had to go as far as footnote 5 to find a fatal error.)
On the topic of Cat MacKinnon, Gail Dines and several others… this the reason why conflating porn with trafficking is now a common
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharine_MacKinnon
MacKinnon, along with late feminist activist Andrea Dworkin, has been active in attempting to change legal postures towards pornography by framing it as a form of sex discrimination and, more recently, a form of human trafficking. She (and Dworkin) define pornography as follows:
“We define pornography as the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures and words that also includes (i) women are presented dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities; or (ii) women are presented as sexual objects who enjoy humiliation or pain; or (iii) women are presented as sexual objects experiencing sexual pleasure in rape, incest or other sexual assault; or (iv) women are presented as sexual objects tied up, cut up or mutilated or bruised or physically hurt; or (v) women are presented in postures or positions of sexual submission, servility, or display; or (vi) women’s body part — including but not limited to vaginas, breasts, or buttock — are exhibited such that women are reduced to those parts; or (vii) women are presented being penetrated by objects or animals; or (viii) women are presented in scenarios of degradation, humiliation, injury, torture, shown as filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised, or hurt in a context that makes these conditions sexual.”
In Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, MacKinnon writes, “Pornography, in the feminist view, is a form of forced sex, a practice of sexual politics, and institution of gender inequality.” MacKinnon chooses a few points to focus on specifically, depicting the sexual exploitation of women as a means of showing their inferiority by displaying them as sexual objects, things or commodities, which dehumanizes them. She writes, “Pornography contributes causally to attitudes and behaviors of violence and discrimination which define the treatment and status of half the population.”[citation needed]
MacKinnon’s work largely focuses on the difference between quality of social and economic conditions for women in both the private and public spheres of life. MacKinnon believes that society fails to recognize the existing hierarchies present within it that have subordinated women in particular for such a long time that they have been perceived as natural. “Men’s forms of dominance over women have been accomplished socially as well as economically, prior to the operation of law, without express state acts, often in intimate contexts, as everyday life” (Mackinnon, 161).[28]
MacKinnon writes about the interrelations between theory and practice, recognizing that women’s experiences have, for the most part, been ignored in both arenas. Furthermore, she uses Marxism to critique certain points in feminist theory and uses feminism to criticize Marxist theory. She sees hypocrisy in much of Marx’s theory due to his failure to mention women’s oppression in relation to class oppression. MacKinnon notes Marx’s criticism of theory that treated class division as a spontaneous event that occurred naturally. Marx saw class as an unnatural status quo resulting from the ownership of the means of production while at the same time thinking of women’s responsibility for child-rearing as a “natural” sex role. She understands epistemology as theories of knowing and politics as theories of power. She explains, “Having power means, among other things, that when someone says, ‘this is how it is’, it is taken as being that way. . . . Powerlessness means that when you say ‘this is how it is,’ it is not taken as being that way. This makes articulating silence, perceiving the presence of absence, believing those who have been socially stripped of credibility, critically contextualizing what passes for simple fact, necessary to the epistemology of a politics of the powerless.”[29][30]
^^ They are quite seriously trying to implement programs in schools, in Victoria Australia, to combat the problem with young boys being exposed to porn that is making them violent toward women and grooming all girls to be trafficked. They are also trying to eliminate sexist attitudes in pre schoolers (only boys, I’m sure). According to some who worked with the program during a trial period they only discuss gendered violence, show a lot of slides about males always being the victimizers (the worst victiziers around the globe) women always being the victims, speak of masculinity only in negatives, and leave out the fact that men are in fact the victims of more violent crimes.
It does not do a lot to help with the male stranger danger hysteria. The same is pushed hard here and I expect to hear of similar programs sometime soon, with the porn has our children in its crosshairs campaigns being pushed.
“On the topic of Cat MacKinnon, Gail Dines and several others… this the reason why conflating porn with trafficking is now a common”
It’s not a common.
NCMEC is driving the issue of sex trafficking as hard as it can. By expanding the definition of “sex trafficking” to include every sex worker, porn actress, and minor person having sex with an adult, they have successfully convinced Americans that huge numbers of Americans are sex trafficked. It’s a lie.
^ They are far from the only ones doing it, especially when it comes to those addressing the politicians and the public about America’s (the worlds really considering Gail has talk to officials in multiple countries) “PORN HEALTH CRISIS”.
Also, numerous example given to back up the health crisis, and Gails claims that the porn industry has all of our children in its crosshairs (to make boys more evil and girls victims of course) are stories about exploited street children in multiple countries.
Cat is known for “international work” and Gail is a Brit sociology professor/women/gender studies (blithering idiot spewing propaganda circa the last 40 years, but more so the last 20) teaching in Boston and working in the area of trafficking.
Gail has already worked partial magic in the U.K. Most thought it was just st coming from the religious right. I saw quite a few bitching about it.
The goal in America is complete poem eradication.
Good grief @ my new phone. We’re not used to each other yet…. their version of the religious right (for clarification).
This is the talk from C.H
https://youtu.be/7A62CdYyNSE
And the description…
Pornography used to be seen as a purely moral or religious issue. And for many it still is. But it’s also a public health crisis.
(Why they put a period before but? Anyway)
It goes on to say that the Vice President of The National Center for Sexual Exploitation put together this message/movement that is gaining ground. They have brought together “experts” from all over the U.S to show leaders that “science and research now show a wide range of harm by porn, including direct links to an increased demand for sex trafficking, child exploitation and violence against women”.
I guess so if you are a radical feminist with the “feminist view” that no adult women can agree or consent to being in a porn, no matter what the adult women themselves say, therefore you’re a victim of trafficking.
Make no mistake this is Gail’s view. She goes into detail about it in several videos. A few women have agreed with the radical feminist view on porn after they have left the industry, therefore she has complete confirmation that all women are daily rape victims being held captive by oppressive male predators.
She also counts teenagers as “children” and I don’t think she understands the internet because, to me, it sounds like she searches a lot for bondage, fetish and hardcore porn. Then when she goes back to the porn site to troll and slobber she keeps getting a lot of bondage, fetish and hardcore porn suggestions. That’s what she describes as “standard porn” anyway.
I just saw your other post, and I am very well versed in the nature of trafficking. I have taken several classes offered by NCMEC for various jobs. No one is saying they do not feel for or care about those involved with teen prostitution. People are discussing problem with the language, padded stats and how it increases parental hysteria around trafficking. When you have a personal belief that all ADULT porn stars are victims of sex trafficking, despite the fact that many will tell you they are not, and you start adding them to stats, it’s going to case a big increase, and hysteria.
I am also in my 40s and well aware that republicans have been going after porn for years. That does not change the fact that people who are considered to be ON THE LEFT and declare themselves ON THE LEFT are also anti pornographers, and have been for generations.
And I am also not seeing Marxists everywhere. This is their declared political view, and the “lense in which they view feminism through”. I’m not saying it in a conspiratorial fashion. They make a very big distinction between themselves and neo liberals.
And no, fire is not super right wing. They are handling very well documented cases.
I know you won’t but watch this documentary:
https://youtu.be/sCRohDqWDcw
It’s called “Lefties: Angry Wimmin” BBC Documentary on Radical Feminism.
The title is based on their own posters and a version of the word women that removed “men” from the equation. This is the brach of feminism that Gail comes from, it was the same in the states.
The fact that they view feminism from a Marxist (some go full communist) view makes a large difference. It explains some of their beliefs.
And why are you questioning my political affiliation like a Millennial snot head?
They should have gotten the title from their most infamous posters and buttons:
“KILL ALL MEN NOW!! ASK ME HOW!!”
It’s was a movement that shot off from mainstream feminism, pressured other feminists to leave their husbands and children (only the maple children) to become “political lesbians” to further the cause, and contained the lesbian separatist and anti porn movements.
All of this is said in the Doc by the feminists themselves
One last post… being in my 40s, this was the feminism I saw as a child. The feminism where mothers were being pressured to abandon their male children to become lesbian, even though it wasn’t their preference, for the cause.
They fought a long war, “The Feminists Wars” (google it), against Liberal and 60s Libertarian Feminists. There are an astounding number of branches in feminism and none of them have been able to completely agree with each other since the equal pay act of 1963. They all take different approaches with feminist theories as well.
This is the feminism being pushed in several liberal universities having problems. No surprise. It always causes large problems. Like the women in the documentary say, it was like a fundamentalist cult and Lord of the Flies all rolled into one.
They are not kidding when they say they will get their way BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. This died down a lot in the U.K. It didn’t here. This is why rights violating policies that direct persecution at men have been reimplemented in universities, over and over, despite being thrown out in court for the last 3 decades. That is fact. It was happy when I was in high school.
These women are not sane. Anyone who honestly thought they could pressure all women away from men/their families, to create a feminist utopia complete with turkey basters and abortions or adoptions of male children, to get them out of the way, is not well. They have always had a highly conspiratorial method to their maddness.
All of these women were educated, spoiled brats. They have no idea what it was like for the WWII widow. They had no idea what it was like for the women where I have my roots… Southern Appalachia. They fussed and fretted over doing the laundry in the latest washing machine and mopping the floor. They waxed poetic over free wimmin from the oppression and pain of high heels…. in (insert whatever city here) 1970/80’s. They had an insane amount of time to sit around and dream, while they obviously were not, or hardly, working (after abandoning their kids), and then they put their male phobic psychodrama’s, projected onto the world, into legislation because everyone must be the same.
Yay, idiots!
I have no respect for these women/this branch of feminism and I never will. I do not owe them shit but rage and hate, right back at them. They sealed the deal on “the personal is political”, resulting in every parent establishing harsh laws after something happened to their child as well, despite it being a minority.
If you want to help victims of crimes, help that person. I respect that but try not to create mass hysteria and throw everyone else in prison while you are socially engineering the world to conform and address a single incident.
Regarding pedestrians who get hit in the crosswalk “because” they’re texting: what are crosswalks even for, again?
I think the bigger problem is distracted drivers and also drivers getting a green light at the same time as pedestrians.