Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

NOBLE LIES 203periodicals uncritically indulge the feminists in their inflationary tendencies.It is hard to avoid the impression that the medical journals havedropped their usual standards when reporting the findings of the batterystudies. It is pretty clear that studies of this poor caliber on some othersubject of medical interest and importance would either not be reportedor be reported with many caveats. To my mind, giving research on "women'stopics" abnormal latitude is patronizingly sexist.In November of 1992 the Family Violence Prevention Fund did asurvey of all 397 emergency departments in California hospitals. Nursemanagers were asked, "During a typical month, approximately how manypatients have been diagnosed with an injury caused by domestic violence?"The nurses' estimates ranged from two per month for small hospitalsto eight per month for the large hospitals. This finding correspondsto Gelles and Straus's low figure for violence that could require hospitalization.Those who did the fund survey did not accept its results; they concludedinstead that the nurses are simply not equipped to deal with theproblem and are vastly understating it. "The low identity rates reportedin this survey might be explained by the marked lack of domestic violence-specifictraining." One may agree that nurses and doctors do needthat kind of training. On the other hand, the low rates of battery theyfound sound plausible; for unlike all the other studies on emergencyrooms and violence, this one actually polled a fair cross section of hospitals.Because many feminist activists and researchers have so great a stakein exaggerating the problem and so little compunction in doing so, objectiveinformation on battery is very hard to come by. The Super Bowl storywas a bald untruth from the start. The "rule of thumb" story is an exampleof revisionist history that feminists happily fell into believing. It reinforcestheir perspective on society, and they tell it as a way of winning convertsto their angry creed.As it is told in the opening essay in one of the most popular textbooksin women's studies, Women: A Feminist Perspective, "The popular expression'rule of thumb' originated from English common law, which alloweda husband to beat his wife with a whip or stick no bigger in diameterthan his thumb. The husband's prerogative was incorporated into Americanlaw. Several states had statutes that essentially allowed a man to beathis wife without interference from the courts." 49The story is supposed to bring home to students the realization thatthey have been born into a system that tolerates violence against women.Sheila Kuehl, the feminist legal activist who had played a central role in