I was just fascinated by this article by Shawn Bean, a great columnist for Parenting Magazine. He writes the Pop Culture section, and if like this, he's got more of the same at his site.
Why Do Women Even Start Families With Men? By Shawn Bean
Over the past five years, sperm banks have emerged as one of America’s biggest growth industries, to the tune of $320 million in annual revenue. California Cryobank, one of the largest sperm banks in the country, is doing all kinds of things to woo potential clients, including letting them shop for sperm donors based on the celebrities they resemble. As a byproduct of the unimaginable crimes allegedly perpetrated by a man in Cleveland, I’m betting that California Cryobank adds a few more zeroes to its next quarterly earnings report. I’m betting that more and more women start acing men out of the family planning process.
And well they should.
In his last HBO stand-up comedy special, Louis CK makes a funny but astute point about women dating men. “How do women still go out with guys, when you consider that there is no greater threat to women than men? We’re the number one threat to women. Globally and historically, we’re the number one cause of injury and mayhem to women… You know what the number one threat [to men] is? Heart disease.”
Sad but true. One in 6 women have experienced stalking victimization, compared to 1 in 19 men. Nearly 1 in 5 women report experiencing rape at some time in their lives. (For men, it’s 1 in 71.) Men are the child sex abusers in 86 percent of the cases reported against boys and 94 percent of the cases reported against girls. In cases of non-family-related abductions, 86 percent of the kidnappers are male, and the victims are almost exclusively female. In 80 percent of intimate partner homicides, no matter which partner was killed, the man physically abused the woman before the murder. The murder of women is so common it has its own term: Femicide. There is no mascucide.
Headline News recently asked the question: why is the Jodi Arias trail so popular with moms? Because for women, it’s like watching the trial of a golden-mantled tree kangaroo, or some other endangered species. It’s simply something they never see. Try this exercise: Think of all the men who have been tried and/or convicted of murdering a woman or multiple women. Run out of fingers yet? Now try the same exercise with women who have killed men. OK, let’s see. Arias. That woman Charlize Theron portrayed in Monster. Uhhh….
When it comes to scaring, threatening, killing, or causing bodily harm to the opposite sex, men are the New York Yankees, and women are a middle school intramural squad who have to borrow their cleats and jerseys. Yet women continue to go on first dates with us. They keep friending us. They haven’t stopped saying, “I do.” And most amazingly, they still start families with us.
These kinds of violent behaviors are passed down like burdensome heirlooms. Consider this: Boys who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults. It must be the men and fathers here today who break the cycle, and raise sons free of the horror that preceded them. It’s either that, or one day California Cryobank stock will be soaring alongside Apple and Google.
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