Feminist Gender Bias

exclusion of the boy child

Dr. Peter Jaffe and John Liston, both called to testify as “expert” witnesses at the Cornwall Public Inquiry, condone the exclusion of males/boys from sex abuse screening protocols. Though not identified in Forgetting the male victims of child abuse, the pair are the referenced Cornwall Public Inquiry witnesses who were contributors to Task Force Health Effects Woman Abuse, a September 2000 London-Ontario-based-research-project which is the blue print for gender discrimination throughout the province of Ontario.

Despite the publicly known reality that countless young boys were and continue to be sexually abused throughout Canada Jaffe, Liston and their task force confreres decided – deliberately - to exclude males from screening protocols.

The protocols are directed exclusively at females, age 12 and over.  “Women.”

As has become the norm, the sexual violation of a child’s innocence and body is denigrated through the protocols -  lumped in with every other real or perceived notion of abuse, be it emotional, physical or financial, be the “victim” 12, 20, 60 or 100.

“Women” age 12 and above will be collectively screened for “abuse,” be it sexual, physical, emotional, or whatever else someone decides on the fly might constitute abuse.

According to Jaffe, Liston and their Task Force confreres, “woman abuse” is a public health issue, a matter of getting to “the root causes of ill health.”

What, you might ask, of the ill health of 12-year-old boy who is sodomized?  Or that of the 40-year old man who endured long-term same-sex childhood sexual abuse?  What about them?

Excluded.

The rationale for the exclusion of males and the boy child?

Here’s a sampling from the final report of the Task Force on the Health Effects of Woman Abuse, penned by Marion Boyd, chairman of the task force, feminist, and former Ontario NDP Attorney General.  I have inserted comment behind each:

“regarding the physical abuse of men by women, evidence supports our conclusion that the incidence is low.”

[There is ample evidence to prove the contrary]

 “women have taken concerted political and social action to develop and deliver abuse services to women over the past twenty-five years, no similar movement has yet arisen to pressure governments and communities to provide abuse services to men.”

[No shame here.  Never mind that it is predominantly men’s hard-earned dollars which have been pilfered to fund feminist research, battered women’s shelters and feminist counseling centres.]

“men are identified as the abuser in more than 90% of the cases [of intimate partner abuse]

[Males are identified as victims in 100% of the cases of same-sex childhood abuse against boys]

 “There are a few private, health care and community services available in some communities that do accept abused male clients.  There is little point in screening for a health condition when no referral resources are available to serve the needs of those identified or when the health condition itself may be uncommon.

[This seems to be a veiled reference sexual abuse.  If that’s the case, what is meant by “the health condition may be uncommon”?]

Liston and Jaffe are party to this?

Two men who condone the exclusion of males from sex abuse screening protocols were paid – no doubt handsomely – to testify as “expert” witnesses at the Cornwall Public Inquiry? At an inquiry commissioned in response to persistent allegations of a paedophile ring and coverup? In which the victims were predominantly male?

Not only that but, thanks to the inquiry’s toothless mandate which omits reference to “sex” and talks in broad but vague generalities about “abuse,” the pair were “expert” witnesses at an inquiry which has heard evidence of the horrific physical and emotional abuse endured by a number of young lads in foster care.

But, as far as Jaffe, Liston and the task force were concerned, boys don’t matter.   Ditto the broken men who endured the abuse don’t count.  No interest here in their health and well-being

Just imagine: Boys were excluded because evidence shows that the incidence of females battering males is low!

And Dr. Peter Jaffe, the recipient of thousands upon thousands of tax payers dollars to conduct and further his own research and agenda, agreed that the exclusion is just because there are next to no services available for men!

How have we come to this?

Some background

 The clerical sex abuse scandals 

To put the deliberate exclusion of men and the boy child from sex abuse screening protocols into context it is essential first to understand what was happening with male victims of same-sex childhood abuse in Canada  throughout the 90s, but most particularly at what was happening in Dr. Jaffe's own back yard in London, Ontario.

With regard to the former, there are several factors which warrant mention.

First, the 90's saw an explosion of man/boy sex abuse allegations.  

From a purely Roman Catholic perspective alone there was a proliferation of  allegations seeping into the public domain of priests sexually molesting young boys. 

From diocese to diocese.  Coast to coast.

Then there was the “institutional” sexual abuse at Mount Cashel (Newfoundland). ,

And, of course, there was the scandal oozing from the Archdiocese of St. John’s Newfoundland. 

As men known to have a particular interest in sexual abuse I would think that Dr. Jaffe and John Liston would have been familiar with the scandals.

I would think too that they would have or should have been familiar with the Winter Commission, struck to address the problem of clerical sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of St. John's Newfoundland (not Mount Cashel), and with its final report, the Winter Commission Report.  The latter acknowledged that the clerical abuse plaguing the faithful “homosexual” in nature and that the perpetrators, who  “appear to be homosexual,” engaged in homosexual activity by “preference.” Strangley enough, on that particular point the commission concluded that the abuses it had investigated were  "a statistical anomaly" because “homosexual persons are, statistically, not the group most likely to abuse children sexually.” 

It’s interesting to note here that in a Brief submitted to the commission the St. John’s Status of Women Council, a feminist organization, expressed concern that the homosexual populace, “an already oppressed group of people” would shoulder the blame for the scandal.  The council informed the commission that:

It is accepted in treatment circles that the majority of offenders in child sex abuse cases are heterosexual males.  Whether the children involved were female or male is completely irrelevant, the crime committed by the clergy was paedophilia.

and urged that:

The Catholic Church should publicly make the distinction between male homosexuality and the crime of paedophilia committed by members of the clergy.

 In its final report the commission indicated that it was disturbed by the “climate of homophobia” in the Archdiocese of St. John’s and advised that it must be addressed “if society is to avoid the unnecessary stigmatization of a significant portion of humankind.” The commission recommended that education programmes “should direct public attitudes towards a healthy understanding of sexuality with concomitant goals of discouraging sexual stereotyping and homophobia.”  

Close on the heels of the Winter Commission Report came the scandals at Alfred and Uxbridge Ontario.  Both facilities were reform schools operated by the Roman Catholic Christian Brothers. 

Perpetrators: male.  Victims: boys. 

The dust hadn’t settled on Mount Cashel, Alfred and Uxbridge when Perry Dunlop took David Silmser sex abuse allegations against Father Charles MacDonald and probation officer Ken Seguin to the Children’s Aid Society.

That was late 1993.

The lid was about to blow on the Cornwall sex abuse scandal and cover-up. 

Perpetrators: male.  Victims: predominantly boys.

Around that time, in the other corner of Ontario, right in Liston and Jaffe’s own London backyard, a raft of pornographic tapes were inadvertently fished from the river.  Tapes of men molesting boys.

In time, Project Guardian, an joint investigation into the scandal, was launched.

Somewhere in the order of 500 charges were laid against 64 men by 84 victims.  There are conflicting reports on the outcome of the trials.  I also see one source indicates 5305 charges were laid.  I question the figure.  I will try to confirm both the number of charges and the outcome of the trials. 

What is known definitively is that there were 64 “alleged” molesters and 84 victims. Most if not all victims were identified and tracked down through the porn tapes.

Perpetrators: male.  Victims: boys.

The London scandal was not classified as one of historical sexual abuse. 

None of the victims apparently came forward voluntarily and most, if not all - as is typical of young male victims -  would not acknowledge they had been or were being sexually molested.  Indeed it takes most male victims of same-sex abuse years to come forward -  twenty, thirty or forty years for these tortured souls to finally understand that what was done to them was wrong, and that the guilt and shame which engulfs them rightly belongs to their abuser.  And, in fact, for the many victims subjected to long-term abuse it takes those many years to understand that the apparent acts of kindness and gifts/”perks” proffered by predator to prey were just that, a brash, selfish, self-serving and lustful seduction by an adult predator of his youthful prey, a simple child – a boy child.

Jaffe and Liston knew all about Project Guardian and the boys who were molested.

Liston – who, incidentally,  attended London’s Christ the King College from 1963-66, a period overlapping former Bishop Eugene Larocque’s 1965-68 tenure as Dean -  testified that the male victims “were seen as getting too old when they got to be 13, 14, 15” and told how those boys would then wind up “recruiting younger boys.”

As “experts” both entered a copy of Project “Guardian”: The Sexual Exploitation of Male Youth in London as an exhibit to accompany their testimony. 

They knew.   

Project “Guardian”: The Sexual Exploitation of Male Youth in London  

Project “Guardian” (the report) a research report funded by the Ministry of Community and Social Services, was published in 1997. The research was spearheaded by the London Police Department (Julian Fantino, now OPP Commissioner, was then Chief of police), London Children’s Aid Society (John Liston was then Executive Director) and the London Family Court Clinic (Dr. Peter Jaffe was then Executive Director). The three agencies were involved in the unfolding Project Guardian investigation and saw it as an opportunity for, and I quote, “exciting” research.

Some quotable quotes from the report:

* “...the sexual exploitation of dozens of male youths carried on without detection or interruption, for years!”

* “Two thirds of the male youth complainants were ‘known’ to the CAS, as a result of having received varying levels of service. Many were indeed wards of the CAS...”

* “Some of the adult defendants were well respected professionals in our community, with credible personas...”

* “Despite increased education and awareness of the problem of sexual exploitation of children in our society, the proliferation of child abuse prevention programs in our own schools, and greater sensitivity to the problem of sexual victimization, PG flourished, successfully recruiting 80 young males (those identified by police investigation) over a fifteen year period.  How did we mss this? .... How could we not know what was going on?”

* “We need to learn from this experience so as to be more effective and aware in the future.”

* “Clinical research has noted that male victims of sexual abuse have been shown to be more reluctant than females to disclose abuse, resulting in a very high proportion of cases unreported.”

* “The peak age for recruitment into PG was 13, but was as young as 8 for some youths.”

* “The sexual activities and abusive relationships were clandestine and difficult to uncover.”

* “None of the PG youths came forward on their own to disclose the sexual abuse.”

* “The short term impact on the victims of the sexual exploitation appears to have been very negative.”

* “We recommend that consideration be given to raising the age of consent for sexual activity to 16.”

*It was out hope that studying this multi victim/multi offender child exploitation “network’ would lead us to a greater insight into the victimization of male children (under 18) by adult males, and would possibly offer suggestions for different avenues for early intervention with youth at risk.”

What happened?

Why, with such remarkable insight into the under-reporting of man/boy sexual abuse, and the concurrent awareness of the profoundly negative impact such abuse has on boys, would Jaffe and Liston decide it’s good and proper to exclude boys and men from health screening protocols?

But, they did. They excluded them.

 Reaction to Project Guardian

According to the report, the Homophile Association of London Ontario and the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario “reacted negatively to the police investigation, expressing their view that adult male homosexuals in London were being scapegoated.”  The former expressed the view that the police investigation was motivated more by “homophobic” attitudes.  It took the position that the majority of the sexual encounters targeted during the investigation were acts which occurred between consenting males. 

It was, however, the response from a Roman Catholic gay rights activist and Ryerson professor of journalism which caused the biggest stir.

A veritable public furor erupted when Gerald Hannon, founder of the Body Politic, a gay rights magazine which started publishing in 1971, stepped into the fray.

On 11 March 1995 a column by Hannon critical of the London police ran in the Toronto Globe & Mail.  "The kiddie-porn ring that wasn't" triggered a complaint by Julian Fantino to the Press Council.  Hannon apparently in turn used his appearance before the council to advocate “inter-generational” sex and ”man-boy-love.”   

The resultant furor played out in the media for months.  Toronto’s Ryerson University (formerly Ryerson Tech) eventually dismissed Hannon.  Meanwhile the media was abuzz.  There was talk of NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association) which Hannon supported, as, said he, he would support any organization which utilizes legal means to change the law. Then there was word that Hannon supplemented his income by prostituting himself.

One salacious morsel after the other. 

Did the folks in London Ontario follow the stories?

No doubt Julian Fantino did. 

What of Liston and Jaffe?

If they did, how could they possibly agree that boys should not be screened and protected?

Why, with knowledge that homosexual paedophiles, or pederasts or ephebophiles or whatever you want to call them were boldly lobbying to legalise/normalise the their perverted lust for boys under the mantra of “love,” would the task force deliberately exclude the particularly vulnerable boy child? 

But, they did....

  The Exclusion

In 2000 the Middlesex-London Health Unit released Task Force on the Health Effcts of Woman Abuse. 

September 2000: Task Force Health Effects Woman Abuse (pdf file)   

The Task Force chaired by former Ontario NDP Attorney General Marion Boyd set about to establish gender-biased health screening protocols which blatantly discriminate against males, young and old..

Boyd, a Londoner, feminist and gay rights advocate, had, from 1984 to 1990, served as Executive Director of the Battered Women’s Advocacy Centre.  Jaffe, was a founding board member from 1983 to 1985.

Dr. Peter Jaffe aided the work of the task force.  Indeed he warranted special recognition as one who "provided encouragement and advice." 

John Liston was listed as a member (as Executive Director London Middlesex Children’s Aid Society.)

The task force mandate was “to develop a public health approach to the issue of woman abuse.” A specific focus was to adopt a universal screening protocol which: 

· “Fosters early identification of any form of woman abuse experienced by women seen in health care settings; 

· “Encourages the assessment and documentation of the health effects of abuseon disclosing women; 

· “Addresses the immediate safety issues faced by disclosing women; and 

· “Strengthens the integrated referral network so that all women are made aware of services for abused women in the health care, criminal justice, community service and private sectors.”

The final report was penned by Boyd.  Therein she wrote:

"The Task Force felt strongly that the London model needed to be a Routine, Universal, Comprehensive Screening (RUCS) Protocol, in which all women over the age of 12 would be screened for any form of physical, sexual or emotional abuse occurring in childhood, adolescence or adulthood."

There it is.    All "women."   Not females mind you.  Not women and girls. 

All “women” age 12 and over, to be screened for, amongst other abuses, sexual abuse.  To facilitate “early identification” of abuse.  To analyze the health effects on abused “women.”

For “women” only.

No male screening.  No screening of the 12 year-old boy child.

“Women.”  Age 12 and above.

Was there ample evidence that boys were/are sorely in need of protection and assistance?  Indeed there was.

Was the exclusion of the boy child deliberate?  Absolutely. 

Men “may” be victims

Marion Boyd rationalized the discrimination and exclusion with the following:

* The Task Force chose to deal only with the issue of woman abuse, even though its members recognize that men may also be victims of abuse [emphasis added] 

* Although women have taken concerted political and social action to develop and deliver abuse services to women over the past twenty-five years, no similar movement has yet arisen to pressure governments and communities to provide abuse services to men. 

* There is little point in screening for a health condition when no referral resources are available to serve the needs of those identified or when the health condition itself may be uncommon.

What can you say to that?

What can you say?

Men “may” be victims of abuse?  May? 

And bully for those who have been forever dipping into men’s pockets to finance their endless stream of feminist research on domestic violence, and wife battering, and violence against women? And dipped into men’s pockets again for “woman abuse”? And were dipping again to promote and market their latest novelty?  And dipped and dipped and continue to dip to fund their shelters?

And what pray tell do these people mean,  men haven’t taken concerted political action to pressure governments to provide services? 

Did it ever for a moment cross their feminized minds that perhaps, just perhaps, the men of Canada have been too busy working to make ends meet while their pockets were being picked dry? Or that perhaps, just perhaps, men who were sexually abused are too broken to fight a good fight? Or that perhaps, just perhaps, they’re tired of getting the door slammed in their face by heartless women? Or, perhaps they’re too busy fighting for access to their children?

Really and truly astounding.

Boyd herself said: “Most of the analysis of woman abuse has been done from a feminist perspective, a psychosocial approach unfamiliar to many health care professionals.”

True enough, and, I might add, unfamiliar to the average upright hard working right-minded citizen.

Dr. Jaffe has his name attached to this?

And John Liston?

“Experts” at the Cornwall Public Inquiry?

And Jaffe on the Advisory Panel to boot?

There’s more...

The More Things Change

This screening and the inevitable disclosures of abuse will open up a Pandora’s Box.  Who knows who or what will be reported and defined as “abuse.”  Men denied access to their children on a feminist whim know only too well where that can lead.  Groups of such men have been forming across the country – trying to do battle within a system which blithely stereotypes females as truth sayers and males as the devil incarnate.

“Early advocates.”  Boyd is referencing Linda MacLeod, feminist and champion of transition homes for battered women when the industry was in its infancy.

Back in 1980 Linda MacLeod wrote the deceptively titled Wife Battering in Canada: the Vicious Circle.  Therein she coined the infamous - and disputed  - estimate that 1:10 wives are battered.  If perchance there was “consent,” then it wasn’t battering at all.

The general public was ignorant of the feminist deception at play here.  Wives were not wives.  Nor was battering battering per se. 

MacLeod defined wife battering thus:

Wife battering is violence, physical and/or psychological, expressed by a husband or male or lesbian live-in lover, toward his/her live-in lover, to which the “wife” does not consent and which is directly condoned by the traditions, laws and attitudes prevalent in the society in which it occurs.”

1:10 wives are battered by their husbands.  That was the message. 

MacLeod’s work was published and well-utilized by the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, an agency of the federal government.

By 1988 MacLeod had re-assessed and considerably broadened her definition of wife battering:

 Wife battering is the loss of dignity, control and safety as well as the feeling of powerlessness and entrapment experienced by women who are direct victims of ongoing or repeated physical, psychological, economic, sexual and/or verbal violence or who are subjected to persistent threats or the witnessing of such violence against their children, other relatives, friends, pets and/or cherished possessions, by their boyfriends, husbands, live-in lovers, ex-husbands or ex-lovers, whether male or female.  The term “wife battering” will also be understood to encompass the ramifications of the violence for the woman, her children, her friends and relatives, and for society as a whole.

That, of course, thrusts the door ajar, subjecting unwitting males to all manner of  nonsensical allegations of violence.  For example, a 16-year-old girl could have been a wife battering statistic if her boyfriend threatened her snarling Doberman.  If she was in a bad mood and wanted to report him, so be it.  Instant victim.  Instant statistic.

Unfortunately, it’s that ridiculous. 

But, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Now it’s “woman abuse.”  That’s all. 

There’s no room in the feminist lexicon for the boy child.  No room for males as victims. No room for heterosexual females abusing heterosexual males.

In case you missed it, note that in an era where the average sexually ignorant soul barely knew there was such a practice as lesbianism MacLeod was going to bat for female victims of lesbian abuse. 

And, note:  no male victims.

Twenty plus years later we have RUCS protocols.  Thanks to the likes of Marion Boyd, Dr. Peter Jaffe, John Liston et al, the boy child is excluded.

The “abuse” industry

On 15 January 2003 Dave Brown called described the domestic violence campaign as akin to an evangelical movement with Dr. Peter Jaffe as its Billy Graham. He described the movement as an industry.

    

That it is.  A gender-biased industry. For the greater anti-male good of the feminist cause. 

   

Men and boys excluded.    

    

Justice Glaude has a background in the wife battering industry.  He was a founding member and executive member of the Pavillion Family Resource Centre for Domestic Violence.  The centre services victims of domestic violence and provides short term crisis intervention in Northern Ontario.   

Then there's Premier Dalton McGuinty.

In December 2004, as male victims in Cornwall anxiously awaited word of an inquiry, the McGuinty government announced a four-year Domestic Violence Action Plan.  According to a May 2006 press release announcing another influx of dollars to the cause in Northern Ontario, the McGuinty 2004 plan includes:

better community supports, training for front-line workers and professionals, public education and prevention initiatives, and improvements to Ontario’s criminal and family justice system.

In April 2005, four months after McGuinty unveiled his plan, and after months of waiting, the inquiry was commissioned.

No mention in the mandate of sexual abuse.  No mention of “sex” period.  No mention that the Cornwall victims were predominantly male.  For that matter, no mention of the allegations of a paedophile ring and cover-up involving prominent men in the community which prompted calls for an inquiry in the first place.

Then of course there's Jaffe and Liston.

That's where we started. 

In February 2006, Dr. Peter Jaffe and John Liston were sworn in as “expert” witnesses. They were, sad to say, two of many experts who seemed to have minimal knowledge of man/boy sexual abuse and an abundance of knowledge about domestic violence, battered women and so on. 

And there's Dr. David A. Wolfe.

Dr. David Wolfe is a close colleague of Jaffe.  A fellow psychologist.

It was Wolfe who kicked off the “expert” testimony to help Glaude "frame" his inquiry. 

Wolfe, a Londoner who provided his expertise in the dying throes of the Christian Brothers scandals, co-authored a number of books and papers with Jaffe.  They frequently share the platform at conferences.  It was Wolfe who came out with the startling rationale that paedophilia is a “sexual orientation.”

He too has been submerged in the industry.

And then there's Glaude's picks for his Advisory Panel.  On July 2006 he publicly announced that Dr. Peter Jaffe would sit on the Cornwall Public Inquiry Advisory Panel.

Meanwhile the Ottawa-based Men’s Project, which launched in 1997 solely to assist male victims of sexual abuse, has been slowly diversifying and broadening its outreach and services to embrace “women as well as GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered) identified persons.”  I suppose that might be an understandable move if there were a dearth of such services for women.  But that hasn’t been and is not the the case.  One provincial and/or federal government after the other has consistentlty and generally benevolently fuelled the feminists' insatiable coffers.  There has been a wealth of services for women.  The Men’s Project, on the other hand, was the only agency of its kind available in Ontario to assist male victims.   

Still, while pshchologists, and doctors, and nurses, and health care workers, and police officers, and child care workers are busily excluding the traditionally excluded boy child and men, the inquiry and provinical government and who knows who else started fuelling the Men's Project, and, lo and behold, the only male-exclusive service began to diversify .  The Men's Project now provides services for women.

At the end of the day, sad to say, what the  RUCS Protocols and their Jaffe/Liston involvement obliges me to acknowledge is that the tragedy and horror of man/boy sexual abuse has been politicized, consumed by the rumbling feminist movement as it advances it’s navel-gazing, tax-payer-funded, anti-male, but oxymoronically “gay” friendly agenda.

A self-serving industry.   

Who cares about the boy child?

He's prey.

Check the RUCS Protocols.  He’s excluded.

And the Cornwall Community Hospital was in on the ground floor. (Microsoft Word document)

Duty to Report

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this.

 Under the Ontario Child and Family Services Act there is a “duty to report.”  It’s not a choice.  In fact, it is a punishable offence NOT to report.

Indeed that’s what unleashed the Cornwall sexual abuse scandal and cover-up.  Perry Dunlop discovered that sex abuse allegations he considered serious and believable had been ‘shelved’ by his police force.  He feared children were at risk.  He went to the CAS.  A board of inquiry ruled he did the right thing.

With that in mind, look what  Marion Boyd et al had to say about reporting child abuse and/or children at risk:

* Many professionals may worry that asking questions about and documenting abuse in the patient’s record will increase their likelihood of being embroiled in legal actions. In Ontario, there is no requirement for health care professionals to report abuse of adult women (i.e. women over age 16) as long as abuse and neglect of children under 16 is not suspected or known. 

* One of the most contentious issues in the abused women’s service network is the issue of mandatory reporting. Given some very high profile cases that identified failures to report child abuse and the consequent increased legislative pressure on professionals to report knowledge or suspicion of child abuse, it is not surprising that some might believe mandatory reporting of woman abuse should also be instituted to protect vulnerable women and/or to detect crime. 

* The Task Force did not discuss the issue of mandatory reporting at any length, although the justice representatives would have liked to consider the pros and cons in more detail. The majority of the Task Force expressed the concern that implementing the Routine Universal Comprehensive Screening (RUCS) Protocol would be much more difficult, even impossible, if mandatory reporting were the law in Ontario.  

What happened to the "Duty to Report" - Section 72 of the Ontario Child and Family Services Act?

What am I missing here?