From the archives: It's crucial that men not forget this sort of lunacy

First, I wonder if this strange punctuation appeared in the original news print edition. Second, this tells us much about the errors of radical feminism. It insists on improperly stereotyping "men," and on top of that, never bothering to find anything positive about us. Third, I wish I could have asked the, um, enlightened author why we can't offset all the taxable income men create (what do you think that is -- 85% of all the income generate? 95%?) against the cost of crime some men commit? Hmm, my guess is that if we did that -- which would only be fair, of course -- we'd need to impose a very, very hefty Woman Tax to even things out. In fact, I'm sure of it.

Word for Word / The Sir-Charge; A Fair Lady's Question: Why Can't A Man Be More Like a Woman?

New York Times
By SARAH BOXER
Published: Sunday, May 21, 1995

ALTHOUGH the nation professes to be worried sick both about how much money is in the Government's coffers and how much crime is in the cities' streets, few people have come forward with practical suggestions for solving both problems at once. But June Stephenson, a research psychologist from Napa, Calif, has a doozy. In her book "Men are Not Cost-Effective: Male Crime in America," published in paperback this year by Harper Perennial, she spells out her plan. Here is an excerpt. SARAH BOXER WHO do the police investigate if the identities of the perpetrators of a crime are unknown? Almost always they would be investigating young men. Thirty-one percent of the people arrested and sent to prison are men between the ages of 18 and 24, and another 45 percent are men aged 25 to 44. Ninety-four percent of prisoners are males. Whether it is robbery, burglary, arson, white-collar crime, crime against children, crime against women, drug dealing, drunk driving, murder, crime in government, treason, or gang violence, crime is a masculine statement. . . .

Ten years ago there were approximately 200,000 people in prison in this country. Today there are approximately one million behind bars . . .

If one includes those who are on parole or probation, the number rises to 3.4 million, almost all of whom are men. . . .

Throughout the United States, spending for prison construction is the top state priority for the sixth year in a row. . . .

One prison cell costs $100,000 without considering the interest to be paid on bonds raised for prison construction. Keeping a person in prison for a year costs from $20,000 to $24,000; maximum-security prisons cost from $30,000 to $35,000. Approximately 50,000 new prisoners are added to the total prison population each year. In California, $1 million a day is spent on interest for prison bonds. . . .

Your Brother's Keeper

Not all men are criminals, but almost all criminals are men. By a ratio of 94 to 6, men outnumber women in prison. . . .

The question of how responsible noncriminal men are for the horrendous amount of male violence and other crime can be equated with the question often asked after World War II, "How responsible was the rest of the world for the murder of six million Jews?"

Most men would answer the first question with, "I don't rape women, don't participate in drive-by shootings, don't murder, don't drive drunk, don't commit arson, don't bilk people out of their life savings, and I'm not responsible for men who do."

But the response to that answer would be: "Maybe you don't batter women, but your brothers do. Even if you don't commit serial or mass murder, your brothers do. Maybe you're not a drunk driver, but your brothers are. Your brothers are murderers, stock market manipulators, gang rapists, robbers, arsonists, litterers, polluters and child abusers. Your brothers are killing us."

Would that strike a responsive or responsible chord? Probably not. Men are not their brothers' keepers. Except in male-bonding groups, men are not connected to one another emotionally in the same way women are. Women come quietly forward to protect each other from violent men.

They establish rape hot lines and support groups for traumatized victims and set up battered women's shelters to help the four million women battered each year, one million of whom require hospitalization. (A battered men's shelter is not even imaginable.)

We cannot expect men to police their own, to take responsibility for their contribution to the violence in this country, especially at a time when Macho Man has made his comeback. . . . This country cannot count on its men to rectify its violent nature. They are too much a part of it. So what is left? Besides building prisons and increasing incarceration, what is left? Nothing short of men paying for their own criminal gender. To ask such a thing would be a wake-up call for all men to realize what their gender is perpetrating on society.

Half of the taxpayers in this country are women, but men commit most of the crime. Many women pay for male crime with their lives, but all women taxpayers pay for male crime with their tax dollars. . . .

The concept of one group paying more for the services offered for a larger group is not new. Insurance companies in many states require young men 16 to 26 to pay more for car insurance than women of those ages and more than other age groups because males in this age group cause most car accidents. Not all males 16 to 26 cause accidents, but all men in that group pay the higher fee.

As a fee on men for crime it could be called a "user fee" since men are using the criminal justice system almost exclusively. Just walk the halls of any courthouse and notice who's being tried, or simply turn on the TV to see who's being arrested. . . .

The suggestion for the tax equity would be a $100 user fee added to men's I.R.S. returns at the time of filing a return. Of course, there will be screaming and hollering about such a fee, but one might ask, is $100 a year too much to ask help curtail crime? What would a man pay?

Tax and Mend

And how would the money be spent? It could be used to identify boys in primary grades who are not learning to read and who come from violent homes, an often deadly combination. . . . Money from this "user fee" from the gender dominating the criminal justice system could be used for intensive tutoring and for family counseling.

Money could also be used to teach reading in prison. Most prisoners have not graduated from high school and return to society unable to make a living, or even to cope.

If men would recognize that crime is a male statement for which males pay more than females, there is a possibility they might help to "clean up their act." It can be said that women are expensive as well, since teen-age pregnancy swells the welfare rolls, and welfare in general is paid more to women than to men. But if men would pay child support for the children they father, welfare rolls would shrink. . . .

Men are expensive. Their crimes cost this country upward of $61 billion each year in incarceration and judicial costs alone. This figure does not include the cost of the S.& L. scandal nor the costs of toxic waste cleanup. In addition, millions of men do not support the child they have fathered, leaving this up to mothers or taxpayers or both.

Millions of men beat their wives, creating the need for battered women's shelters. Millions sexually abuse children. Drunk drivers and arsonists kill people as surely as the murderers do. The fastest growing crime of rape terrifies half the population of this country. The greatest environmental offender in the country is the government, which is run by men. Male corporate executives and military officers who have dumped toxic waste into the ground or into the air are destroying the planet. Hate crimes are encouraged by male organizations, such as the skinheads and the Ku Klux Klan. . . .

Yet where is the outrage at all this male crime?

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/21/weekinreview/word-for-word-sir-charge-fair-lady-s-question-why-can-t-man-be-more-like-woman.html