Murder: The Leading Cause of Death for Pregnant Women

[Breeze54]

http://www.now.org/issues/violence/043003pregnant.html">Murder: The Leading Cause of Death for Pregnant Women

April 23, 2003

By Kim Curtis, Associated Press Writer

http://www.now.org/issues/violence/050203timeline.html">See also: A Week of Deadly Violence by Intimate Partners (April 21-27, 2003)

SAN FRANCISCO—

The death of Laci Peterson, as well as the unsolved murder of another pregnant woman whose torso washed up in San Francisco Bay, points to a disturbing phenomenon well known to police, health advocates and experts on battered women: the leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide.

"People think that pregnancy is a joyful, happy time for families. That's not always true," said Phyllis Sharps, an associate professor at The Johns Hopkins University's school of nursing who researches violence against women.

In some cases, the woman has been abused for years, and the violence escalates to murder after she's pregnant. In others, pregnancy itself sparks emotions that can lead to murderous rages.

"Violence in intimate relationships is all about power," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "There are fewer times when you can have power over a woman than when she's pregnant. She's vulnerable. It's an easier time to threaten her."

Friends and family say they saw no signs of strain or abuse in the relationship between Scott and Laci Peterson of Modesto. Peterson pleaded innocent Monday to killing his wife and their unborn son, whose bodies washed up last week not far from the spot where he said he was fishing on Christmas Eve, the day Laci disappeared.

In San Francisco, 24-year-old Evelyn Hernandez was a week away from delivering a second son when she disappeared last May with her 5-year-old boy. Her torso—clad in maternity clothes—was found in the bay three months later. Her son remains missing. The married man she was dating has cooperated with police, and no arrests have been made.

Among all murders of women across the country in 2000—the most recent yearly statistics available from the U.S. Department of Justice—more than 33 percent were killed by an intimate partner.

And despite all the joy that pregnancy can bring to a relationship, expectant mothers aren't necessarily spared the danger of being slain.

That's something advocates have known for years, Gandy said.

"There are a lot of dynamics that go on in a relationship that involves violence—power and control and the need for the abuser to be primary," she said. "A pregnancy can create a sense of possibly losing that primary position."

Homicide was found to be the leading cause of death for pregnant women in Maryland, according to a March 2001 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Using death records and coroner reports, state health department researchers found 247 pregnancy-associated deaths between 1993 and 1998. Among those deaths, 50 were murders. By comparison, homicide was the fifth-leading cause of death among Maryland women. And, nationwide, the maternal mortality rate was just 9.9 percent in 1999, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

Nationally, homicide is a leading killer of young women—pregnant or not. In 1999, homicide was the second-leading cause of death among women ages 20 to 24. It was fifth among women ages 25-34. Accidents are the top cause of death in both age groups.

The Maryland study reinforced at least two earlier studies that found homicide to be the top killer of pregnant women. In Cook County, Ill., 26 percent of the 95 deaths of pregnant women recorded between 1986 and 1989 were slain. In New York, 25 percent of the 293 deaths among pregnant women between 1987 and 1991 were homicides.

Police records show that homicidal violence cuts across all races and classes.

"There is no profile of what these men look like," Sharps said. "Many are educated, upstanding citizens."

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_109295.asp">What Is Wrong With Men These Days?

posted June 23, 2007

What is wrong with you men these days? Another young pregnant woman has been found murdered, allegedly by her boyfriend.

How is it possible that the leading cause of death for pregnant women isn't childbirth, or stroke, it's murder? And most of the time, the murderer is the jerk who got her pregnant, be it her husband or boyfriend.

Are you men so insecure and messed up in the head these days that you think the only way of dealing with an unwanted pregnancy is to murder the mother and the child? It's real simple, guys. If you decide you'd rather not be a husband and a father, then divorce her, or break up with her. That's all it takes. If you don't want to be held financially responsible for the child, then have your parental rights terminated.

more....

[Breeze54]

1. The National Domestic Violence Hotline: [phone]-SAFE (7233)

http://www.ndvh.org/

At the National Domestic Violence Hotline…

We believe that every caller deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.
We believe that every family deserves to live in a world free from violence.
We believe that safe homes and safe families are the foundation of a safe society.

Until the violence stops, the hotline will continue to answer…One Call at a Time.
Help is available to callers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Hotline advocates are available for victims and anyone calling on their behalf to
provide crisis intervention, safety planning, information and referrals to agencies
in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Assistance is available in English and Spanish with access to more than 140 languages through interpreter services.

If you or someone you know is frightened about something in your relationship,

please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or TTY 1-800-787-3224.

[LeftyMom]

2. Termination of parental rights does not eliminate support obligation.

If it did, there'd be a long line at the county courthouse to have it done.

[Sonicmedusa]

7. Thanks

You beat me to this.

The state will not allow a parent to voluntarily relinquish parental rights unless another party takes finacial responsibility for the child, usually through adoption.

[Breeze54]

11. Good luck getting any financial support!

Non-custodial parents don't pay all the time or at all; so one
who's rights were terminated, I doubt are going to pay at all!

Termination of Parental Rights--

http://www.myoutofcontrolteen.com/mr-rights.html

Definition: A termination of parental rights means that the person who
was the natural parent of a child no longer has any rights or responsibilities
to that child.

Rights: Rights regarding a child include the right to decide what kind of
education, health care, religion, morals and values the child should have.
Custody rights and visitation rights are also associated with children.

Responsibilities: Responsibilities include the duty to provide food,
clothing and shelter for the child, provide all necessary child support,
daycare, etc.

A parent whose rights have been terminated has the same rights and
responsibilities toward that child as a complete stranger.

Such a parent is not responsible for any support, nor is that parent allowed to have
any input or influence over the education, teaching and upbringing of that child.
In fact, a parent whose parental rights have been terminated does not even have the
right to see or contact the child.


------------

In most cases signing over physical parental rights does not relieve the parent of their financial
obligation unless the other parent agrees. If however, the rights are being relinquished so the
child can be adopted, the court will dismiss child support obligations.

Courts are concerned with the child's welfare and nothing else. Whatever is in the best interest of
the child, whether it is emotionally, physically, financially, is what will decide how the judge rules.

[LeftyMom]

16. Yeah, I kinda know that, being both the kid whose parent couldn't be bothered to pay up

(in my case, my mother was the irresponsible non-custodial parent- she had a habit back then) and now the custodial parent of a child whose non-custodial parent seems to have cash for everything but support.

Surrendering one's rights does not eliminate the support obligation. In fact, having no visitation at all generally increases the support obligation, since one isn't feeding clothing or paying daycare expenses for the child part time.

[FreakinDJ]

3. Ad space for NOW

another message brought to you by.........


Wouldn't have a problem with it if they could stick to one side of the fence, but as of late they will chum up to who ever is in office.

[BlooInBloo]

4. "... nationwide, the maternal mortality rate was just 9.9 percent..." ???

Doesn't that mean that 10% of mothers died in 1999? That strikes me as wildly implausible.

[Nikki Stone1]

5. That's an interesting question, Bloo. I don't know what that figure refers to either.

:kick:

[Breeze54]

6. no national system exists for tracking maternal homicides

Snip-->

"Expanding on these findings, The Washington Post conducted a year-long survey of state death
record data and documented more than 1,367 maternal killings nationwide since 1990. As startling
as the findings are, however, they represent only part of the toll, because no national system
exists for tracking maternal homicides."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12359-2004Dec19.html

----------------

Researchers Stunned By Scope of Slayings

Further Studies Needed, Most Agree

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10785-2004Dec18.html

In the mid-1990s, Cara Krulewitch sat in a dark, cramped file room in the office of the D.C. medical examiner, poring over autopsies for days that became weeks, then months. She was an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, assigned to the District.

Krulewitch wanted to see whether maternal deaths were being undercounted, as was common elsewhere across the country. Granted access to confidential death files, she assumed she would find more deaths from medical complications of pregnancy -- embolism, infection, hemorrhage -- than anyone knew.

What she stumbled upon instead was a surprising number of homicides: 13 of 30 maternal deaths, more than 40 percent. "I was just stunned," she recalled. "You assume it's a quirk in the numbers. A blip."

Krulewitch dug into medical archives and came across a 1992 journal article from Chicago and a 1995 study from New York City. In both, homicide had emerged as a significant cause of maternal death. It was difficult for the uninitiated to comprehend: Were pregnant women being killed in notable numbers?

"I didn't understand it at all," said Krulewitch, whose study was published in the Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health.

Her research came at a time when maternal mortality rates in the United States had fallen a full 99 percent from the last century, with fewer than 500 women a year dying of medical problems related to childbearing.

Health officials considered this a major achievement but also had set optimistic new goals to bring the death toll closer to what is called an irreducible minimum.

Still, there was a growing interest in doing a better job of capturing every possible case -- and taking note of homicides, suicides, car accidents and drug overdoses. In the larger public health world, the "social" causes of death were increasingly viewed as an important health issue.

"For a long time, violence was not defined as a public health problem," said Jacquelyn Campbell, who studies domestic homicides at Johns Hopkins University.

Even now, studies that analyze maternal homicide are relatively rare.

more.....

[originalpckelly]

8. Here are the statistics on maternal mortality from the CDC, they show a much lower rate:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_03/sr03_033.pdf

Page 13 provides a table of the maternal mortality rate from 1915 to 2003.

And you should know that maternal mortality is much lower than 9%.

[BlooInBloo]

9. Thanks - I'll look at it in a sec - gotta go thru my feeds first.

[BlooInBloo]

14. 8.2 deaths/100,000 live births. Orders of magnitude off of 10%.

[bettyellen]

20. overall stat on TOTAL # of deaths is incorrect, BUT- the % of them being murders is not in dispute

20- 25% is alot, I would say. People are suprosed, because they have not been keeping stats for long, but.... Why would anyone want to minimize it? Why so motivated to say this is not so bad? It's horrendous.

"The Maryland study reinforced at least two earlier studies that found homicide to be the top killer of pregnant women. In Cook County, Ill., 26 percent of the 95 deaths of pregnant women recorded between 1986 and 1989 were slain. In New York, 25 percent of the 293 deaths among pregnant women between 1987 and 1991 were homicides."

[BlooInBloo]

21. My apologies for my unseemly interest in the truth.

[bettyellen]

27. what's your opinion on the point of the OP- somewhere between 20-33% of maternal deaths

are murders?
can't actually deal with the point of this article, so you criticse what anyone with common sense would recognise as a typo.
Let's here you weigh in about the three studies cited, or is that a "truth" you can't handle?

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bettyellen]

32. i actually clarified and restated the relevant statistics in the OP, so WHY DOES THAT IRK YOU SO?

take a look at your completely inappropriate level of outrage . Merely because I was asking for your reaction to real murder stats?
Afraid to say "It's not that big of a problem, killing pregnant women" which would seem to be your whole point of being here.

Why do you like to pretend this is not a valid issue, and that we have cornered outrage when YOU CANNOT DISCUSS IT RATIONALLY WITHOUT AN OUTBURST OF UGLINESS?

Murder doesn't bother you to the extent that you need to lash out and insult those that discuss it? WTF is that about? You could use some anger management training fella. You are the one outraged that I challanges the point of your post. You can't seem to answer the simplest of quetions without completely losing control. Disturbing.

[BlooInBloo]

34. Shhh.... Brunch is over. Run along now, and play with your little red bouncy ball.

[bettyellen]

41. oh wow PATRIARCHAL CONDESENDING BULLYING BULLSHIT instead of actual content

you couldn;t have proved my point any better thank you.

It's facinating to see how very frightened you are to even acknowledge this could be an issue. Can't have a rational discussion, must be nasty and insulting. Gosh, you need to work on that because you seem completely unavble to discuss this like an adult.
Sorry I won't be accompanying you to the playground. Try and play nice, okay?

[Morgana LaFey]

82. That's a little over the top, isn't it?

Some might very WELL wonder why you're treating the issue so dismissively.

It's an especially important question since one of the hallmarks of the sexist society that we live in is that ALL women's concerns are treated dismissively, as if they aren't important. So excuse us if we're acutely sensitive to men who come along and do just that.

And I'd add that ANY woman dying at the hands of any man who professes to love her is an outrage, but it's even worse that pregnant women die at the hands of their mates. A little sensitivity to these underlying outrages would be a bit more seemly.

[BlooInBloo]

94. Nope. And every last one of your implicit statements is false. Sometimes a ? is just a ?.

[bettyellen]

120. i asked a simple question and was treated to a violent outburst- some people lack the ability

to control themselves or express themselves rationally.
sounds like you need a nap, Boo Boo.

[Name removed]

140. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bettyellen]

147. you called it "Fictional Outrage" , is that not minimizing the issue? you only poked a hole

in the OP regarding what was pretty obviously a typo and did everyhting you could to keep the waters muddy.
You can't handle a discussion without continuous name calling as a substitute for discussion. That's another form of abuse, and you are engaging in it. Dispute that, Boo Boo.
So I will say goodbye and alert on your sorry verbally abusive ass.

[Recursion]

46. I think the point is

That it's entirely possible, if the maternal death rate is low enough, that pregnant women are less likely to be murdered than non-pregnant women. The fact that the author leaves a lot of those statistical questions open makes me feel manipulated frankly.

[Breeze54]

49. "Homicide had emerged as a significant cause of maternal death."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1172763&mesg_id=1172966

Krulewitch dug into medical archives and came across a 1992 journal
article from Chicago and a 1995 study from New York City.
In both, homicide had emerged as a significant cause of maternal death.

[Recursion]

50. But that doesn't remotely answer the question

The fact that it's a leading cause of maternal death does not answer whether the incidence of murder rises, or whether the other causes of death diminish, or some combination.

[bettyellen]

60. If you read the posted link, they have only begun to note pregnancy on death certificates

in the last few years, so the stats have begun to emerge. And they are higher than most officials ever imagined- around 25% seems average.
To answer your question, other pregnancy related deaths are down soemthing like 90% in the last hundred years- but no one
kept records on men killing pregnant women, so that info is lost to the ages.
And what we have here is people vilolently disputing it's significance at all, which is disturbing. I call 25% significant, I think anyone with a lick of sense would.

[Recursion]

72. Here's what troubles me

I agree that one pregnant woman being killed by her partner is too many. But the data presented here don't even tell us that pregnant women face a greater risk of being murdered than non-pregnant women.

Here are the leading causes of death of pregnant women:
1. homicide
2. accident

right?

Here are the leading causes of death of women overall in the same age groups:
1. accident
2. homicide

So among pregnant women homicide went from #2 to #1.

But is that because the murder rate increases, or because the accident rate falls? Or a combination? The author seems to be very strongly implying that the murder rate rises, but doesn't offer data showing that.

[bettyellen]

79. When you look at the NIH article alongside the posted, I think it becomes clear

that they have just begun to compile these stats, and were initially shocked that the stat hovers around 25% for pregnant women.
I think the point is that the percentage is higher or at least as high as for non- pregnant women and that no one would have guessed it.
I didn;t read into it any trend because the data is just not there, just that it is more common than people would like to believe.
In case you didn;t see it:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=17460868

[Recursion]

87. Thanks

I agree we probably need more data to be collected, and it's not always clear that there will be good data (if a woman dies 1 month pregnant and isn't autopsied, they probably wouldn't even know it for instance).

I guess 25% seems about "right" because I think of that as roughly the percentage of deaths that are homicides in that same age group in general.

[bettyellen]

97. you're welcome. honest questions are a good thing. there was- quite obviously a big

typo in the OP. It's easily clarified, but the wole picture is not there yet. But some people thing a misplaced decimal point is a plot against all mankind, and a good reason to completely stifle discussion. That's sad because domestic violence is an issue that effects many women.
I guess the point is people assumed that pregnant women would be safer- and it's just not so.

[hfojvt]

232. probably both

and you are looking at a very small group - most women in that age group do not die. However, the murder rate probably goes up, because of motive for a small percentage of men, and the accident rate goes down, because a pregnant woman is likely to consciously be more careful. A change of a few in either category is likely to be statistically significant because the base is so small.

[Recursion]

233. That's what I would have thought, but...

...it looks like there are 1.7 murders per 100,000 pregnant women vs. 1.9 murders per 100,000 women in general. That could use some refinement since the women in general include all ages and that should be controlled for the ages of the pregnant women, but limiting those ages actually raises the murders per 100,000 women in general.

So it looks like we're doing a better job at preventing homicide against pregnant women than we are at preventing homicide against non-pregnant women. Or it means the data are hopelessly muddled.

[northzax]

76. that wasn't the question asked you

if other forms of mortality decrease (such as accidental or disease, which seems likely) then the one that is impossible for the woman to control (homicide by a known assaliant) rises in importance, even if it doesn't, actually, become more likely when compared to the general population.

an example: I am a 32 year old white male. Statistically, I am most likely to die in an automobile accident. roughly 25% of mortality in my age group, for my demographics is from automobile accidents. But, I don't drive, and spend less than 10 hours a year, on average, in a car. therefore, this is no longer the most likely thing to kill me. Now the most likely thing to kill me is suicide (15.5%) but I have no interest in killing myself, so that's out. This now leaves the most likely cause of death for me this year as homicide (14.4%), not because I am more likely to be killed, but because other things that increase mortality among other people in my age cohort are basically removed from the table, bringing the less likely homicide to the front of the line.)

another example: the number two source of mortality is lung disease. mostly brought on by the use of tobacco. if you don't smoke, you are much less likely to die of lung cancer, right? (sure, some people get unlucky, but your numbers go way down) it also lowers your risk of heart disease (all other things being equal, of course) does this mean that you are now more likely to die from a homicide? yup. you aren't more likely to die, in fact you are less likely to die in any given year, but when you do die, the likelihood that homicide was the cause is going to be higher. after all, you do have to die, at some point, you have to fall into one of these causes, right? (accident, homicide, disease, heart failure) one of those things is going to kill you, guaranteed. the only question is when, and which is how likely. taking the most common causes away, or reducing their likelihood, increases the likelihood that something else will kill you, eventually, right?

[bettyellen]

52. that stats are higher for pregnant women. it's just not that 10% of pregnant women die

there's a typo in the OP that upset these guys... leading to charges of hysteria-.. when I dont see anyone repeating that obvious typo.
Now they are apparently are enraged that anyone would think that anyone would be discussing any sort of abuse toward women. Especially if they don;t have stats to debunk it.
It's a big feminist plot against them to even rationally discuss it. :shrug:

[Recursion]

54. It just seems odd to me the stats that the article doesn't include

If I wanted to talk about the risk of murder pregnant women face, I'd compare the murder rate of pregnant women to the murder rate of non-pregnant women. But she's comparing the murder rate of pregnant women to the rate of death by other causes of pregnant women. The data she chose to back up her point just strike me as odd because of that.

[Breeze54]

58. You missed that part that said they don't keep good records??

It's been posted a couple of times here.

[Recursion]

63. Must have

I had assumed you could datamine pretty much anything from the CDC.

[Breeze54]

67. Prevalence of Domestic Violence

http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/

[TheWraith]

96. If that's a typo, then this article couldn't have been well vetted. And, strawman much?

There's no way that a "typo" accounts for such a huge increase in the maternal mortality rate. Even if it were, the fact that such an enormous mistake could get through whatever vetting was in place seriously undermines the credibility of the story, to the point where it seems more likely that it's a deliberate exaggeration to try and scare people.

"Now they are apparently are enraged that anyone would think that anyone would be discussing any sort of abuse toward women. Especially if they don;t have stats to debunk it.
It's a big feminist plot against them to even rationally discuss it."

That's a load of crap. Anybody's free to talk about anything they like here--but distorting, exaggerating, paranoia, bigotry, using biased information, and regurgitating falsehoods will, and should, always get you called to account, no matter the subject.

[bettyellen]

105. I guess you missed the NIH article that says how severley uncounted pregnant women's

death's were in the past and that this is probably the reason it's jumped. Sadly, it's probably always been similar to the murder rate for non pregnant women-- from 20-30% . Has nthing to do with the overall stat on pregnant womens's deaths- - which, if you paid any attention is where the typo occured.
I did not regurgitate any falsehoods, no one on this thread repeated the typo of 10% who would believe 10% of pregnant women die anyway? That is obviously absurd. But not tooo absurd for some to fixate on while they ignore the 25%, right?

I guess you missed the posts laden with insults, which no, are not allowed here, Mr Wraithe, but thanks for the strawman accusing me of BS and ignoring the childish bullying here. You have completely mischaracterised my posts on this thread.

I posted that NIH link twice here, you could learn some about this issue by reading it, I suggest you do. BTW, where's the ones supporting your claims that complications are more prevelant? I tried google and I'm not seeing it.

[bettyellen]

15. the document has nothing to do with the issue- what % of death are murders

From what I read, it says data was severely lacking and is only approaching a true accounting of deahs FROM ALL CAUSES now.
I see nothing here about what % are from murders- which is actually the issue here I believe. Pregnant women are in greater danger from being murdered by their partners than they are from any other cause.
Nothing you have posted disputes that, although you seem to be attempting to dispute it.


"RESULTS: Maternal mortality fluctuates from year to year but was 12.1 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2003. The implementation of the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) in 1999 resulted in about a 13 percent increase in the number of deaths identified as maternal deaths between 1998 and 1999. The rate increased again between 2002 and 2003 after a separate pregnancy question became a standard item on the U.S. Standard Certificate of Death. The adoption of a standard separate question on pregnancy facilitates the identification of late maternal deaths. CONCLUSION: Maternal deaths increased with the introduction of the ICD-10 and with changes associated with the addition of a separate pregnancy status question on the U.S. Standard Certificate of Death. These changes may result in better identification of maternal deaths."

and here's a link that works:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=17460868

[Breeze54]

19. Thank You!

The issue is MURDERED PREGNANT WOMEN!! (for those who missed it!)

Maternal mortality rate: The number of maternal deaths related to childbearing divided
by the number of live births (or by the number of live births + fetal deaths) in that year.
The maternal mortality rate in the United States in 1993 (and 1994) was 0.1 per 1,000 live
births, or 1 mother dying per 10,000 live births.
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=4297

[Morgana LaFey]

145. And here's a bit more info re homocide vs. accidental death

Research suggests that injury related deaths, including homicide and suicide, account for approximately one-third of all maternal mortality cases, while medical reasons make up the rest. But, homicide is the leading cause of death overall for pregnant women, followed by cancer, acute and chronic respiratory conditions, motor vehicle collisions and drug overdose, peripartum and postpartum cardiomyopthy, and suicide.20

http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/

The source (footnote 20) is a study reproted in a Summer 2002 JAMA article.

[northzax]

43. it's a bad number

probably a typo or simple misreading of data.

the CDC reports that the maternal mortality rate due to complications from pregnancy or delivery, was 7.5 per 100,000 as of 1996. (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00054602.htm)

tihs would mean that you would need to have 9,993 deaths oer 100,000 attributed to something else, since there are 14.6 births per 1,000 people in the US every year, that means that 14.6 of every 500 women in the US are pregnant at any given time (the number of mulitples is fairly low, and covered, roughly, by the larger number of women than men in these figures. the Census Bureau reports that in 2002, there were 4,019,280 births in the US. there were also (acccording to the CDC) 854,122 legal abortions in the US in 2002. so we are talking about roughly (if you consider still born, miscarried and other pregnancies that did not result in live births) roughly 5,000,000 pregnancies in the US in 2002. a maternal mortaility rate, taking all measures into account, of 9.9% would mean that 495,000 pregnant women in the US died in 2002, and I find that absurd.

another interesting question that these articles don't answer: how does the accident and other fatality inducers of women change when they become pregnant? are pregnant women more careful, therefore less likely to die in an accident (especially a car accident?) are they less likely to be victims of random violence, since they are probably less likely to be in places where random violence occurs?

so basically: men, wear a condom, and if you are going to go nutso when whoever it is you are sleeping with gets knocked up? get a fucking vasectomy, I am sure we will all chip in to reduce your influence on the gene pool. And women: know who you are having sex with, if he's a jerk when you are not pregnant, don't assume he will stop being one when you are. (this is not a 'blame the victim comment', it is a choose the people you have sex with better comment. how many of these are men who are having affairs and the woman knows it? ) as a society, we need better reproductive education, better family planning services and better sources of help for women who get stuck in bad situations)

[BlooInBloo]

55. Yup, that's what I've gathered. Thanks!

[kiteinthewind]

298. I believe it is a rate, not percentage. 9.9 of 1,000 or 100,000.

:hi:

edited for clarity

[smiley_glad_hands]

10. Tells you alot about our society doesn't it.

We're really not all that "civilized".

[donsu]

13. don't say "we". it is the men who are not civilized

nt

[MindPilot]

26. Nice "broad" brush you have there.

Next time you need a plumber, mechanic, something heavy moved, something fixed, invented or built remember it will likely be one of the uncivilized half of the population who takes care of that for you.

[Madspirit]

90. Actually

I'm a woman and I can do all of those things. I've even done roofing. ...and I can remove bugs from my home by myself too, without killing them.

...and speaking of broad brushes, it certainly sounds a LOT like you're saying women don't invent or build things. What a crock of smelly shit.
Lee

[MindPilot]

114. You read between the lines...

where there are no lines. But thanks for telling me what I really meant. As a man I'm probably not capable of figuring that out for myself.

[Clark2008]

137. Ha! Not in this household.

I'm the mechanic. My husband wouldn't know the business end of a wrench if his life depended on it. And, as for inventions, well, women have contributed heavily to that, but their ideas were usurped by the men in their lives.

The cotton gin? A female slave invented that.

The circular saw? Try Tabbitha Babbitt on for size.

The electric hot water heater, elevated train rails and engine mufflers? All invented by women.

[Annces]

158. hehe Bravo n/t

[MindPilot]

177. Prove the rule by citing the exceptions...BRILLIANT!!!

As to your proud announcement that your husband "wouldn't know the business end of a wrench if his life depended on it" that's kind of sad.

[WildEyedLiberal]

255. Why do you think men have patented more inventions than women in history?

Because men are inherently smarter, more innovative, and more techinically adept than women?

Or because for tens of thousands of years, most women were denied even the most basic education?

Why do you think it's "sad" that the previous poster's husband isn't a whiz with tools? Are you making some kind of veiled comment on his masculinity?

[Zookeeper]

303. I do all of the handyperson chores in my household....

I've single-handedly removed a toilet and replaced the wax ring. I build furniture, trim trees, repair plumbing and update electrical outlets. I'm scraping and painting my house. I've built a masonry wall and do heavy landscaping.

Happily, my husband cooks on the weekends, so I get to do that fun stuff.

I can lift an 80 lb sack of cement and wouldn't bother killing a bug, since I think they're pretty cool.

(And I'm 50 years old.)

You might want to reconsider your sterotypes.

[Hosnon]

161. Yeah...If I used the "ignore" function, you'd be on my list. NT.

[Marrah_G]

299. wow..just wow

Why is that post not gone yet?

[donsu]

12. there IS something wrong with men

men have convinced themselves that women are LESS then them

actually, we are MORE then them

we can chose to bring forth life or not

they hate it that we have that power

GUNS give men extra power over us and our children

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. There is definitely something going on, but I think you're going about it

the wrong way.

If, and I do mean "IF," the number of pregnant women murders has escalated, this is definitely a reflection of some societal mores which has broken down. Why are more men killing pregnant women? Or why are pregnant women at risk because someone wants to steal their babies for money?

I gave it away in that last sentence. I think that we have reached the tipping point where the greedy have sucked this society of its last penny, and now the working class are walking around knowing that they have no safety net. So, their options are few, especially in this right-wing society which takes pity on no one. There is really nothing we can do right away to remedy this nasty trickle down society, but we might be able to protect pregnant women this way:

The only way to retaliate is to broadcast to everyone that in our society, the least likely victim that will go without vengeance, is a pregnant woman. Has there been any unsolved murders that involved a pregnant woman? If the answer is no, let everyone know so that at least we can protect women during their most vulnerable time in life.

[Morgana LaFey]

101. Who cares if homocide of pregnant women has ESCALATED or not

The fact that there are ANY homicides of pregnant women by their mates -- or any women dying at the hands of their mates, actually -- is an outrage, a horrific fact of a deeply sick society.

And please. The number of pregnant women who are dying because someone wants to steal their babies is about 2 or 3 for all time. It's just not an issue statistically speaking.

So, all these murders of women at the hands of men who profess to love them is a-okay with you. It would only be a bad thing if the numbers of deaths of pregnant women has gone up.

UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE.

[The Backlash Cometh]

129. If your way could work, we would have done it already. You, as usual,

want to do a knee-jerk straw-man job of responding to my posts. Here, let's cut to the chase:

THE MEDIA WON'T PUT ON NATIONAL NEWS, INFORMATION REGARDING EVERY MISSING WOMAN IN AMERICA. Capiche? In what world do you live in that you could possibly conclude that I would tolerate the murders of women? What world is that? How have you managed to last this long with your credibility intact with those kinds of responses? You do it continually to my posts.

I DO sense that something is afoot. I DO know with the number of foreclosures rising, that something is going to break. I just don't know where it's going to happen, but I certainly sense that we've hit a tipping point. So pardon me, PARDON ME, Morgana, if I make an effort to try to stop a man, any man, from even considering doing what has been done to that pregnant woman. Because if the message is sent across this nation that an entire community would come out to canvas fields EVERY time it happens, it would certainly stop.

Yes, the same thing should be done for any missing woman in America, but get real Morgana it's not going to happen the same way that the news hit in the last week regarding that missing pregnant woman. That's a sad reality.

Let's see if you can manage to respond without creating information that was never said.

[Warpy]

23. There's something wrong with some of them, always has been

It all goes back to the predator/prey psychological construct. When a man "conquers" a woman, he's doing what he feels is his natural role as a predator and she is his prey.

That changes when she gets pregnant. All of a sudden, he's going to be attached to a child, and she has conquered him. The closer to the birth she gets, the more trapped and violated he starts to feel.

So he usually decamps or in a small number of cases, murders them both to get off the hook permanently.

Those men are out there and they all have a major screw loose.

[Breeze54]

25. "Those men are out there and they all have a major screw loose."

You can say that again!!

Just look at the one's whom have missed the point of the article entirely!!

:wtf:

According to the CDC, approximately 324,000 pregnant women
are hurt by an intimate partner or former partner each year.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/story?id=522184&page=1

[Morgana LaFey]

173. I think worst of all, SHE is going to be attached the child instead of

to him, and there's the rub. Not to discount what you said -- the feeling of being trapped can be pretty horrible for some men. That's why so many of them who DON'T kill just take off.

[polichick]

226. Chilling...

I heard a crime expert talking about this "conquering" thing last night and it gave me goosebumps ~ you've summed up the psychopathic mentality she was talking about.

[MindPilot]

24. My white male privilege card will probably be revoked for revealing this

Most people think that when guys get together at their secret porno club, they, talk about violent sports, wife-beating, guns, killing, war, drunken vehicular homicide, and power tools. The reality is they gather around a big box of Kleenex and tearfully lament their biological inadequacies.

Mark, an underwater welder, says "Every morning I'm reminded of my failures by the indescribable embarrassment from waking up with an enormous woody, when all I really want is painful cramping and mood swings. I try to compensate by filling the bathroom counter with skin care products but it just can't relieve my womblessness."

[bettyellen]

28. wow, way to lash out at women! looks like someone hit a nerve.

[MindPilot]

42. Damn right you hit a nerve

A comment like "All Muslims are terrorists." or "All blacks are criminals." wouldn't be tolerated for an instant around here.

But it seems perfectly OK, to call half the population as "uncivilized". In doing so it trivializes the real tragedy that the OP's article reveals.

I'm not lashing out at women, I'm lashing out at stereotyping and misandry.

[krispos42]

62. And they are conviently forgeting all the woman that kill their newborns

How many new moms have chucked their infants in a dumpster this year?

It's not just us knuckle-dragging men.

[Breeze54]

69. Off topic. This is about murdered pregnant women.

Not all types of murders.

[krispos42]

136. The man-bashing was off topic, too.

My point is that not everybody is always happy with a newborn, not just that men aren't happy with a newborn.

[Breeze54]

138. I didn't 'man-bash' anyone.

Please address your remarks concerning that to the perpertrator. Thanks.

[krispos42]

151. I was not accusing you. I was explaining the reason for my remark.

A previous poster was rightly upset with the characterizations of men.

A comment like "All Muslims are terrorists." or "All blacks are criminals." wouldn't be tolerated for an instant around here.

But it seems perfectly OK, to call half the population as "uncivilized". In doing so it trivializes the real tragedy that the OP's article reveals.

I'm not lashing out at women, I'm lashing out at stereotyping and misandry.

[Morgana LaFey]

109. You think the subject of mentally ill women justifies women's deaths

at the hands of their mates? That's an interesting -- and damn sad -- take on things.

It doesn't. Any woman who kills her own children is profoundly mentally ill. Doesn't equate to male homocide of their intimate partners including pregnant intimate partners in any way.

[krispos42]

148. Ah, I see...

The poor helpless woman is just soooooo changed by the birth that she's never held responsible for her actions. It's all hormones!!!!!

And the men are always cold-blooded killers that kill the mom and the kid to keep their finances in order.



What's sad is you making excuses for women that kill their babies. I made NO excuses for men doing it. None.

So then when my wife had an affair on me 8 months after our first and only kid was born and separted a month later, it was just post-partem depression? Hormones? It is all my fault for daring to be kind and loving and supportive? For saying "Honey, don't leave. We can work through this. I love you and Sam too much to let you go."?

So when she told me the evening before my first ever Father's Day that she had an affair and wanted a divorce, this was because of me fawning over her while she breast-fed?

Stop blaming the men all the time. Woman can be just as cruel, calculating and selfish as men can.

[Morgana LaFey]

167. Ah, so it's personal with you.

I can't help you with your ex-wife. Try therapy.

[krispos42]

229. I've had a personal experience that woman can be just as mean and heartless as men

And conniving, and calculating, and emotional, and stupid... the list goes on and on.

But you know what? We're still friendly and amicable. We talk a lot, both in person and over the phone.

Shockingly, I haven't pulled my knuckles off the ground and killed her because I'm just a bloodthirsty XY chromosome.

Either before or after she had her boyfriend's baby.

So maybe, just maybe, all men aren't testosterone-fueled dominating rage machines and all women aren't innocent victims of male aggression. Throwing all women into the classification of 'victim' is an insult to womanhood.

There is unfairness, and it needs to be addressed. But most men are killed by men, too, in case anybody here forgot.

[Morgana LaFey]

240. But men killing men isn't a hate crime

Men killing women IS.

[krispos42]

252. It can be.

And it can be part of a pattern by a certain type of person.

A hate crime goes by intent, not by action.

If I were to beat unconcious, say, a gay man, that may or may not be a hate crime. If I clubbed him because he was breaking into my house, that's justified self-defense. If I clubbed him because he he beat up a friend or family member, that is not a hate crime, that's your garden-variety battery. If I clubbed him because I decided to go beat up a f****** f*****, THEN I committed a hate crime. In all three cases, there is a badly injured gay man wounded by a straight man. In one case it is acceptable, in one case it is not acceptable, and in one case it is super-not-acceptable.

One reason that women are killed because they make easy targets. And criminals and bullies and abusers like easy targets.

[MindPilot]

156. So a woman who kills is mentally ill

but a man who kills is just...well...a man.

If that is what you are saying, I can't think of anything more sexist and ant-woman.

[Morgana LaFey]

168. Well, it's not what I'm saying, and no know that.

So I don't need to bother 'splainin' it to you. If you're still having trouble, try rereading the post again.

[donsu]

70. it works like this - women the world over are oppressed by men

got that? everywhere in the world.

that makes it a war

the oppressed fight back, you know

[MindPilot]

81. So it's "war"? And here I was foolishly hoping for a diplomatic solution.

The men on DU most of whom have likely done significant work for feminism, and some who have literally put their lives on the line for your reproductive rights are just collateral damage in your war on oppression?

Thanks, I'll remember that.

[Name removed]

125. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TheWraith]

64. Actually, there's something wrong with you, personally.

You'd probably recognize how grotesquely shameful that kind of commentary is if it were directed, say, at condemning all black people. But because it's your personal bias, you give yourself a pass to hate all men over the actions of a fraction of a percent, and somehow think that that makes you rightous, rather than the sexist that you actually are. I'm sure that in your world view, you also hate all Japanese people for the actions of Unit 731, and you hate all Arabs for Al Qaeda, all Africans for Rwanda, etcetera. I could go on like this for awhile, but if you can't see how completely in the wrong you are here, then there's no reason to waste my time.

[donsu]

73. I don't hate all men - open your mind

nt

[Morgana LaFey]

157. Well, donsu, your problem is

you are supposed to LOVE your oppressor

remember? That's the patriarchal way. And if you don't, you are a harpie, a shriveled up old shrew, a frigid bitch, a slut, a lesbian, or just a plain old man-hater.

Man-hater.

So fucking what?

I don't hate men, either, but I in the main I don't trust them until or unless they prove themselves deserving of my trust -- by virtue of their harmelssness. And that would be related to how sexist/misogynist they are or aren't.

So it's very easy for ANY man to win my respect and even affection. All they have to do is be pro-woman. If they're not, I may not have much time for them because they're untrustworthy: they might hurt me (and my sisters). They for sure won't HELP me (and my sisters), and might tacitly or actively work against me (and my sisters) by going along with the rampant sexism/misogyny in this society and here at DU. Why in GOd's name would I support someone like that?

I don't hate men. But they have to make themselves known to me as safe before I have any time for them.

And just what group of people DO love their oppressors? Do blacks love white folk -- and are they expected to? (Actually, yes, they are expected to but not realistically, by which I mean no one in their right minds would press that expectation too far.) Are Native Americans expected to love the white man?

[Morgana LaFey]

142. a fraction of a percent? Oh, what a pretty fiction.

More accurately: what a joke. Even more accurately: How fucking DELUSIONAL.

I can name on one hand the DU men who are clearly pro-women in the feminist sense and will step up to the plate and defend women and confront sexism, even if not all that loudly. There's your fraction of a percent. And this is supposed to be a haven for progressives and liberals.

And let me give you an example of how it works. There's one prominent DUer who shall remain nameless since it'd be against DU rules to call him out. (It's not Will Pitt.) He made a big show in one thread some while back about how oppression against women is one of the world's most pressing and urgent problems (or whatever he said -- in some way he expressed that it was a really important problem and that the world suffered in many different ways because of misogyny). I PMd him privately and said: Great post. Since you actually understand this, perhaps you'd step forward and confront some of the obvious sexism and misogyny when it appears here at DU. It would mean so much more coming from another MAN, especially someone DUers respect.

His response?

He didn't fucking have time for that. Nope, that was asking too fucking much from this man who is so free with his lip-service, so stingy with his actions. And I've never seen another peep out of him on the subject, which is the least surprising part.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

121. No. You're Not More Than Us. Not Whatsoever.

Nor are we more than you, whatsoever.

[Hosnon]

163. Well, this man can, at least, spell.

Am I more "then" you because of that fact?

[Melissa G]

17. A truly sad K&R...n/t

[mmonk]

22. Sad indictment of our society.

Hard to lecture other societies about their treatment of women with that information.

[ThomWV]

29. Maybe it just has something to do with the animal we are.

It occurs to me that in many species a wondering male will kill all of the juveniles he can find as prep to breeding with their mothers. As I recall rats do it and so do baboons, probably others as well, just an ingrained part of the animal. Could be that it is just as natural as rain for about a quarter of men to try to kill the females they impregnate. I wouldn't even want to begin trying to guess why it might be that way but I would not be at all surprised to learn that it was a natural thing.

[Breeze54]

31. Isn't there a difference between animals and humans??

Isn't that what separates us from animals?

Freedom of Choice? Free will?

[ThomWV]

35. No, not really.

That is just the sort of bullshit you hear from people who can not realize our proper place in the universe - which seems to be right next to tree toads.

[Breeze54]

39. Yes, there is a difference! To say there isn't; is BS!

You have a choice as to how you will behave.

Animals act on instinct.

Humans have intelligence (most, anyway)! :sarcasm:

[Annces]

36. That makes no sense

Male animals will kill offspring that are not theirs in order to perpetuate their own genes. They don't kill the mothers or their own children. Beyond that, we have reasoning ability, we don't act from instinct.

[Lex]

38. Not all male animals kill offspring.

Some do, but most do not.

In fact, some males in the animal kingdom participate in the care and raising of the young born.

[Annces]

48. Yes, I know that

I was just making the point about why some animals do. I know many male animals care for the young and many species mate for life with great devotion.

[supernova]

68. Male lions will kills cubs

Male lions will kill any existing cubs to mate with the mother.

Biologists help me out here. Isn't this becuase killing the cubs (not having cubs to care for anymore) brings the female back into estrus?

[me b zola]

33. k&r

[rodeodance]

37. I worked in a shelter for a while ------horrifying what people do to people-mainly

men on women ( but sometimes female on female relationship)

[Recursion]

40. I'm missing something in these numbers

Is a woman more or less likely to be murdered if she is pregnant? The author seems to be implying that the murder rate among pregnant women is higher than among non-pregnant women, but doesn't say so.

[Breeze54]

45. Murder: The Leading Cause of Death for Pregnant Women

Does that clear it up for you?

[Recursion]

47. No, not remotely

The leading cause of death for pregnant women does not mean that pregnant women are at greater risk of being murdered than non-pregnant women.

[Breeze54]

51. Link? Here, I'll help.

Get the Facts

http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/

Domestic Homicides

* On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day. In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. The same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner.16

* Women are much more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner. In 2000, intimate partner homicides accounted for 33.5 percent of the murders of women and less than four percent of the murders of men.17

* Pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die of any other cause18 , and evidence exists that a significant proportion of all female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners.19

* Research suggests that injury related deaths, including homicide and suicide, account for approximately one-third of all maternal mortality cases, while medical reasons make up the rest. But, homicide is the leading cause of death overall for pregnant women, followed by cancer, acute and chronic respiratory conditions, motor vehicle collisions and drug overdose, peripartum and postpartum cardiomyopthy, and suicide.20

18 Horon, I., & Cheng, D., (2001). Enhanced Surveillance for Pregnancy-Associated Mortality - Maryland, 1993 - 1998. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, No. 11, March 21, 2001.

[Recursion]

53. What do you mean "link"? I'm not making a claim, I'm asking a question

Is the murder rate higher among pregnant women than among non-pregnant women? The article seems to imply this but doesn't offer any data to that effect.

[Breeze54]

56. Yes, you made a claim. --> "No, not remotely"

[Recursion]

59. Sorry, I meant it didn't remotely answer my question

You keep trying to convince me that pregnant women are more likely to die from homicide than from other causes. I believe that; you don't need to convince me of it. I'm asking if pregnant women are more likely to die from homicide than non-pregnant women are. That's a very different question.

[Recursion]

57. Still doesn't answer my question

Pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die of any other cause, and evidence exists that a significant proportion of all female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners.

Yes, this article established that pretty solidly too. Neither one answers whether pregnant women are more likely to be murdered than non-pregnant women.

[Breeze54]

61. Huh??

Pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely
to be victims of homicide than to die of any other cause...

[Recursion]

65. Does not address my question

I know that pregnant women are more likely to die from homicide than any other cause.

That does not answer whether or not pregnant women are more likely to die from homicide than non-pregnant women are.

[Breeze54]

78. ----------->

# Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.3

# Nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives, according to a 1998 Commonwealth Fund survey.4

# Nearly 25 percent of American women report being raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date at some time in their lifetime, according to the National Violence Against Women Survey, conducted from November 1995 to May 1996.5

# Thirty percent of Americans say they know a woman who has been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year.6

# In the year 2001, more than half a million American women (588,490 women) were victims of nonfatal violence committed by an intimate partner.7

# Intimate partner violence is primarily a crime against women. In 2001, women accounted for 85 percent of the victims of intimate partner violence (588,490 total) and men accounted for approximately 15 percent of the victims (103,220 total).8

# While women are less likely than men to be victims of violent crimes overall, women are five to eight times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner.9

# In 2001, intimate partner violence made up 20 percent of violent crime against women. The same year, intimate partners committed three percent of all violent crime against men.10

# As many as 324,000 women each year experience intimate partner violence during their pregnancy.11

# Women of all races are about equally vulnerable to violence by an intimate.12

# Male violence against women does much more damage than female violence against men; women are much more likely to be injured than men.13

# The most rapid growth in domestic relations caseloads is occurring in domestic violence filings. Between 1993 and 1995, 18 of 32 states with three year filing figures reported an increase of 20 percent or more.14

# Women are seven to 14 times more likely than men to report suffering severe physical assaults from an intimate partner.15

Domestic Homicides


* On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day.

In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner.

The same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner.16

* Women are much more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner.

In 2000, intimate partner homicides accounted for 33.5 percent of the murders of women
and less than four percent of the murders of men.17


-----------------------------------


http://www.vpc.org/studies/dv3myth.htm">When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 1998 Homicide Data

This study examines only those instances involving one female homicide victim and one male offender. This is the exact scenario—the lone male attacker and the vulnerable woman—that is used by the gun lobby to promote gun ownership among women.

In 1998, there were 1,932 females murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents that were submitted to the FBI for its Supplementary Homicide Report.3 These highlights from the report, expanded upon in the following sections, dispel many of the myths propounded by the gun lobby:

* More than 12 times as many females were murdered by a male they knew (1,699 victims) than were killed by male strangers (138 victims).

* Sixty percent (1,016) of female homicide victims were wives or intimate acquaintances4 of their killers.

* There were 410 women shot and killed by either their husband or intimate acquaintance during the course of an argument—more than one woman a day.

* More female homicides were committed with firearms (54 percent) than with all other weapons combined. Of the homicides committed with firearms, 77 percent were committed with handguns.

* In 87 percent of all incidents where circumstance could be determined, homicides were not related to the commission of any other felony, such as rape or robbery.

The study also, for the first time, analyzes available information on the murders of black and Hispanic females. Not surprisingly, these homicides mirror the trends for women overall: most homicides against women are not committed by strangers, but by men known to the victims.

[Recursion]

83. Maybe I haven't made the question I'm asking clear

The murder rate among pregnant women is X
The murder rate among non-pregnant women in the same age group is Y

I'm looking for what X and Y are so we can tell if the murder rate actually rises among pregnant women as the article implies.

[Breeze54]

86. GENDER RELATIONSHIP OF KILLERS AND VICTIMS

V. HOMICIDE CIRCUMSTANCES IN THE UNITED STATES

For the 1976-2004 period men committed 93.3% of felony murders and 85.5% of murders due to argument.

Men committed 91.2% of gun homicides, 79.1% of arson homicides and 63.3% of poison homicides.

The relationship of killers to murder victims classified by gender can be summarized as follows
(rounding errors give a total of 99.9%):


GENDER RELATIONSHIP OF KILLERS AND VICTIMS

http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/murder.html#usa

RELATIONSHIP ------------PERCENT

Male kills male-----------65.2%

Male kills female---------22.6%

Female kills male----------9.7%

Female kills female--------2.4%

Total---------------------99.9%

The richest source of homicide statistics is the US Department of Justice
www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/overview.htm

[Recursion]

88. Because to my knowledge they don't track the pregnancy status of the victim

I'll look to make sure though.

My point was that the kind of study the author did is the study that could tell us the answer, and they didn't release the relevant results. That's why I felt a little manipulated by the article.

[Breeze54]

92. It was an AP article.

[Marie26]

66. More

I explained this in another post. Pregnant women are statistically more likely to die of homicide than non-pregnant women.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1153835&mesg_id=1170177

[Recursion]

74. Thanks

Though I don't see those data anywhere in your post.

And you compare the causes of death among women of all ages to the causes of death among pregnant women; when you look at the causes of death among women 25-40 accident and homicide are numbers one and two aren't they?

[Marie26]

91. No

I really don't get why you're so sure of this w/o providing any of the statistics. The leading causes of death for women 25-40 are accidents, cancer & heart disease.

"For women aged 25-34 years... Women of this age group died most often of accidents ( 21.3% of total deaths) then cancer (16.5%) and then heart disease (8.4% or 1092 women)."

http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000074.html

Pregnant women are more likely to be murdered, and often times the killer is her intimate partner. I'm not sure why people are arguing against this so strenuously - it's common knowledge in any organization that deals w/domestic violence.

[Recursion]

102. Here

http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html

For women 15-19, leading causes of death are
1. accident
2. suicide
3. homicide

For women 20-24, leading causes of death are
1. accident
2. homicide
3. malignant neoplasms

For women 25-29, leading causes are
1. accident
2. malignant neoplasms
3. suicide

For women 30-34
1. accident
2. malignant neoplasms
3. heart disease

In all those age groups, homicide is in the top 5.

[Marie26]

112. What is your point now?

Are you acknowledging that you were wrong, or not? Homicide is the number 1 cause of death for pregnant women, while it is only the number 4/5 cause of death for non-pregnant women. Therefore, pregnant women are statistically more likely to die of murder than women who are not pregnant. Jeez!

[Recursion]

122. Your claim is not justified

I was pointing out that Homicide is in top 3 for 15-24 age groups and is in the top 5 after that.

Homicide is the number 1 cause of death for pregnant women, while it is only the number 4/5 cause of death for non-pregnant women. Therefore, pregnant women are statistically more likely to die of murder than women who are not pregnant. Jeez!

How on earth do you justify that conclusion? The fact that it is number 1 for pregnant women and number 3, 4, or 5 for non-pregnant women in no way means that pregnant women are statistically more likely to be murdered than non-pregnant women.

For one thing, we would need to know the overall mortality rate of pregnant women, preferably by age group, to even begin a comparison, and I don't know of any stats that have that.

[Breeze54]

135. Maternal Mortality Rates, by Race of Mother: 2000

Source (II.5): National Center for Health Statistics

http://mchb.hrsa.gov/chusa03/pages/status.htm

Maternal Mortality Rates, by Race of Mother: 2000


Maternal Mortality

During the past several decades, there has been a dramatic decrease in maternal mortality
in the United States. Since 1980, however, the rate of decline has slowed.

In 2000, there were 396 maternal deaths which resulted from complications during pregnancy,
childbirth, or the postpartum period up to 42 days. The maternal mortality rate of 9.8 per
100,000 live births was not significantly different from prior years and has remained fairly
stable since 1982.

The maternal mortality rate for Black women (22.0 per 100,000 live births) is almost three
times the rate for White women (7.5 per 100,000 live births).

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, regardless of race, the risk
of maternal death increases for women over age 30. Women ages 35-39 have approximately
twice the risk of maternal death of women ages 20-24 years.

[Marie26]

141. This is nuts

I don't get why you're wasting this energy arguing instead of saying, hey, it looks like there's a problem here. It looks like women are in danger, what can we as a society do to stop it?

"The fact that it is number 1 for pregnant women and number 3, 4, or 5 for non-pregnant women in no way means that pregnant women are statistically more likely to be murdered than non-pregnant women."

Of course it does! That's logic. Non-pregant women are more likely to die of other causes, while pregnant women are more likely to die of murder. Therefore, pregnant women are more likely to die of murder than non-pregnant women. It's redundant to repeat that, but since you haven't acknowledged the facts, I guess I have to. Most pregnant women are in the 19-40 group, in which homicide is only in the top 5. After 40, the homicide rate falls even lower for women. But for pregnant women, murder is the number 1 cause of death. I'm starting to think these aren't "honest" questions at all, but attempts to deny & obfuscate the problem.

[Breeze54]

146. Me too! Great post....again!!!!!

:rofl: :crazy:

[Recursion]

149. Gah!

Of course it does! That's logic. Non-pregant women are more likely to die of other causes, while pregnant women are more likely to die of murder. Therefore, pregnant women are more likely to die of murder than non-pregnant women.

NO NO NO that's just not true. Let me give you an example:

There are 100 pregnant women. 3 are murdered. 1 dies in a car wreck. Homicide is the #1 cause of death among pregnant women, representing 75% of deaths.

There are 100 non-pregnant women. 5 are murdered. 10 die in a car wreck. Homicide is the #2 cause of death among non-pregnant women, representing 33% of deaths.

But in that scenario, it's the non-pregnant woman who faces a greater risk of death than a pregnant woman, even though homicide is the #1 cause of death for pregnant women.

I don't get why you're wasting this energy arguing instead of saying, hey, it looks like there's a problem here.

Because I still haven't seen any data showing that pregnant women are facing a greater risk of murder than the general population. Obviously I don't want any one to be murdered, but if being pregnant isn't actually increasing your risk, then we need to look at the problem of murder in general rather than murder of this or that specific group.

[Breeze54]

152. How many links do you need????

:wtf:

[Recursion]

153. Just one that compares the absolute murder rates among pregnant and non-pregnant women

rather than all the links you have provided, which compare the rate of homicide as opposed to other forms of death among pregnant women

[Breeze54]

155. I've provided you with numerous links. Read them!

[Recursion]

185. No, you provided me with links showing murder is the leading cause of death for pregnant women

I'll give this example again:

There are 100 pregnant women. 3 are murdered. 1 dies in a car wreck. Murder is the leading cause of death in pregnant women, representing 75% of deaths.
There are 100 non-pregnant women. 5 are murdered. 10 die in a car wreck. Murder is not the leading cause of death among non-pregnant women and represents only 33% of deaths.

The fact that murder is the leading cause of death among the pregnant women in that example does not mean they are more likely to be murdered than the non-pregnant women; in fact, with those numbers they are only 60% as likely to be murdered.

Until we can compare the murder rates for pregnant and non-pregnant women, this is kind of pointless.

You have posted maternal death statistics that point to 9.8 all-cause deaths per 100,000. In the population of women as a whole, the all-cause mortality per 100,000 between ages 15 and 40 is something like 150. So clearly there's something amiss here.

In general, women who are pregnant do not drink alcohol, which lowers their chance of dying from many types of accidents dramatically, and accident is the leading cause of death throughout the age groups in which pregnancy is common.

[Breeze54]

190. No, read thru all the comments. Many have posted many links.

Do a google. But why does it matter???

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1172763&mesg_id=1174446

[Recursion]

194. *I* was the one quoting from the first few links of those

I was bringing up the very data you were pointing me to. Homicide is a leading cause of death for all women, not just pregnant ones. If certain factors of pregnancy decrease the chance of accidental death (generally the top killer of women as a whole) then the fact that homicide is the #1 cause of death for pregnant women would not mean there is an increase in homicide of pregnant women.

[Breeze54]

199. Where in my OP does it say *increase* in homicide of pregnant women?

It states that murder is the leading cause of death of pregnant women.

[Recursion]

200. But if the risk of homicide isn't actually greater for a pregnant woman

than for a non-pregnant woman, the fact that it's the leading cause doesn't really matter, does it? It still means fewer women being murdered.

[Breeze54]

201. It does to pregnant women and women in general.

No, it means... "Hey women? Pregnant?? Be careful!!!!"

[Recursion]

210. I'm not sure... men are still at a much higher risk of being murdered than women

It's true that men are far and away the vast majority of murderers (93% by conviction rate? something like that). But we're also the vast majority of murder victims (~80% or so).

I really really really didn't want to start a flame war (threads about women's issues have too many of those already) and I don't want to seem like I'm just disagreeing to tick you off. I asked the question at first because people seemed to assume, as you did, that the fact that homicide is the #1 killer of pregnant women means a woman's risk of being murdered is higher when she's pregnant than when she isn't. It doesn't mean that necessarily, though it still could if we can find homicides per 100,000 pregnant women and compare it to homicides per 100,000 non-pregnant women.

[Breeze54]

214. though it still could if we can find homicides per 100,000 pregnant women and compare

I already posted that link...NUMEROUS TIMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am sure!! It's definately a warning to women!! Beware!!!!

[Recursion]

216. No, you didn't, and the data don't exist as far as I can find

Not one study you posted, not one lists homicide rates by maternity of the victim, nor any dataset that can be manipulated to gain that information. Mostly because that information hasn't been tracked until the past couple of years anywhere, and isn't tracked universally today. Is that because we're ignoring and trying to cover up violence against pregnant women as a society? Probably. The topic makes people very uncomfortable as this thread demonstrates. But until we have those data we don't know if pregnant women face a higher risk of murder than non-pregnant women.

[Breeze54]

219. Scientific Evidence on Violence and Reproductive Health

http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/violence/index.htm

Homicide: A Leading Cause of Injury Deaths among Pregnant and Postpartum Women in the United States, 1991–1999.

This article highlights an analysis conducted used data from CDC’s Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System. Risk factors for pregnancy-associated homicide were examined.

see also: http://www.4women.gov/statistics/#570

also: http://www.4women.gov/statistics/#577

Violence/Abuse

Publications

1. Federal resource DOJ Research and Statistical Publications on Domestic Violence - This is a list of publications and resources reflecting research and statistics obtained by the U.S. Department of Justice on domestic violence.
http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Topics/Topic.aspx?Topicid=86
2. Federal resource Homicide Trends in the U.S. - Intimate Homicide - This is a portion of the publication by the Bureau of Justice Statistics entitled Homicide Trends in the United States. It provides statistical information on the percentage of homicides by intimate partners.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/intimates.htm
3. Federal resource Homicide Trends in the U.S. - Trends by Gender - This is a portion of the report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics entitled Homicide in the United States. This section provides information on the gender differences in both the perpetrators and the victims of homicide.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/gender.htm
4. Federal resource Intimate Partner Violence Fact Sheet - This fact sheet contains statistical information on the number of women who are victims of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), characteristics of the most common victims and perpetrators of IPV, and the effects it can have on a person and society as a whole.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/ipvfacts.htm
5. Campus Dating Violence Fact Sheet (Copyright © NCVC) - This fact sheet describes what dating violence is, its victims, incidence, reporting, and dating violence and the law.
http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/AGP.Net/Components/documentViewer/Download.aspxnz?DocumentID=38056
6. Statistics (Copyright © RAINN) - This fact sheet contains key facts and statistics about rape, reporting of rape, and links to information about pregnancies and rape, victims of sexual assault, punishment for violators, and more.
http://www.rainn.org/statistics/index.html
7. Statistics (Copyright © Stalking Resource Center) - This site, from the Stalking Resource Center, contains links to statistics about stalking in America, stalking on college campuses, and intimate partner femicide.
http://www.ncvc.org/src/main.aspx?dbID=DB_All_Statistics206
8. Teen Dating Violence Fact Sheet (Copyright © NCVC) - This fact sheet describes what dating violence is, the incidence of teen dating violence, it's victims, dating violence and the law, and who can help.
http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/AGP.Net/Components/documentViewer/Download.aspxnz?DocumentID=38057

Organizations

1. Federal resource Bureau of Justice Statistics Clearinghouse, NCJRS, NIJ, BJS, OJP, DOJ
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/
2. Federal resource Office on Violence Against Women, OJP, DOJ
http://www.usdoj.gov/ovw/
3. National Center for Victims of Crime

[Recursion]

225. 1.7 per 100,000 in pregnant women vs. 1.9 per 100,000 women in general

Which seems to suggest what I was saying, that even though pregnant women are more likely to die from homicide than any other particular cause, they are still less likely to die of homicide than a non-pregnant woman is. Even with those numbers (which I had to pull from two different instruments with different methodologies) since we don't know the number of pregnant women at any given time we can't say exactly to what extent being pregnant statistically lowers your chance of being murdered.

[Breeze54]

220. self delete

[Breeze54]

224. Scientific Evidence on Violence and Reproductive Health

http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/violence/index.ht...

Homicide: A Leading Cause of Injury Deaths among Pregnant and Postpartum Women in the United States, 1991–1999.

This article highlights an analysis conducted used data from CDC’s Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System.

Risk factors for pregnancy-associated homicide were examined.

see also: http://www.4women.gov/statistics/#570

also: http://www.4women.gov/statistics/#577

Violence/Abuse

Publications

1. Federal resource DOJ Research and Statistical Publications on Domestic Violence - This is a list of publications and resources reflecting research and statistics obtained by the U.S. Department of Justice on domestic violence.
http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Topics/Topic.aspx?Topicid=86
2. Federal resource Homicide Trends in the U.S. - Intimate Homicide - This is a portion of the publication by the Bureau of Justice Statistics entitled Homicide Trends in the United States. It provides statistical information on the percentage of homicides by intimate partners.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/intimates.htm
3. Federal resource Homicide Trends in the U.S. - Trends by Gender - This is a portion of the report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics entitled Homicide in the United States. This section provides information on the gender differences in both the perpetrators and the victims of homicide.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/gender.htm
4. Federal resource Intimate Partner Violence Fact Sheet - This fact sheet contains statistical information on the number of women who are victims of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), characteristics of the most common victims and perpetrators of IPV, and the effects it can have on a person and society as a whole.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/ipvfacts.htm
5. Campus Dating Violence Fact Sheet (Copyright © NCVC) - This fact sheet describes what dating violence is, its victims, incidence, reporting, and dating violence and the law.
http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/AGP.Net/Components/documentVie...
6. Statistics (Copyright © RAINN) - This fact sheet contains key facts and statistics about rape, reporting of rape, and links to information about pregnancies and rape, victims of sexual assault, punishment for violators, and more.
http://www.rainn.org/statistics/index.html
7. Statistics (Copyright © Stalking Resource Center) - This site, from the Stalking Resource Center, contains links to statistics about stalking in America, stalking on college campuses, and intimate partner femicide.
http://www.ncvc.org/src/main.aspx?dbID=DB_All_Statistic...
8. Teen Dating Violence Fact Sheet (Copyright © NCVC) - This fact sheet describes what dating violence is, the incidence of teen dating violence, it's victims, dating violence and the law, and who can help.
http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/AGP.Net/Components/documentVie...

Organizations

1. Federal resource Bureau of Justice Statistics Clearinghouse, NCJRS, NIJ, BJS, OJP, DOJ
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs /
2. Federal resource Office on Violence Against Women, OJP, DOJ
http://www.usdoj.gov/ovw /
3. National Center for Victims of Crime

[Breeze54]

164. I've posted many medical studies and criminal statistics and study links.

Perhaps you just want me to do your research??

Follow the links!!!!

[alphafemale]

100. I think murder is a leading cause of death of people in that age range.

It's probably even higher for young men.

But as to whether women are at increased risk when pregnant than not?

I don't know that there is a study of that.

[Recursion]

117. That would be a good study to do

I felt like the article was acting as if it was known that a pregnant woman's absolute risk of murder increases. If homicide is the number 1 killer of pregnant women, but their actual risk of homicide is lower, that's not actually a bad thing, is it?

[alphafemale]

133. I also think that homicide is now a leading cause of death for young people...

Is because that many other causes, like illnesses, have been greatly reduced.

Take a walk around a 75-100 year old cemetery and look at the dates on the tombstones.

It was much more common for people to die young not all that long ago.

I mean would we feel better if the leading cause of death of young people was still "wasting sickness?"

[yardwork]

172. I understand the question you are asking. I don't see it answered in the data, either.

However, it is very interesting that pregnancy - which is known to carry significant risks for death and injury to the mother - is actually most dangerous due to the risk of homicide. One would expect the greatest dangers to come from the pregnancy itself.

Are pregnant women more at risk for murder than non-pregnant women? I don't see the data actually say that, but the implication is certainly there, as pregnant women are generally at higher risk for death and injury due to natural causes (the pregnancy itself) compared to non-pregnant women of the same age. You'd have to compare similar age groups, similar backgrounds, etc.

Women of child-bearing age who are not pregnant are probably not at very high risk for death or injury, but I don't know that for sure. I'll see what I can find.

[Breeze54]

178. 10 Leading Causes of Death, United States - 1999 - 2004, All Races, Females

10 Leading Causes of Death, United States - 1999 - 2004, All Races, Females
http://webapp.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe

10 Leading Causes of Violence-Related Injury Deaths, United States 1999 - 2004, All Races, Females
http://webapp.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe

( Click on any Age Group for Percentages.)

WISQARS Fatal Injuries: Leading Causes of Death Reports
http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus.html

More links with facts concerning mortality and females:

http://www.letswrap.com/LetsWRAP/Spring01/page2.htm

http://mchb.hrsa.gov/chusa03/pages/status.htm

http://www.now.org/issues/violence/050203timeline.html

http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/story?id=522184&page=1

-------------------------------------------

Scientific Evidence on Violence and Reproductive Health

http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/violence/index.htm

Homicide: A Leading Cause of Injury Deaths among Pregnant and Postpartum Women in the United States, 1991–1999.

This article highlights an analysis conducted used data from CDC’s Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System. Risk factors for pregnancy-associated homicide were examined. (Pregnancy-associated homicide was defined as a death during or within one year of pregnancy). Homicide was found to be a leading cause of pregnancy-associated injury deaths among women from 1991–1999. The pregnancy-associated homicide ratio was 1.7 per 100,000 live births. Risk factors included age younger than 20 years, Black race, and late or no prenatal care. Source: Am J Public Health 2005;95:471–477.

[Morgana LaFey]

179. OMG. You actually said it

You actually bald-facedly SAID it:

If homicide is the number 1 killer of pregnant women, but their actual risk of homicide is lower, that's not actually a bad thing, is it?

Yeah, who cares about dead women?? or dead pregnant women?

Here. I'll post this again:


Research suggests that injury related deaths, including homicide and suicide, account for approximately one-third of all maternal mortality cases, while medical reasons make up the rest. But, homicide is the leading cause of death overall for pregnant women, followed by cancer, acute and chronic respiratory conditions, motor vehicle collisions and drug overdose, peripartum and postpartum cardiomyopthy, and suicide.20

http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/

In the absence of ANY demonstrated concern for women killed by their mates by you that I've seen, your insistence upon knowing whether dead pregnant women represents a lower number than other women killed by their mates or a higher number is simply grotesque.

However, here's another quote from the same article, both of which including the Maryland study were from studies reported on in JAMA (which means they were peer-reviewed, in case you don't know that):

Pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die of any other cause18 , and evidence exists that a significant proportion of all female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners.19

Here's one more quote from the same article which I think you're not understanding, but which we women mostly know, and which definitely colors our understanding of the pregnant women homicide issue:

In 2001, intimate partner violence made up 20 percent of violent crime against women. The same year, intimate partners committed three percent of all violent crime against men.10

[Recursion]

188. Apparently you didn't read what I said

If pregnant women's #1 cause of death is murder, but pregnant women are actually being murdered at a lower rate than non-pregnant women, then the fact that homicide is the #1 cause of death shouldn't override the fact that the actual murder rate is lower.

Yeah, who cares about dead women?? or dead pregnant women?

You're literate, so you obviously know that's not what I said.

[Morgana LaFey]

206. No, it's not what you said, but it permeates every post you've made

you've expressed -- that I know of -- NO sympathy, no empathy, no concern for the dead women.

THESE ARE HATE CRIMES. Get it? THESE WOMEN ARE DYING FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN THAT THEY ARE WOMEN.

And, all you give a damn about are the statistics -- and whether the dying women are more the pregnant ones of less so the pregnant ones.

Who gives a fuck? I'll say it again: in the absence of any concern for the women, any HUMANITY on your part, your hyper concern over the statistics is simply grotesque.

Further, it's a huge distraction -- especially in the way you've got other DUers running about gathering links you don't even have the courtesy to consult -- it's a distraction from the underlying issue, which is women dying because they are women.

DISTRACTIONS are a key way male DUers disrupt threads about women's concerns and rights and equality and they serve to seriously minimize the issue and derail the discussion, as you have succeeded in doing.

SOME people do this distracting thing more or less consciously. But some do it subconsciously. My guess is yours is the latter.

But the interesting thing is that even when you lack of humanity is pointed out to you, to my knowledge you've done absolutely nothing -- NOTHING -- to ansewr the complaint by expressing a little humanity. Nothing.

I'd suggest you do a little soul-searching on the subject if I thought you were capable of it. The more I read of your posts in this thread, the more convinced I am that you're not.

[Recursion]

211. Fine nt

[supernova]

44. "these days"

Are you men so insecure and messed up in the head these days that you think the only way of dealing with an unwanted pregnancy is to murder the mother and the child?


I've got news for the author, It's not "these days." Murder of women, pregnant or not, by their intimate partners has been going on for eons. It isn't a recent phenomenon and is the natural conclusion to domestic violence. Still, it is dishearteing to hear it. :cry: for my sisters.

Deciding to engage in a relationship with someone is so frought with fears, deciding whether or not you are in the company of someone rational, loving, and generous, is perhaps the biggest one of all.

[Morgana LaFey]

181. Hah! I just added you to my buddy list trying to check your profile

hoping you were male. I've noted that not one male has expressed any outrage or even much sympathy for women and esp. the pregnant women, and I read your sympathetic comments and hoped I could prove myself wrong.

Alas, you know better than I, I couldn't prove myself wrong.

Where are the men sympathizers? Absent. Or worse: nonexistent. And male DUers are dense enough to wonder why we women DUers get upset with their quibbling about statistics over expressing ANY concern about the women. They wonder why we seem like "man-haters."

Pffft.

So, you're on my Buddy List. :hi:

[Breeze54]

186. I hate it when that happens!

:rofl:



Good thing the ignore button isn't next to the profile one!! :rofl:

[Morgana LaFey]

191. Ain't that the truth! LOL. So, have YOU noted any men

in this thread expressing any sympathy whatsoever on this subject? I haven't. I want to be fair, though, which is why I ask.

[Breeze54]

I'm not sure. I think one or two tried but

they may have been women! :rofl: I'm not sure if they are or not!

What I don't understand is the males responding seem to have some sense of guilt
or defensiveness at the mere mention of the subject and, like you have stated,
seem preoccupied with the stats and proving the stats and also, will not go find
answers to their own questions!! What the HELL is up with that??

I even got 'attacked' (maybe to strong)downthread because of a reply to
an OP this morning about the Ohio pregnant woman that was murdered!! :crazy:

Is it a full moon??? :rofl:

[MindPilot]

204. please se my post #42

I said (the stereotyping) "trivializes the real tragedy that the OP's article reveals."

Certainly nothing short of a few million men self-flagellating in the streets will be enough expression of concern, but don't make yet another sweeping generalization that isn't true.

[Morgana LaFey]

212. Surely you're kidding, aren't you? ROTFL

You think hauling out of of the standard ploys that men use against women when we discuss women's issues (IOW, another sexist tactic) can serve and be counted as an expression of sympathy and CONCERN?

IOW: don't try to use a post in the service of sexism as proof you're not sexist. Hilarious.

Brrzzzzzt. Next!

[MindPilot]

222. This is no longer a discussion --it's just another personal attack

I'm a sexist using a standard sexist ploy to prove I'm not a sexist? :eyes:

Oookay (MP slowly backs out of the room full of loony-toons)

[supernova]

267. Anybody with your handle

is OK in my book. :thumbsup: :hi:

If you looked at my profile, you did see that I'm a female. :-) Due to my writing style, people often mistook me for a male online, so I started adding to the my profile.

Yes, I'm not to sure, when this topic is pointed out, exactly why men will circle the wagons. I would think they would want to help their less capable bretheren function without violence and power trips. How to use their strength appropriately. :shrug:

And I don't think it's all men. Most men are helpful and generous-hearted.

I wish we did have the data to say what percentage are abusers, how to recognize them (and thereby keep them out of relationships).

[OzarkDem]

71. How to prevent it?

There are no easy answers, sad to say.

There's no excuse for violence against women, period and its surprising how the trend has continued in spite of public advocacy and education efforts.

Men should be careful about practicing birth control if they don't want to support unwanted children.

And women should be more careful in choosing partners and practicing birth control.

Sadly, I think Domestic Violence programs have suffered the same fate as others like birth control, AIDS, and child poverty. Once a permanent stream of federal funds are established, the multi-million dollar agencies and non-profit groups attach themselves to the money and replace the groups that were more focused and experienced on the issue.

Gradually, the money becomes focused on establishing and maintaining a bureaucracy, with less and less going for its actual purpose. Those in charge become farther and farther removed from the social problem they're supposed to address and less effective in doing so.

[TheWraith]

75. Not this again.

Yes, it's true that the leading cause of death for pregnant women is murder. It's also true that it's nowhere near as common as it's made out to be. For starters, that 9.9 percent figure of maternal mortality is wildly and totally wrong, being about 200 times too high. I don't know if it's simply an incredibly huge mistake, or someone deliberately making up numbers to try and serve their agenda, but either way it ruins the credibility of the study.

Second, pregnant women are still much more likely to die from complications of the pregnancy than they are to be murdered, and we all know how extremely rare it is for someone to die from pregnancy related complications.

Third, when you're young and healthy--as almost all pregnant women are--then the only ways that you really can die are accidents, murder, or a sudden illness like a stroke.

Despite the media swarming every salacious case, the number of pregnant women who are murdered is relatively low. What we're talking about is around 300-600 per year, which in a country of 300 million, makes it quite the rarity.

I'm not even going to get in to the wrongness of the editorial posted at the end of the message, except to note two things. One, that blaming all men everywhere for a thousand or two cases of violence is incredibly dishonest, and equivalent to calling all women murderers over the actions of people like Aileen Wuornos. Two, having parental rights terminated does not end financial responsibility to a child. There is, in fact, no way of terminating such responsibility.

Edited to finish a sentence and correct a figure.

[BlooInBloo]

77. We don't ask questions about "the 9.9%".

[bettyellen]

84. You're afraid to discuss the 25% who are murdered also..... Why's that?

[Name removed]

85. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bettyellen]

116. LOL! I thought you went to play in traffic, Baby Bloo? Took your red ball and went home.

or were forced to take a time out for havinga potty mouth.
still incapable of rational discussion, you're consistant at least. LOL.

[TheWraith]

99. It's 20%, actually. And what of it?

I hate to sound callous, but people get murdered every day, around 16,600 per year. I don't see a way to stop that at the moment, so people are going to continue to die, including the elderly, little children, pregnant women, and pets. So I fail to see how the 530 or so pregnant women a year who are murdered are significantly different than the other 16,070.

[bettyellen]

128. I think it's significant, and I think anyone who desperately needs to dispute it

has issues. 25%, is by definition, significant. It blows my mind that peope get on their high horse and try to browbeat people into saying there is nothing to see here. It is significant overall that a huge portion of all women die this way.

[bettyellen]

93. where's you get your stat on complications from pregnancy being more common in the US?

"Second, pregnant women are still much more likely to die from complications of the pregnancy than they are to be murdered, and we all know how extremely rare it is for someone to die from pregnancy related complications. "

I don't know if anyone can find a measure for that. I have seen studies that break down all of the medical problems causing death and ignoring other deaths, but nothing comparing the two, percentage wise.
What is your source?
Why does this make the 25% murdered lesss significant? I can't grasp how 25% is no big deal, help me out here.

[TheWraith]

110. Source inside. And it's a matter of perspective.

The source is the original study that concluded murder as being the leading cause of death. While murders outnumber any one pregnancy-related complication, the total complex of possible complications still out numbers the risk of murder. Here's an article talking about that aspect:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/story?id=522184&page=1

Look at it this way. Extrapolating from the MD study to the rest of the country, we're talking about a total rate of around 530 pregnant women being murdered per year. That's about 0.000176 murders for every pregnancy. And that's one of the higher rates--if you extrapolate from the study in New York years earlier, it becomes more like 300 per year. So while it's not irrelevant, it also has to be taken into perspective that we live in a country of 300,000,000 people, and some of them are invariably going to behave violently.

[bettyellen]

115. like the kind of perspective that men kill other men more often than other women?

overall, violence is a big issue. but while violence due to crime is for the most part, openly and adequately addressed in this nation, much about domestic abuse is still swept under the rug. hence the interest.
i think the pregnancy stats are only a shocker to people with blinders on to that sort of thing. but i'm also not willing to say they are insignificant.

[treestar]

80. "What is wrong with men these days" is going way too far

It is still a very few men who do this - why is it that when someone commits a crime suddenly every group they belong to is guilty?

[Cerridwen]

89. Let's view this from a different angle -

Breeze54, thank you for posting this. My reply is in response to the writers of the articles and not to you or your links. I use this opportunity you've (probably unintentionally) provided to make a point about our collective programming around the issue of people who brutalize their partners and how articles such as these can contribute to the the real causes being ignored.


Taking a page from the book by Julia Penelope "Speaking Freely: Unlearning the Lies of the Fathers' Tongues", let's exchange the subject with the object of these articles and see how they look. George Lakoff calls it re-framing.

Abusers More Likely to Kill Pregnant Partner

Convicted murderer Scott Peterson, ... points to a disturbing phenomenon well known to police, health advocates and experts about abusers: the leading "cause" of murder by abusers is the murderer's reaction to the pregnancy of their partner.

"People think that pregnancy is a joyful, happy time for families. That's not always true," said Phyllis Sharps, an associate professor at The Johns Hopkins University's school of nursing who researches violence by men.

In some cases, the abuser has been beating the woman for years, and becomes more violent during pregnancy. In others, pregnancy itself sparks emotions in the abuser that can lead to murderous rages.

"Violence in intimate relationships is all about power," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "There are fewer times when men feel they have power over a woman than when she's pregnant. They exploit her vulnerability. It's easier for an abusive man to threaten her."

<snip>

In 2000—the most recent yearly statistics available from the U.S. Department of Justice—more than 33 percent of murderers were an intimate partner of the woman they murdered.

And despite all the joy that pregnancy can bring to a relationship, expectant fathers aren't necessarily spared the desire to abuse or kill their partner.

That's something advocates have known for years, Gandy said.

"There are a lot of dynamics that go on in a relationship that involves violence—power and control and the need for the abuser to be primary," she said. "An abuser can feel a sense of possibly losing that primary position."

Nationwide, the maternal mortality rate was just 9.9 percent in 1999, the most recent year for which statistics are available. By comparison, murderers were the fifth-leading cause of death among Maryland women. Using death records and coroner reports, state health department researchers found between 1993 and 1998, 50 murderers were motivated by the pregnancy of their partner to kill the woman.

<snip>

Police records show that murderers comes from all races and classes.

"There is no profile of what these men look like," Sharps said. "Many abusers are educated and appear to be upstanding citizens while beating their partner in the privacy of their own home."

-------

The whole article needs to be written from a different perspective in order to do justice to the point I make. I'm not up for it this morning but perhaps you'll get the point anyway.

Pregnancy and pregnant women are not the issue - people who murder and their motivations for murdering are the issue. But after having read the article in its original form, I found it focused on and directed the reader's focus to, the pregnant women rather than the murderers who killed them. Have you ever wondered why some woman kept returning to an abusive relationship rather than wondering WTF was wrong with the person doing the violence? Articles and reports which take the perspective of those linked are part of the reason we think in that manner; the focus is diverted from abuser to abused. Homicide is a word used to distance and sanitize the topic at hand by appearing objective and less emotional than using the word murder. Words and word choice mean something.

By focusing on pregnant women rather than the people who murder them, the article above and many like them, hide the target and make it possible to "blame the victim" rather than assigning blame exactly where it belongs; on some sick, twisted fuck who kills or is more likely to kill due to their psychoses about pregnancy or pregnant women.

It's time to focus on the abusers and murderers and their motivations rather than, or at the very least in addition to, why women stay in abusive and deadly relationships.

edit to add: between interruptions and such it took a while for me to complete this post - I see it's spawned the usual responses. To all who are complaining from the "it's not ALL men angle" - did you read "pregnant women" (as used in the articles) as "all" pregnant women, "some" pregnant women, or "a few" pregnant women? Did you make the distinction as concerns the wording "pregnant women" but still couldn't or refused to make the same distinction when the word became "men"? Why?

[Recursion]

95. Active voice is better writing, but that's exactly the issue at question

Abusers More Likely to Kill Pregnant Partner

That's the question I've been asking. The author writes

"Murder is the leading cause of death for pregnant women"

and acts as if that means

"Abusers are more likely to kill pregnant women than non-pregnant women"

When the two don't mean the same thing at all.

And I'm still not clear that abusers are more likely to kill pregnant women than non-pregnant women, because I think if the data showed that she would have presented them.

[Breeze54]

107. Seems likely it would be an abuser doing the murdering.

The story doesn't say that more pregnant women are murdered than non-pregnant women,
it says that among pregnant women who die, murder is the number one cause of death
(as opposed to illness or pregnancy-related problems.)

[Cerridwen]

113. That was my point - but the word "abuser" is so freaking

"light-weight" that I had to use the word murderer. I'm so tired of reports and studies using "neutral" terms to describe brutal beatings as "domestic violence" and to describe someone who beats a person as an "abuser" and to translate murder in which one person kills another into "homicide". It's word games and semantics and neutralizing and sanitizing the discussion is akin to calling civilian deaths in war, "collateral damage".

[Breeze54]

118. Intimate Partner Homicide and Pregnancy

I getcha! ;) But my post wasn't to you.

---------------

Intimate Partner Homicide and Pregnancy

http://www.letswrap.com/LetsWRAP/Spring01/page2.htm

Pregnant or recently pregnant women are more likely to be the victims of homicide than to die from any other cause, finds a new study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Vol. 285, No. 11 ). The study, Enhanced Surveillance for Pregnancy-Associated Mortality, Maryland 1993 - 1998, explores the causes of death for 247 Maryland women who died while pregnant or within a year of having been pregnant.

Pregnancy-Associated Mortality is accompanied by a powerful editorial by Victoria Frye, MPH, which expands on the study's findings and uses them as a framework to explore ways to prevent homicides in general and intimate partner homicides specifically. The editorial focuses on the role health care providers can play in preventing the murder of pregnant women by their partners, and calls on health care providers to use domestic violence screening as a tool to prevent homicides.

"The pieces in the Journal of the American Medical Association underscore the critical role that health care providers can play in preventing domestic homicides and saving lives through routine screening," said Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) Associate Director Debbie Lee. "Health care providers are in a unique role to discuss abuse with their patients and offer life saving support to battered women. It is imperative that all health care providers take domestic violence seriously and take steps to help their patients who may be facing abuse."

Homicide Rates

Pregnancy-Associated Mortality - by Isabelle L. Horon, DrPH and Diana Cheng, MD - examines death certificates, medical examiner reports and other records to determine the causes of death among pregnant or recently pregnant women.

Past studies on pregnancy and mortality have used the World Health Organization (WHO) definition for maternal death that limits the cause of death to factors directly related to pregnancy, such as hemorrhage and embolism. Pregnancy-Associated Mortality uses an expanded definition for maternal death that enlarges the WHO definition to include deaths "not traditionally considered to be related to pregnancy such as accidents, homicide, and suicide." Analyzing data within this new context, the study finds that the "number of pregnancy-associated deaths is substantially higher and causes of death substantially broader than previously believed." Pregnancy- Associated Mortality finds that homicide is the leading cause of death for pregnant or recently pregnant women. The study uses the term homicide, but does not distinguish between homicide perpetrated by an intimate partner and homicide perpetrated by a non-intimate partner.

Of the 247 women examined, 50 were the victims of homicide (20.2 percent), according to the study. Cardiovascular disorders were the second leading cause of death, with 48 victims.

Pregnancy-Associated Mortality finds that homicide is the leading cause of death during pregnancy (43.4 percent) and during the "43 to 365 day period following delivery or termination of pregnancy" (23.3 percent). But the study finds that homicide accounted for only 3.6 percent of the deaths occurring within 42 days of delivery or termination of pregnancy.

Pregnancy-Associated Mortality compares the homicide rate of pregnant or recently pregnant women with that for women "aged 14 to 44 years who had not had a pregnancy in the year preceding death." It finds that the homicide rate is significantly higher for women in the first group. Homicide accounted for 11.2 percent of deaths for women who were not pregnant prior to their murder (when adjusted for race and maternal age), compared with 20.2 percent of deaths for pregnant or recently pregnant women. Also, the group of pregnant or recently pregnant women was younger and included a higher percentage of African-American women than the group of non-pregnant women. Pregnancy-Associated Mortality notes that these factors are associated with higher rates of homicide independent of pregnancy.

more..

[Cerridwen]

126. Oops! I'm so sorry about that.

Twitchy posting finger over here. :D

[Recursion]

127. OK

Now, is that because the number of murders increase, or because the number of accidents decrease?

Either seems possible. Or it may be a combination. But if the relative increase of homicide as a proportion of deaths is because, for example, pregnant women are being more careful in motor vehicles, etc., and so the rate of death by accidents is way down below the homicide rate, then this is actually a good thing, right?

[Breeze54]

143. The editorial notes that "homicide is the leading killer of young women, pregnant or not,"

http://www.letswrap.com/LetsWRAP/Spring01/page2.htm

Pregnant or recently pregnant women are more likely to be the victims of homicide than to die from any other cause, finds a new study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Vol. 285, No. 11 ). The study, Enhanced Surveillance for Pregnancy-Associated Mortality, Maryland 1993 - 1998, explores the causes of death for 247 Maryland women who died while pregnant or within a year of having been pregnant.

[Cerridwen]

108. My post was created when there were zero replies to the OP

I think you might like to read all my post rather than just a subject line which appears to agree with your argument. I've had a moment to scan through some of the posts in this thread and I'm not sure you and I agree. I'm of the opinion that in a relationship in which one partner brutalizes the other, should the other be female and become pregnant, the batterer increases the instances and intensity of the violence which can/does result in the batterer becoming a murderer.

[Recursion]

132. I read and appreciated your post

I think it was well-conceived and well-written and importantly transfers the violence to its agent rather than having the victim be some kind of violence-drawing patient.

I'm of the opinion that in a relationship in which one partner brutalizes the other, should the other be female and become pregnant, the batterer increases the instances and intensity of the violence which can/does result in the batterer becoming a murderer.

I am agnostic on that point, but would not be surprised (sad, but not surprised) if it were true. I just didn't want it to be assumed to be true without any data.

[Cerridwen]

170. Why?

You posted: I just didn't want it to be assumed to be true without any data.

And I'm asking you seriously, why?

Some abusers are more likely to murder a partner if she is pregnant. Most (if not all) of those murderers are an intimate of the woman. These two statements hold up in the face of the articles linked (and many of the links since added).

Yet rather than wondering why some abusers are more likely to kill a female partner who is pregnant, you switch focus from "Murderers are the Leading Cause of Death of Pregnant Women" to "are pregnant women more likely to be murdered?"

Why?

[Recursion]

192. I didn't make the switch, I pointed out that the author and many posters made the switch

you switch focus from "Murderers are the Leading Cause of Death of Pregnant Women" to "are pregnant women more likely to be murdered?"

The fact that murder is the #1 cause of death among pregnant women tells us very little. It could mean that, in general, pregnant women receive more medical care, are more careful driving, and do not drink alcohol. It could mean that there is an epidemic of men murdering their pregnant wives or girlfriends. It could be some other skew of the data. We just don't know.

By itself, the data presented do not mean very much, since they are not in the context of death rates among non-pregnant women.

[Cerridwen]

227. First we must identify that there is a problem...

I think this article brings to light a very disturbing and deadly problem. To many of us posting here, it's about as revelatory as "water is wet", but to many who don't post here and to some who do, it is not "common knowledge". Perhaps if it were to enter the canon of "common knowledge", we could begin to focus on and address the motivations that surround such murders rather than, as I noted in my earlier post, trying to "fix" women who "get themselves" abused and/or murdered.

I think many of the links added after the OP do talk about the statistics, their availability and what they relate in regard to this issue. Some of the links also show how poorly this issue has been addressed.

It's too bad women's stories of the abuse they've suffered at the hands and fists of their loved(?!) ones over the decades haven't been given more credibility. Had they been, rather than being put aside in favor of research and statistics to prove the women weren't "making this up" or to "prove" it happens often enough to be of concern, perhaps there would have been fewer murders. There is and has been an "epidemic" of "men murdering their pregnant wives or girlfriends"; the only problem is, so few will see it as such unless the "numbers" can be confirmed. Better to question the statistics and the context in which they're gathered than address what women say.

[Recursion]

228. Breeze54 supplied some numbers upthread

They showed 1.7 murders per 100,000 pregnancies. That compares to 1.9 murders per 100,000 women in general. That would mean a woman's risk of being murdered is lower when she is pregnant.

Any murder is a problem. The cavalier way the legal system treats violence against women is a problem. But if the studies are right and pregnant women are less likely to be murdered than women in general, maybe we need to rethink our assumptions about what this epidemic of violence is and what its causes are.

[Morgana LaFey]

162. This is so incredibly stupid

Your concern is a quibble and a stupid one. WOMEN ARE DYING AT THE HANDS OF THEIR MATES, and PREGNANT WOMEN ARE DYING AT THE HANDS OF THEIR MATES, and you're concerned about whether more or less women are dying when.

FUCK THAT.

Where is your concern that NO WOMAN should die at the hands of men we have trusted with our love and affection and bodies and lives?

WHERE IS YOUR HUMANITY?

[Recursion]

198. You have 0 standing to question my humanity, nor to accuse my of misogyny

Though certainly you are free to do so; it just doesn't matter.

No person, man or woman, should die at the hands of another, particularly the hands of an intimate.

and you're concerned about whether more or less women are dying when.

Yes, I am. Apparently unlike you, I actually want fewer women to be murdered, which means it is important to know when and on whom and by whom murder is actually being committed.

[Morgana LaFey]

262. And then you'll do WHAT precisely?

From what I've seen, you don't even have the energy or interest to go researching this on your own OR read the links provided you.

And now you're trying to imply or leave the impression that you'd go DO something if you just had the right numbers?

Is that what you'd like me/us to believe?

[Recursion]

266. We ended up finding the numbers upthread

Though there still isn't a good comparable study by age group because, again, violence against women in general is underreported and violence by maternity is very very much underreported because as a society we are afraid to admit the extent to which women are brutalized.

But the numbers as far as they have been published show 1.7 murders per 100,000 pregnant women, compared with rates ranging from 2.8 to 4.6 for the age groups during which pregnancy is most common (15-44). That does leave out early teen pregnancy, which I would assume is associated with higher levels of violence (though this is also conditioned by social and economic factors independent of pregnancy). But to the extent these data can be trusted, they show that pregnant women are safer from homicide, much like they are safer from all forms of death, than women in general. That means the biggest problem here is the brutalization of non-pregnant women; to the extent we're doing anything as a society about violence against pregnant women we seem to be doing something right, or something not as badly wrong.

I do apologize for my emphasis on statistics in a matter involving this much anguish, though I don't think it was right for you to call me inhuman and lacking a soul (or at least the ability to search it) because of it. I also appreciate your request that I show empathy for pregnant women who are victims of violence; I don't think it's a sign of a lack of empathy to point out that by these data pregnant women are safer from violence than women as a whole. I think I got set off because, as I said in an earlier post, the singling out of pregnant women -- particularly as it seems they suffer violence at a lower rate than women in general -- strikes me as an example of the "worship women's fertility" meme that I find troublingly antifeminist.

[Breeze54]

270. "singling out of pregnant women"? That IS the topic!!!

:wtf:


That was the topic of this thread!!!!

It wasn't about what you wanted to make it about!

It was about pregnant women and violence towards them and pregnant women being murdered!!

:banghead:

[Recursion]

273. OK

From the data you've listed, I can only conclude that pregnant women are much safer from violence than women in general. I think violence against women is far too common and needs to be stopped by addressing the horrible way so many men behave, which will take addressing the idiotic machismo environment we are raised in. (You have pointed out this thread is about women, not men, but any thread about violence against women is about men because it's men perpetrating it, not some inherent part of women's nature.) It just strikes me that the fact that pregnant women are much less likely to be murdered than women in general is if anything one of the few successes in our shameful story of women's rights.

[Morgana LaFey]

304. You know, for all the emphasis on finding the right numbers, I do

not believe you've got the right picture. Women who are in abusive relationships report that they are MORE likely to be beaten once they have become pregnant. Your conclusion is, IMO, anti-intuitive and goes counter to what we have had reported -- by women themselves and those who work with them re domestic violence -- again and again for several decades now. IMO that the data doesn't support that conclusion is a problem with the data, which you recognize, and NOT proof that what women are reporting is incorrect or skewed.

Besides, there ARE no program or other vehicles in which we reach or better address the needs of pregnant women vis a vis violence than other women -- that they are "safer" and so we must be doing something right is, IMO, a figment of your imagination because there is no "something" that reaches them over other women.

SOmetimes the numbers are inferior to the reality, ya know? I am impatient with people for whom the fucking numbers are everything, OR for whom nothing is real until the numbers (or science) "proves" it exists. It's Patriarchal bullshit to me. The subjective is dishonored and dismissed to too great an extent in our society, and that both contributes to further misogyny (since women are equivalent to "subjective" while men are "logical and rational"), and also robs us of valuable input for our decision-making.

You were hyper fixated on the numbers (to the exclusion of the humanity of the problem) -- and I don't believe, after all that work you did, that you got what you wanted. Or perhaps you did. I don't believe what you got is a true picture of the Truth and Reality. Because I don't believe a true picture of that is available from "the numbers" at this time.

Had you expressed any of the thoughtfulness and basic humanity you have in these two posts I'd not have given you such a hard time. I thought you were a monster, frankly. You probably aren't, but you can certainly do a mean imitation of one.

I'm still troubled by your fixation on what you THINK is a "success story." I'm 99% positive it's a failure: a failure of the data. Even abusing men have admitted that their mate's pregnancy set them off to a greater extent than when she was not pregnant. So your conclusion here goes against all the other "known knowns," to coin a phrase, and I will continue to be uncomfortable with your gleeful self-congratulatory conclusion that we're doing something right and that pregnant women are actually, really safer.

[Madspirit]

98. k&r

...and people wonder why I'm leaving this place. Why aren't the men on this thread appalled rather than defensive? It is quite telling.
Lee

[MindPilot]

103. Have to make it through the man-bashing before we can get to appalled. n/t

n/t

[Marie26]

106. Why is that?

Why can't you be appalled at that statistic as well? It's horrifying, isn't it? Is perceived male-bashing on a DU thread more important than the murder of women? That's the impression your post gives.

[Madspirit]

111. Thanks for proving my point

All this whining about poor widdle men when we are talking about the murder of one of the most vulnerable of people...pregnant women. ...and you have to sniggle with the stats.
Quite telling.
Lee

[MindPilot]

130. "poor widdle men"?

Yeah, we're all a bunch of assholes.

I thought you were leaving?

[Cerridwen]

131. You mean as versus pregnant women bashing happening in the

real world?

When you read "pregnant women" did you automatically jump to the conclusion that it was about "all", "some" or "a few" pregnant women? When you read "men" do you automatically jump to the conclusion that it's "all", "some" or "a few" men?
When you read a criticism of anyone or discussion of a problem, is it always "bashing" or only when it's about men?

To discuss a problem concerning "pregnant women" does not imply all pregnant women any more than to discuss men's role in the problem is "bashing" all men.

[MindPilot]

180. When I read a comment like

"don't say we; it is the men who are not civilized" I take to be about men. There was no "some" or "few" or "several"; the all is implicit.

Is there another way to read that?

[Cerridwen]

203. Well, you could have read "men who murder"

as not being the "civilized" ones; who murder being the implied phrase rather than all.

But I don't know your history with the poster who made that statement and I don't know if the poster meant what you took it to mean since they didn't elaborate; nor, did I notice, did you ask the poster to elaborate which I presume means you know something about the poster's words with which I'm not privy (see previous sentence about your history with poster).

But, the topic is not whether or not ALL men are such and such or even if the above poster is a "man-hater".

The topic is "Murderers are the leading cause of death of pregnant women." And, like it or not, the majority of those murderers *are* men. So, shall we debate whether ALL men commit murder (silly, in my mind, to even say that) or whether someone who identifies a deadly issue does so only because they "hate" the people, who (in this case) are the majority of perpetrators, or shall we discuss the issue at hand; some people, the majority of whom are men who have a history of beating their partner, appear to be more inclined to murder their partner if she becomes pregnant?

[Marie26]

104. It's quite creepy.

If there was a story about how, say, suicide is a number 1 cause of death for firefighters, everyone would say how awful that is, and how can we solve the problem. But if someone posts a story about how murder is a number 1 cause of death for pregnant women, suddenly there's an outpouring of outrage & anger - against the story! Very weird.

[Louie the XIV]

119. It's very similar to the reaction to the stories of the Iranian stonings of women

There are too many people here who will bend over backwards to try and justify or downplay hatred and violence towards women. Pregnant single women are some of the most vulnerable members of our society and any animal that preys on them can not be punished harshly enough as far as I'm concerned.

[Breeze54]

150. Thank you and Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[Morgana LaFey]

221. Are you male?

I ask because I'm in search of any male(s) on this thread who have expressed ANY real concern or sympathy or empathy for the dead women represented by these statistics (instead of just arguing about the statistics) or solidarity with women.

I've found none so far (tho hope I just missed them all, plural).

This is a great post, and would be absolutely wonderful if written by a male.

Are you?

In any case, a hearty welcome to DU and thanks for a great post.

[Beelzebud]

123. What do you want? Should we post crying youtube videos of us apologizing for murders we didn't do?

There is at least one of these posts a day about how evil all men are.

Next time a thread is posted about a mother murdering her children or husband, watch closely. The reverse happens. Everyone will come in to say how bad that evil man must have deserved to be killed, or that she was just so depressed she couldn't help but drown her children in the bathtub.

The reason we aren't all in here sobbing and lamenting about how evil we all are is that this post is just one in a chain of them, all with the point that all men must be evil sons of bitches that kill and abuse their families. After you've seen a few dozens of them, they get old. I know what the motive is here. I see it everyday on this site...

[Madspirit]

139. Poor Little Thing

It must be hard to hear it...as opposed to how hard it is to be a VICTIM of it.

Lee

[Beelzebud]

159. I don't need your fake sympathy. I'm also not a victim of anything.

I'm just tired of seeing these poorly veiled threads that exist just to bash men.

Feel free to man-hate all you want to. I'm sure it makes you feel better about yourself.

[Breeze54]

166. I don't hate men and this thread isn't about men. It's about women!

Pregnant women and murder!

Seemed fitting instead of reposting the story of the murdered pregnant woman from Ohio again.

[PCIntern]

171. Hi Breeze54!

Just following up on your posting on my thread...about this subject. Well conceived and written...you're quite familiar with the issues! Kudos to you!!

:hi:

[Morgana LaFey]

187. So you think this thread exists just to bash men?

That is absoutely amazing. Perhaps THE most startling example of white male privilege narcissism I've ever seen.

A thread about pregnant women dying at the hands of their mates is posted for the express purpose of providing an avenue to bash men.

Unbelievable.

So incredible I can't think of anything more to say. My jaw is on the floor and my eyes are wide open, eyebrows hurting they're raised so high.

[raccoon]

301. "There is at least one of these posts a day about how evil all men are. "

:sigh:

[Morgana LaFey]

165. Yes -- At this point I don't think there's a single man who has shown

ANY concern for the dead women over statistics or the faux "but not all men are bad" complaint or the ever popular "you're just a man-hater" defense.

Dead women? Killed by their loving partners? Killed while carrying their loving partners' babies? Oh, is that all? No problem. Let's quibble about those damned STATISTICS.

It's just one more sterling example of the rampant misogyny right here at DU. And some bloke somewhere on this thread dares say it's "a fraction of a percent" of men who are sexists. Hah!

[MindPilot]

189. Hell, we never had the chance.

The DU misandry began in first few posts.

[Morgana LaFey]

197. Is that the best excuse you can muster?

AFAIC, from what I've seen of you, you seem to be constitutionally unable to make such pro-woman remarks at all (else you would have), but as for the rest of the men,

a REAL man, by which I mean a real pro-woman man, would have understood immediately that any posts some of his inferiors would consider "misandry" didn't apply to him at all. He'd have been sufficiently comfortable with his own masculinity, and his own unperverted warrior spirit, to immediately recognize his presence was needed to express sympathy and solidarity with his sisters, and then would go on to fight the good fight by confronting his sexist and misogynist brothers right here at DU.

Alas, there are none to be found on this thread that I have seen. And very, very, very few of them at all anywhere at DU.

[Clark2008]

124. How 'bout, instead of murdering her and the child and instead

of being threatened with having to support an unwanted child - you either keep it in your pants or take some responsibility for birth control?

[Name removed]

184. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stanwyck]

202. You need help

seriously. This thread is about a serious problem: the threat pregnant women face from the fathers of their children. It's real. Your responses show not only anger toward women, but an overly aggressive need to assert your masculinity. Why the hostility? What's bothering you that you can't comprehend concern about the murder of pregnant women?
Take a moment and read through what you've posted here.
I don't know if you're incapable of understanding the thread topic or you just want the attention you get from inducing rage. If rage is what gets you off, rather than a discussion of the topic, you might want to back away from the keyboard and turn on hate radio. Your comments and attitude will be totally in synch.

[MindPilot]

215. Nice personal attack from someone who's disabled their profile.

Maybe you should re-read what I posted and then come back and question my motives.

I wasn't the one who used this tragedy as a jumping-off point for misandry. And clearly I'm not the only poster who saw it that way.

[Name removed]

217. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MindPilot]

230. "irresponsible predators like you." Another personal attack.

Really personal.

But since it came from a woman directed at a man, the mods will do exactly nothing about it.

[Beelzebud]

248. Yes, you know because all men are predators.

[Breeze54]

254. Not true but predators are most likely male.

Most victims and perpetrators in homicides are male

Male offender/Male victim 65.2%

Male offender/Female victim 22.6%

Female offender/Male victim 9.7%

Female offender/Female victim 2.4%

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/gender.htm

Males were almost 10 times more likely than females to commit murder in 2004.

Homicide Type by Gender, 1976-2004

Victims -----------------------------------Offenders
All homicides
Male - 76.5% ----------------------------- male - 88.7%

[Recursion]

260. And murderers of intimate partners are practically all male

There is a lot of "men's rights" BS floating around talking about the rates of abuse of men by women, which totally ignore the fact that whatever the incidence of attacks are, men are almost never killed or seriously injured by their female partners.

In general, men are both the perpetrators and the victims of violent crime, which is the main reason we have a lower life expectancy. The two classes of violent crime that women are more likely to be victims of are sexual assault and domestic violence, which happen to men at much lower levels (and again are still almost entirely perpetrated by men). Maybe the Lysistrata had the right idea...

[Madspirit]

134. New Thread!

...and this verifies with government stats that murder is the leading cause of death of pregnant women...at the hands of the father of their baby:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1174136

[Breeze54]

154. I've posted that link numerous times here!

;)

[Madspirit]

144. From the Thread on Domestic Violence

http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/

Estimates range from 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend per year1 to three million women who are physically abused by their husband or boyfriend per year.

Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.

Nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives, according to a 1998 Commonwealth Fund survey.

Nearly 25 percent of American women report being raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date at some time in their lifetime, according to the National Violence Against Women Survey, conducted from November 1995 to May 1996.

Thirty percent of Americans say they know a woman who has been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year.

In the year 2001, more than half a million American women (588,490 women) were victims of nonfatal violence committed by an intimate partner.

Intimate partner violence is primarily a crime against women. In 2001, women accounted for 85 percent of the victims of intimate partner violence (588,490 total) and men accounted for approximately 15 percent of the victims (103,220 total).

While women are less likely than men to be victims of violent crimes overall, women are five to eight times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner.

In 2001, intimate partner violence made up 20 percent of violent crime against women. The same year, intimate partners committed three percent of all violent crime against men.10
As many as 324,000 women each year experience intimate partner violence during their pregnancy.

Women of all races are about equally vulnerable to violence by an intimate.

Male violence against women does much more damage than female violence against men; women are much more likely to be injured than men.

The most rapid growth in domestic relations caseloads is occurring in domestic violence filings. Between 1993 and 1995, 18 of 32 states with three year filing figures reported an increase of 20 percent or more.

Women are seven to 14 times more likely than men to report suffering severe physical assaults from an intimate partner.

Domestic Homicides

On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day. In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. The same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner.

Women are much more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner. In 2000, intimate partner homicides accounted for 33.5 percent of the murders of women and less than four percent of the murders of men.

Pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die of any other cause , and evidence exists that a significant proportion of all female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners.

Research suggests that injury related deaths, including homicide and suicide, account for approximately one-third of all maternal mortality cases, while medical reasons make up the rest. But, homicide is the leading cause of death overall for pregnant women, followed by cancer, acute and chronic respiratory conditions, motor vehicle collisions and drug overdose, peripartum and postpartum cardiomyopthy, and suicide.


Health Issues

The health-related costs of rape, physical assault, stalking and homicide committed by intimate partners exceed $5.8 billion each year. Of that amount, nearly $4.1 billion are for direct medical and mental health care services, and nearly $1.8 billion are for the indirect costs of lost productivity or wages.

About half of all female victims of intimate violence report an injury of some type, and about 20 percent of them seek medical assistance.

Thirty-seven percent of women who sought treatment in emergency rooms for violence-related injuries in 1994 were injured by a current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend.

Domestic Violence and Youth

Approximately one in five female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner.

Eight percent of high school age girls said “yes” when asked if “a boyfriend or date has ever forced sex against your will.”

Forty percent of girls age 14 to 17 report knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend.

During the 1996-1997 school year, there were an estimated 4,000 incidents of rape or other types of sexual assault in public schools across the country.

Domestic Violence and Children

In a national survey of more than 6,000 American families, 50 percent of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children.

Slightly more than half of female victims of intimate violence live in households with children under age 12.

Studies suggest that between 3.3 - 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence annually.

Rape

Three in four women (76 percent) who reported they had been raped and/or physically assaulted since age 18 said that a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, or date committed the assault.

One in five (21 percent) women reported she had been raped or physically or sexually assaulted in her lifetime.

Nearly one-fifth of women (18 percent) reported experiencing a completed or attempted rape at some time in their lives; one in 33 men (three percent) reported experiencing a completed or attempted rape at some time in their lives.

In 2000, 48 percent of the rapes/sexual assaults committed against people age 12 and over were reported to the police.

In 2001, 41,740 women were victims of rape/sexual assault committed by an intimate partner.

Rapes/sexual assaults committed by strangers are more likely to be reported to the police than rapes/sexual assaults committed by “nonstrangers,” including intimate partners, other relatives and friends or acquaintances. Between 1992 and 2000, 41 percent of the rapes/sexual assaults committed by strangers were reported to the police. During the same time period, 24 percent of the rapes/sexual assaults committed by an intimate were reported.

Stalking

Annually in the United States, 503,485 women are stalked by an intimate partner.

Seventy-eight percent of stalking victims are women. Women are significantly more likely than men (60 percent and 30 percent, respectively) to be stalked by intimate partners.

Eighty percent of women who are stalked by former husbands are physically assaulted by that partner and 30 percent are sexually assaulted by that partner.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1U.S. Department of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March 1998
2The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman’s Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women’s Health, May 1999
3Heise, L., Ellsberg, M. and Gottemoeller, M. Ending Violence Against Women. Population Reports, Series L, No. 11., December 1999
4The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman’s Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women’s Health, May 1999
5The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The National Institute of Justice, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, July 2000.
6Lieberman Research Inc., Tracking Survey conducted for The Advertising Council and the Family Violence Prevention Fund, July – October 1996
7Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003
8Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003
9U.S. Department of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March 1998
10Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003
11Gazmararian JA, Petersen R, Spitz AM, Goodwin MM, Saltzman LE, Marks JS. “Violence and reproductive health; current knowledge and future research directions.” Maternal and Child Health Journal 2000;4(2):79-84.
12Bureau of Justice Statistics, Violence Against Women: Estimates from the Redesigned Survey, August 1995
13Murray A. Straus and Richard J. Gelles, Physical Violence in American Families, 1990
14Examining the Work of State Courts, 1995: A National Perspective from the Court Statistics Project. National Center for the State Courts, 1996
15National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November 1998
16Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003
17Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003
18Horon, I., & Cheng, D., (2001). Enhanced Surveillance for Pregnancy-Associated Mortality - Maryland, 1993 - 1998. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, No. 11, March 21, 2001.
19Frye, V. (2001). Examining Homicide's Contribution to Pregnancy-Associated Deaths. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, No. 11, March 21, 2001
20Nannini, A., Weiss, J., Goldstein, R., & Fogerty, S., (2002). Pregnancy-Associated Mortality at the End of the Twentieth Century: Massachusetts, 1990 – 1999. Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association, Vol. 57, No. 23, Summer 2002.
21Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States, April 2003.
22National Crime Victimization Survey, 1992-96; Study of Injured Victims of Violence, 1994
23U.S. Department of Justice, Violence Related Injuries Treated in Hospital Emergency Departments, August 1997
24Jay G. Silverman, PhD; Anita Raj, PhD; Lorelei A. Mucci, MPH; and Jeanne E. Hathaway, MD, MPH, “Dating Violence Against Adolescent Girls and Associated Substance Use, Unhealthy Weight Control, Sexual Risk Behavior, Pregnancy, and Suicidality,” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 286, No. 5, 2001
25The Commonwealth Fund Survey of the Health of Adolescent Girls, November 1997
26Children Now/Kaiser Permanente poll, December 1995
27U.S. Department of Education, Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools: 1996-1997
28Strauss, Murray A, Gelles, Richard J., and Smith, Christine. 1990. Physical Violence in American Families; Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers
29U.S. Department of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March 1998
30Carlson, Bonnie E. (1984). Children's observations of interpersonal violence. Pp. 147-167 in A.R. Roberts (Ed.) Battered women and their families (pp. 147-167). NY: Springer. Straus, M.A. (1992). Children as witnesses to marital violence: A risk factor for lifelong problems among a nationally representative sample of American men and women. Report of the Twenty-Third Ross Roundtable. Columbus, OH: Ross Laboratories.
31U.S. Department of Justice, Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November 1998
32The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman’s Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women’s Health, May 1999
33National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,, Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November 1998
34Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, Reporting Crime to the Police, 1992-2000, March 2003
35Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003
36Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, Reporting Crime to the Police, 1992-2000, March 2003
37Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, National Institute of Justice, 2000
38Center for Policy Research, Stalking in America, July 1997
39Center for Policy Research, Stalking in America, July 1997

[Mythsaje]

160. I think it strange that posts such as this

prompt so much venom and vitriol.

From all sides.

Anyone ever wonder why that is?

[Breeze54]

169. I'm surprised.

My intent was to reflect what happened to that woman in Ohio.

Seems odd, so many are wanting to fight over a sad truth.

Perhaps we should be looking for ways to stop it!

[Mythsaje]

174. I think to stop it we have to truly understand why it happens.

And I don't think that's going to be easy.

[PCIntern]

176. If that's the case,

howcum you didn't seem to have any idea of my subject matter on my thread a couple hours ago? I do believe that this thread discusses the same subject as mine...

I'm just not that bright, so you'll have to forgive me if I'm a little 'lost'.

Yours truly in Solidarity,

PCIntern

[Breeze54]

182. Because your thread didn't have a title and I've since re-read your thread

and then, after another cup of coffee or two, decided to post this thread topic.

Mine even has a title! :sarcasm:

Why are you trying to pick a fight, when clearly you don't know how to post a topic title.

If people on DU kicked your ass because you have previously not posted a topic title, then

it seems to me that you are the one with the issue and the one needing to correct it.

[PCIntern]

193. Well, I'm so pleased that I could inspire you!

I believe that I'll keep an eye on you for spelling, diction, links, subject line, and whatever else so I can learn from the master herself. It is a special honor to be so included in this master class.

Absolutely no sarcasm intended.

BTW, why did you not post a link to my OP so that all might be apprised of your erudition and attention to detail?

Here it is:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1172639&mesg_id=1172639

[Breeze54]

205. You remind me of an idiot I used to know.

You didn't inspire me in the least.

The murdered pregnant woman did though.

[PCIntern]

209. I'm hurt...

that's an ad hominem attack...and that's against the rules. Any DU poster knows that. But I'm a gentleman and won't press charges.

I don't believe that I wish to be your friend anymore.

[Breeze54]

218. Trying to lay blame and infuse another topic in this thread is silly.

Trying to somehow, subliminaly, accuse me of somehow attacking
you in another topic, here on this thread, is ridiculous!

Idiotic, actually.

You failed to post a topic or a subject and I asked what you
were talking about and you're offended...how? :shrug: Idiotic!

[PCIntern]

235. how?

If you don't know, then there's no point in talking to you. I would suspect that that would be the case. However, I'll attempt to provide you with an answer to your question.

Although it is often important to place a link within each OP, it is occasionally assumed that all present know about the topic, since there are often dozen(s) of threads which involve that news story or personality. For example, and I'll be just as pedantic as you are in your posts, suppose for the sake of argument only, that I thought that Cheney was guiding this country into a fascist state and wanted to express my opinion. Do I have to post a link, or do I have to identify him as Richard Cheney, the Vice President of the United States of America...from Wyoming (via Texas)? Of course not.

Now, since there had been multiple threads about this young lady and her nine-month fetus who met such a tragic end, I assumed that everyone would know what I was talking about.

Now, to see this an a historical light, last week, I posted about the "poor girl who sent shopping" only to meet an untimely end. The DU police came out in droves, telling me that the girl was clearly unfortunate, but not underprivileged, and thus the term 'poor' was inappropriate. A lengthy discussion of the meanings of the word 'poor' was then effected. To which I say: Bullshit. The poster knew the context and was being a total asshole.

I believe that this form of discourse is disruptive in the extreme and the moderators should take notice of this.

I hope that this answers your question.

[Breeze54]

239. You assume I've been present on DU for the last week.

You assume to much.

Use links and topic headers, if you're having a problem getting your point across.

[PCIntern]

242. Yes

I assume that people reading are at least marginally informed of what is goinjg on . Do I have to post a bio of Paris Hilton if I were to for some un-Godly reason want to discuss her 'plight'? Can I not assume that you know who Paris Hilton is? Is that too much to ask?

I have no problems getting my point across. Quite frankly, I would say that 99% of DUers knew exactly what I was talking about.

Since I remind you of an idiot you once knew, I will return your volley by saying that you remind me of everyone's first girlfriend in college. The one you met at summer orientation which had to be ditched ASAP.

If you arrive for a war of words, bring some ammunition next time. Calling someone an 'idiot' is the last refuge of the verbally incompetent.

[Breeze54]

243. You should follow DU guidlines for posting topics. They're pretty

universal for most messageboards.

[PCIntern]

256. Don't lecture me - you may be buds with the mods

or think you are or you may be married to one. I don't care. You start flame wars and then sit back and bask in the glow. I know exactly what kind of poster you are and you are on your heels most of the time and don't have a literal or figurative leg to stand on.

A disregard for everyone else and their feeling qualifies one as a 'narcissist'.

You oughta PM Violet over in I/P. Perfect together.

[Breeze54]

259. I wasn't lecturing you! Get that chip off your shoulder!!

A friendly suggestion and it seems, I'm not the only one suggesting it.

I don't know any of the mods, other than when I see their names posted here at DU.

Boy, you really are a piece of work. Paranoid much?? :shrug:

And why are you calling out another person's name?? Not allowed!!!!!!!!!

WTF is I/P???

Good bye.

[PCIntern]

284. i want the record to state that

I did not start this ridiculousness. This has been happening to many posters here at DU and I for one am getting quite tired of it. It is antithetical to the DU community and its experience. The thread of threads and posts here is emblematic of what many of us who are trying to foster real dialogue are going thru, and I'm quite frankly getting tired of being quoted chapter and verse of arcane 'rules' which in many cases belie the point of the discussion.

I refuse to be chastised by a self-appointed 'moderator' who doesn't even know what the I/P Forum is.

And I know for a fact that I am not alone in my feelings here.

Thank you to all the reasonable folk here, and I apologize for the rant, but enough is enough.

[Breeze54]

288. Why did you even mention it at all, in your Ohio thread?

You brought that subject up, not me.

As a member of DU, I can post idea's, topics, questions and suggestions.

To say I'm a self appointed mod is ludicrous.

If you don't want your being chastised by other members mentioned, then?

Don't mention it!

But to say I was chastising you is not true!! For the record... :eyes:

[PCIntern]

290. I thought you had said 'goodbye'

If you're going to have the temerity to do what you do, at least have the decency to admit to it.

[Madspirit]

175. Because many

...because many of the women here are victims and the men just want to deflect and be defensive. Boy things have changed. Back in the day, the early days of the leftist movement, men went to consciousness raising groups and they cared about these kinds of stats. I guess men like Alan Alda, men who care about this horrible stuff, are just too girly for Real Men.

Well, mostly. We do have a wonderful Men's Center in Austin JUST for this stuff. ..but men who own their violence and men who address patriarchy and it's fallout, are certainly in a minority these days.
Lee

[MindPilot]

195. If you step back and look at how some of the women are quick to

toss out the broad-brush insults and generalizations, it's not surprising the guys don't want to hang around for more of it.

[Madspirit]

208. If You Were a Good Man

You would understand where it's coming from. Victims of violence are often angry. Funny that. I hope you NEVER have a daughter.
Lee

[MindPilot]

231. No worries

I had a vasectomy 30 years ago.

[Morgana LaFey]

237. From ALL sides?

Have you bothered to read the thread?

This comment of yours is a little too much like what Repulicans say to Democrats: come on, let's compromise. And what they mean is: we don't intend to but YOU must.

From ALL sides? Is the sexism and misogyny that invisible to you? Is the lack of concern about anything but the fucking STATISTICS not something we women should take exception to? Is the fact that our killers are MEN -- and the men here seem to think nothing of that -- not something we should take exception to?

Holy criminy. Yeah, blame the women equally to the men for the "venom and vitriol." Sounds about right (i.e., par for the DU course) to me.

[WildEyedLiberal]

274. I think you just proved Mythsaje's point.

You're throwing around the words "sexism" and "misogyny" like they're candy and are, at this point, posting little more than flamebait. You keep wailing about how no men care about this, blah blah blah, but the truth is, you've selectively ignored or misconstrued any comments that didn't fit into YOUR definition of "supportive" - and who can even tell at this point what YOU consider to be "supportive"? Nothing is apparently good enough and you're not exactly clear on what men are supposed to do to be deemed "supportive" by you. Instead, you've verbally assaulted everyone on this thread, accused tons of people of being sexist just because they didn't meet the Morgana LaFey Script for whatever the hell they were "supposed" to say, and then wonder why this thread turned into a flamewar.

It's not all your fault, of course, and there are two male posters in this thread who have said some honest-to-god sexist things - unlike you, I define sexism as something which actively stereotypes, represses, or minimizes the humanity of women. But you are every bit as much to blame for the "venom and vitriol" in this thread and every honest observer of this thread can see it. This thread is proof of why these issues cannot be discussed rationally on DU - the callous, flippant misogynists combined with irrational misandrists leads to epic, stupid, unproductive flamewars like this.

Oh, and I'll save you the time it would take to click on my profile - I'm a woman. That's the only reason I feel allowed to call you out on your bullshit, because god knows you wouldn't take me seriously if I were male. You still probably won't, but it needed said.

[Mythsaje]

282. I think that pretty much covers it...

I loathe the violence perpetrated against women, and, frankly, don't really understand it at all other than to consider it the product of some men's failure to come to terms with their own shortcomings and project their weaknesses against targets they feel safe in attacking. No different from racism or gay-bashing. Humans who attack others to make themselves feel stronger are bullies and cowards. Period.

On the other hand I've learned all too well that posting anything other than "men are scum" in one of these threads, and promptly shutting up, is an invitation to be attacked for the crime of being male.

I can't begin to imagine why someone would kill any human being unless threatened with death themselves, much less someone who seems vulnerable and therefore easy prey. When posts like this go up most men draw back in horror, thinking "okay, what can I say about this?" The obvious seems pretty pointless. "That sucks."

Well, no shit.

Yeah, it does. It makes no sense. But none of US are doing it and we're not sure what we could do to fix the problem. We don't socialize with those who'd think it's okay, do our best to raise our children not to do that sort of thing, and support causes that work to prevent such things from happening whenever possible. We donate time and money to shelters, hotlines, and step in to help women out of such situations when confronted by them in our own lives. I know I have, and I'd imagine most of the men here have either done the same, or would if they had the opportunity.

I write books with female characters who are at least as strong and capable as the males, if not more so. I surround myself with powerful women. I have always stood by and supported my 16 y.o. niece as she went through all the trials of adolescence so far...more so than just about anyone else in the family. I've taught her to stand up for herself when no one else would. My boys are being raised primarily by a woman who doesn't take shit from anyone, male or female, and I see that as a GOOD thing.

Attacking one's allies is an act of folly, regardless of motivation. Misandrist behavior is no more acceptable, by my lights, than misogyny.

[SidDithers]

183. Here's a similar 2005 study

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=20316

Between 1991 and 1999, 617 maternal homicides were recorded, and researchers estimate that there are 1.7 maternal homicides per 100,000 live births in the United States. However, researchers say that number is "significantly understate" because many of the 30 states studied do not have reliable methods for keeping track of such deaths, according to the Post. According to the study -- which examined trauma deaths only and did not compare them to maternal deaths due with medical causes -- auto accidents accounted for about 44% of maternal trauma deaths, homicide accounted for 31%, other unintentional injuries accounted for 13% and suicide accounted for 10%.

Anyone know what mortality rates from medical complications are?

Sid

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

196. "...joyful, happy time..."

[dsc]

207. a couple of things

First let me be clear, one murder of anyone is one too many. One would hope that no one ever got murdered ever.

That said, it is easy for this to be very misleading. Women who are pregnant are going to tend to be young, healthy, and not involved in hazardous activities. Thus it shouldn't be surprising that murder ranks high as a cause of death among that group of women. At least this article gives us some numbers (50 murders in Maryland) but without knowing how many pregnant women there were in Maryland back in 2001 it is impossible to evaluate just how out of whack those numbers are.

Again, any murder is bad but we shouldn't fall for alarmist tricks by the media if that is what these are.

[Breeze54]

213. The AP writer should've included some links...actually I think she did give a source.

Among all murders of women across the country in 2000
—the most recent yearly statistics available from the U.S. Department of Justice
— more than 33 percent were killed by an intimate partner.

March 2001 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

state health department researchers found 247 pregnancy-associated deaths between 1993 and 1998

Nationally, homicide is a leading killer of young women—pregnant or not.


http://www.now.org/issues/violence/043003pregnant.html

[dsc]

223. again

I have no doubt it is a leading killer but for women 20 to 29 which is what the article reference, there aren't going to be too many causes of death. Accidents was number one and murder number two. Given the broadness of accidents it is hard to see just what was left aside from illness which would be a very low incidence especially if the illness are broken up into single causes.

[Madspirit]

234. I suggest

May I suggest this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1174136

It has tons of links or go to NOW or MS. I doubt they are misleading. Or just google..."domestic abuse" or "battered women".

All the deflection here is really sad.
Lee

[Recursion]

238. It is not condoning violence against women to say the article is misleading

If the data posted on this thread are correct, then pregnant women are less likely to be murdered than women in general (1.7 per 100,000 vs. 1.9). In both cases, pregnant or not, women seem more likely to be murdered by an intimate partner (generally male) than anyone else. That is horrible, and certainly means we need to change the attitudes and minds of many men in this country. But if the question here is preventing violence against pregnant women then it seems like we're at least on the right track, if those numbers are right.

[Breeze54]

241. The article addresses it's title. You are adding the who gets killed more mem!

[Madspirit]

247. ...and his point

His point is also silly and irrelevant or should I say, "proves our point" because yes, men are more often the victims of violence and guess who is MORE often the perpetrator of THAT violence. Men. Men kill women. Men kill children and men kill each other at rates staggeringly higher than women kill anyone.
Lee

[Breeze54]

250. Yup!!

You're right on target! ;)

Men had the highest numbers, in all the categories, for being the perpetraors of murder and the victims.

[Recursion]

253. I've specifically avoided that topic

I did tangentially mention that men are about 80% of murder victims but as Breeze54 rightly said this thread is about women, not men. And yes, murders by women are vanishingly rare from a statistical standpoint.

But unless the cited rate of 1.7 murders per 100,000 pregnant women is vastly undercounted, pregnant women are much safer than women in general from murder, right?

[johnnie]

268. Delete

I've lost interest

[Recursion]

249. Pregnant women safer from murder than other women

That's an equally-accurate headline the story could have run. I was bothered because I found the argument disingenuous and manipulative, and one that continues the "worship women's fertility" idea I find troubling and antifeminist in many ways. Unless the figure of 1.7 murders per 100,000 pregnant women is vastly, vastly undercounted (and I have no doubt at all it is undercounted to some extent), we're still left with pregnant women being significantly safer from murder than other women in their age group. Whether that's a good thing (fewer murdered pregnant women) or a bad thing (more murdered non-pregnant women), I'm not sure; in general it seems pregnant women are safer from all forms of death than non-pregnant women.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong? Do you want me to support mandatory arrest and prison for domestic violence? I do. Actual enforcement of restraining orders including police protection for battered women? I do. Impeachment of the justices that overturned the VAWA? I'm there. But I also think we need to address the problems that the data actually show exist, and it seems like as a society we must be doing something right about protecting pregnant women from homicides if their murder rate is that much lower than women in general.

[Breeze54]

257. It's all under counted and under researched, as we already established.

Over 350,000 pregnant women are attacked or experience violence every year.
Link above.

[Breeze54]

236. DEATHS- Final Data 2003 - National Vital Statistics report

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/womens_health.htm

DEATHS- Final Data 2003 - National Vital Statistics Report (120 pages)
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_13.pdf

[Recursion]

244. That one was even more clear

Compare 1.7 homicides per 100,000 pregnant women to the homicide rate among women in general, which is available there by age group. Sticking with the age groups in which pregnancies generally occur:

Homicides per 100,000 women aged 15-19: 2.9
Homicides per 100,000 women aged 20-24: 4.6
Homicides per 100,000 women aged 25-34: 4.2
Homicides per 100,000 women aged 35-44: 3.8

Only the age groups of 5-9 and over 45 show a lower homicide rate than 1.7 per 100,000

[Breeze54]

246. This is the 2nd link I've posted with age charts broken down...

see upthread...

and Homicides per 100,000 women aged 20-24: 4.6 is the highest!

And it's also more prevalent in minorities, according to this or another link - CDC possibly.

[Recursion]

251. Right. 4.6 vs. 1.7

Women in general (pregnant or not) aged 20-24 are almost 3 times as likely to be murdered as the subset of pregnant women.

[Morgana LaFey]

264. no -- the subset would be included in those figures nt

[Recursion]

269. Right, but we know the pregnant women's murder rate is roughly 1.7

Which means the non-pregnant women's murder rate is somewhat higher than 4.6, since the 4.6 represents both pregnant and non-pregnant women. What I can't seem to find is a comparable rate of maternity; I'm not even sure how one should define maternity for this purpose, given the ambiguities of many early pregnancies.

[Breeze54]

271. You must've missed the part that clearly states that

the statistics are based on pregnancies and the FULL YEAR AFTER GIVING BIRTH!
(at least for one of the studies I posted) (Not sure which one now)

And it was noted that not all female murder victims are tested for pregnancy.

[Recursion]

277. But that just makes the difference greater

You're right, the study that came up with 1.7 per 100,000 included up to a year after birth; but that means at least some of those 1.7 had already given birth, meaning the actual rate was lower than 1.7.

[Breeze54]

278. Not necessarily. I guess you should e-mail the researchers and ask.

Besides, many of the studies have been done in different years and by different methods
and by different groups and none are current. So? We really do not know the whole picture.
It's a crying shame.

[Recursion]

281. It is, and we have to take violence against women out of the darkness

Because women are systematically denied the protections of the legal system and of the social system (hell, comedians still use violence against women as a joke with little consequence). Maybe the whole dataset is a wash because of how underreported it is; I don't know.

[dsc]

263. Thank you for the link

Here is some of what I am talking about.

This is the data from 2002 for women ages 20 to 24.



I will have to retype it since evidently pasting won't work no matter what I do

Rank Cause deaths percent rate per 100k
all all 4662 100 47.3
1 accident 1818 39 18.4
2 assult(murder) 457 9.8 4.6
3 malignant neoplasms 415 8.9 4.2
4 suicide 345 7.4 3.5

This is the data for males of the same age group

Rank Cause deaths percent rate per 100k
all all 14,572 100.0 140.8
1 accident 6,457 44.3 62.4
2 assult (murder) 2,870 19.7 27.7
3 suicide 2,152 14.8 20.8
4 malignant neoplasms 592 4.1 5.7

Now looking at those statistics and the fact that diseases were broken down into individual diseases, we are left with a couple of conclusions. First, men, not women, are by far the more likely to be murdered (by a factor of 6) and that cancer is far closer to being number 2 than murder is to being number 1. I am not saying this isn't a problem but I am saying that the press is presenting this in as alarming manner as possible. A far more reasonable presentation of the same data would be to point out women are less likely to die of murder, cancer, and suicide combined than to die of accidents.

Secondly, diseases as a whole (just looking at the top ten causes of death) accounted for 890 deaths (causes 3, 5-7, 9-10) which is more than murder and suicide combined (802). This is as much a story about our sucess in fighting cancers that kill the young as it is a story about our failure to control murder. Just 43 more cancer deaths would have resulted in murder being the number 3 cause instead of the number 2 cause of death. Again, even one murder is too many, but this reeks of sensational journalism.

[Madspirit]

265. This is THE stupidest post I've ever seen...bar none....

...and pummeling gays in hardly a stat. in the BIG picture. I will laugh from now on when I hear all your sensationalist journalism crap about gay hate crimes.

Thank-you brother..not. You really don't get it. You're bringing cancer stats into something about institutionalized incredible violence?!

You should be ashamed of yourself.
Lee

[dsc]

276. Cancer deaths have everything to do with this

The title of the article is "murder is number 2 cause of death among women". Thus the number 3 cause surely does matter. I guarentee, without knowing the numbers, that until recently cancer was number 2. Thus this article's title couldn't be what it was even a few years ago and that is without regard to the number of women murder per year (which went down every year during Clinton's term). I think it has gone back up now, though I don't know for sure. But had cancer deaths not dropped then the rank would have been different. You can call me stupid until the cows come home and give birth to aliens but the numbers speak for themselves. And the numbers are your numbers, not mine.

[OzarkDem]

289. Cancer is the number 2 cause of death in women (all ages)

Murder isn't even in the top 20.

Is the previous poster referring to a certain age subset? If younger women, murder and accidents show higher per 100,000 simply because people at that age have very low death rates overall.

[OzarkDem]

287. Leading causes of death in US women

Heart attacks, malignant neoplasms (mostly lung and breast cancer) strokes.

[Madspirit]

291. End Abuse

http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts

While women are less likely than men to be victims of violent crimes overall, women are five to eight times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner.

[Madspirit]

245. ...and frankly

I find your attitude very upsetting. If people don't own what they do, it will not change. Misogyny and patriarchy are real and violent. Of course, I'm one of those silly-assed bleeding hearts who truly would apologize for slavery or what we did to the indigenous peoples, being as I still benefit from it all, including the un-level playing field. You cannot change something unless you delve deeply into it and that includes owning it. Men beat women and children to death EVERY day. Every single day. ...and you're concerned with a proper link? Well, we both...the OP and I...have given you plenty of links.

You're supposed to be a brother. You're a gay man. You want hate crime legislation for us...lesbians and gays...and yet you get all itchy when someone talks about HATE crimes perpetrated by men against women?! I guess it's not Okay to kill a gay but it is OK to kill a woman. It's not OK to bash a gay but it is OK to bash a woman?!

I think your post saddened me the most. I expect it from some of the macho folks around here but not from a brother...not from family. If you can't say "sexism" and "misogyny" I really don't ever want to hear "homophobia" from you again.
Lee

[dsc]

272. i think you need to calm down and read

First, i asked, not assumed, that the numbers for accidents and disease would out number murder. Turns out I was right, look at my post detailing that. Second, I do think we should not fall for alarmist stuff from the media. Yes, murder is bad, but women are less likely to be murdered than die of either accident or disease, and are way less likely to die that way than similar aged men. The fact is a pregnant woman has a very low likelihood of dying at all, an even lower likelihood of being murdered, and a still lower likelihood of being murdered by the man in her life. The man she is with has a much higher likelihood of being murdered than she does of simplying dying (provided he is of a similar age). None of that says there isn't a problem, but it does say that reporters like to gin up stories and sell papers. Ironicly, it is an unhearlded bit of good news that even lets this story run at all. Cancer deaths among the young have been going down which caused cancer to fall to number 3 as a cause of death for young women.

Sure there is sexism and misogyny. Sure this story is part of that. But that isn't to say this story has been presented in a non alarmist way. Rank isn't the only factor here. Numbers matter.

[Breeze54]

279. The story is based on facts!!!

:eyes:

[dsc]

283. in fairness it is

I didn't say it wasn't. So are political commercials. I just think that the article was as much advicacy as it was journalism.

[Madspirit]

280. From Here On Out

Every thread you post about a gay brother being beaten to death or asking for support for hate crimes, I will scoff and laugh and dismiss and DIMINISH the severity of it because hey, in the scheme of things, we gays and lesbians aren't really beaten to death THAT much. I mean really...what kind drama queen are you? Compared to the number of dead straight men, gays are nada.
Lee

[dsc]

285. actually by hate crimes

we outnumber straight men not the otherway around. I also didn't say we shouldn't worry about this I just said we shouldn't overstate the case. But frankly you are too emotional to actually consider what I actually wrote. We will have to agree to disagree because I would rather not fight with you in a fight we won't ever finish. Everyone has those issues. This is yours. And that is fine.

[Madspirit]

286. ...and women are murdered more than gay men...

...and that's a hate crime too...one against your daughters, lovers, sisters, friends, mothers, aunts, grandmothers, etc. It's really sad when a gay man is a misogynist and unfortunately, it's not that rare.
Lee

[MedleyMisty]

292. I'm reading about the effects of oppression on oppressed groups in The Nature of Prejudice

Apparently research showed the members of oppressed groups tended towards having either quite a bit less or quite a bit more out-group prejudice than the members of the dominant group. Some oppressed people sympathize with other groups. Others try to assimilate more with the dominant group and adopt its hatreds and prejudices in an effort to escape their oppressed status. So perhaps sexist gay men think, "Hey, I'll look like one of the guys if I hate on women and they'll accept me more and not hate on me so much."

[Morgana LaFey]

275. You know what makes it even worse -- certainly more ironic

Is the fact that there'd BE no homophobia were it not for misogyny:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=150280&mesg_id=150280

See the OP, Post #73, the subthread starting with post #19 and probably others.

[Morgana LaFey]

258. Ya had me going -- for all the world I thought you were going to

become more human. But no, you still had to deflect from the real horror of this by diluting the murder of women and pregnant women BY THEIR MATES by decrying "the murder of anyone."

Yeah, that it's a hate crime -- a crime against women purely because they are women (and though inferior and less than and dehumanized and objectified).

Then you go on to call it "alarmist tricks by the media."

This makes it actually worse than what I originally thought of you.

[BlueIris]

261. An important, if disturbing, thread. And:

[ismnotwasm]

293. Oh oh, you posted a link from NOW

That brings out misogyny. Calm, reasoned I'm-right-and-I-have-the-stats-to-prove-it misogyny. Actually, you didn't need NOW. You brought up the topic of violence against women. In every thread I have ever seen on the topic in open forums, there is an attempt to belittle the claims, dismiss any evidence, minimize the damage. Every one. I read through the whole thread, and felt the topic was worth discussing, I think you posted great links, I think you addressed the statistical trend very well.

Funny I have no need or desire to cover my eyes and ears and decide this can't be happening. Maybe because I can relate? I could be a pregnant women at risk? (Gods forbid) I certainly hope that's not why. I would hope it's because I have a care and concern for any trend of violence that spikes upward. Especially when the violence has always been there. Especially against a specific group. Especially--I'll admit, when it's happening to a group that has already been a proven target for violence. What happens when violence against pregnant women stops short of murder? A Visit the local hospitals and shelters is an eye opening experience.

[Breeze54]

295. Yeah...I'd better straighten up 'my act'! LOL!

:eyes:

I didn't seek out NOW, actually! ;) I just googled pregnant women murdered stats and it was near the top!

I certainly hope you aren't one of 'them there preggers' being targeted for violence. :hug: (Just in case.)

Well said!! Thanks! ;)

[ismnotwasm]

296. You're welcome, and thank YOU

(NOT pregnant, BTW)

[Madspirit]

294. kick...n/t

[kiteinthewind]

297. Thanks for posting this! I teach prenatal education and I do a Domestic Violence screening of all my

clients. Many are shocked to hear the number one cause of death for pregnant women. :hi:

[Breeze54]

302. You are to be commended!

:yourock:

:hi:

[Miss Chybil]

300. Terminating parental rights in order to dodge child support is a non-starter.

And, I'm sure, looming child support is what drives a lot of men to commit these crimes. Somehow, they feel it will be easier to live with the memory of having murdered someone they once loved and, perhaps, of having murdered their own children than it would be to send a check and do without cable and the SUV for a few years.