Thursday, November 5, 2009

Slander and lies and accountability, OH MY!

Sure as spring follows winter, sure as chocolate is one of the basic food groups and, most importantly, sure as anything on Baylyblog is seen as remotely critical of an "egalitarian" -- the religious feminists are howling with rage at the prospect that one of their number who has made claims of abuse might be asked to be accountable, to provide proof of her charges.

Never mind that we can all, if we be honest, tell a tale of false abuse claims made in the furtherance of a nicely advantageous divorce and child custody settlement. Never mind that false claims dog the victim the rest of their lives - there is *always* a whisper of suspicion on the part of some -- once the word is said, it can never be recalled. Never mind that it is *extraordinarily easy* to create false memories during "therapy". Never mind the wronged father who, once the claims of abuse were found to be ridiculously false and could never have occurred, lamented, "Where do I go to get my name back?" Never mind that religious feminists purvey their slanderous claims all over the internet - contrary to the public and repeated teach of men they claim enable abuse.

Oh, no, never mind all that. The only thing that matters is that evil patriarchalists are seen to be criticizing a poor, hurting, (allegedly) abused woman. Oh my, poor thing, how she has suffered. How DARE you question her, she used to be really, really famous and gave it all up. OK, no need to continue -- you know the drill.

Carl Friedan knew. For 30 years his ex-wife's false accusations of abuse dogged him -- for the rest of his life. Even then, he still lauded her for what she had accomplished on behalf of women. She was a raging dynamo, he said, but then lamented how she never realized that didn't work at home. Turns out that, when the crockery went flying in the Friedan household, it wasn't usually Carl tossing it at Betty.

Deuteronomy 19:17-19, NAS:

17 then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days.

18 "The judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness and he has accused his brother falsely,

19 then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.


6 comments:

eulogos said...

You don't say how you know this. Did someone interview, for instance, her son Danny? Or her daughter, whose name I forget?
I think getting inside a marriage from the outside is almost impossible.
But anyway, you should give some account of where you heard this and why you consider it credible.
Susan Peterson

Kamilla said...

Hi Susan,

How do I know what?

Kamilla

eulogos said...

Who threw the crockery in the Friedan household? And what was said before it got thrown?
Susan

Kamilla said...

Susan,

I consider it credible because of Betty's history of lying about the conditions of her marriage ( she was *never* a suburban housewife, for instance), because of her husband's support of her in spite of his admission that she could be violent at home, and because in her later life she began to backpedal on some of the claims she had made earlier in life.

Kamilla

eulogos said...

You consider what credible?

I get the feeling that you are referring to some book or article recently published that you think your readers know about and perhaps the rest of them do.

I wouldn't call an ex-husband's statement that his wife was sometimes violent an "admission." I'd call it an accusation or an allegation.

As far as I know Betty Friedan was a housewife in Nyack, New York, a very small town at that point, in an area considered a suburb, but one that had someone to come in to help with the cleaning so she had much more freedom than most.

My husband knew her son Danny. He didn't like Mrs. Friedan, but he has never been able to say why in any clear way. I do know that the role expected of women in those days could be stultifying, and this did not only consist of not working, but of not expressing one's opinion in mixed groups with men, of not being interested in certain subjects.
It was an all encompassing thing and those parts of it which I experienced made me want to throw crockery also.

A girl in my high school wanted to take woodshop at a time when she had just a study hall. The school called her parents in and suggested they take her to a child psychiatrist because she was disturbed in her identification as a girl. This was in the 1963-64 school year.

Just to give you an idea.
Susan

Kamilla said...

Susan,

I have no special access to any new articles. What I have referred to is part of the public record easily accessible by spending a few minutes with Google. If you want the truth about Betty Friedan (including the laughable lie that she was *ever* a housewife suffering from the "problem with no name"), you really should read Daniel Horowitz's biography. He is sympathetic to her, but does expose her lies about her Marxist past, her career as a journalist and her political activism for the Communist left.

She has been repeatedly "caught out" lying about her past, while her husband has not. Whose claims do you think are more credible?

No one is denying there were idiots around in 1963 and are still around today. But if you want to use anecdotal evidence to show Friedan's book was necessary, I'll just say, no thanks. Quite frankly, I'd rather live in a world where a girl is occasionally told girls shouldn't take shop than live in the one we've got today where young women are sent into combat. That's no improvement.

Kamilla