Per's MANifesto April 1997

Per's MANifesto: An electronic newsletter of news and opinion on
man-bashing, anti-male stereotypes and other great moral principles.
April, 1997.
WELCOME, READERS, to an issue we might have called "The Rape of
Reason." But instead we'll call it "Destroying Democracy?" Did you
know you're helping to destroy democracy just by reading this right
now? Sure you are, according to some people who have a stake in
preserving the status quo. Read on.
MANifesto is now on the Web, at
http://shell.idt.net/~per2/manifest.htm

INDEX:
I. PREDATORS AND PREY
II. PUNISHING A RESPONSIBLE MAN
III. THEIR CHOICE, OUR RESPONSIBILITY
IV. DESTROYING DEMOCRACY?
V. FEEDBACK ON HARASSMENT COMMENTS
VI. MORE STUPID LAW TRICKS
VII. ETHICS WATCHDOGS
HUMOR:
POW DEMANDS PARITY WITH HOSTAGES IN PERU.

==========
PREDATORS AND PREY
In the May 1996 MANifesto, we told you about another
influential feminist study being debunked -- Lenore J. Weitzman's
questionable "Divorce Revolution" study. It purported to show that
divorce hurled a huge percentage of women into poverty while improving
the status of men. There were questions raised about that study from
the beginning, but for some reason the major news media gladly ignored
the questions -- and the other studies that contradicted Weitzman.
Weitzman's study added the phrase "the feminization of poverty" to the
lexicon and influenced court decisions and governmental policy. Then
it turned out that Weitzman herself admitted that her study was wrong.
The people who questioned her study from the get-go had been right --
and they had been brushed aside.
Did the news media learn anything from this? Not at all.
They've continued to take their "studies" on gender issues from the
feminists. And the studies often turn out to be morally and
intellectually corrupt.
That's why Per's MANifesto is a valuable source for finding
out what's really going on. When feminist studies turn out to be
bogus, it just doesn't seem to attract the same attention the studies
got when they were first touted. Because it has happened again.
A while back, social agencies that deal with teen pregnancy
began reporting "anecdotal evidence" that up to half of all teen
pregnancies were due to statutory rape. It was, they said, a problem
of adult men in their 20s and 30s or older seducing very young girls
and then abandoning them.
This appealed to the natural instinct to protect girls, and to
the familiar image of men as sexual predators. It wasn't just
feminists who hopped on the bandwagon. There also were conservative
male lawmakers with Victorian views of females as naive waifs in need
of protection from bestial men. These forces joined together to demand
that we start enforcing statutory rape laws and jailing the S.O.B.s
who were seducing the flower of our fair young womanhood. Congress
even demanded a crackdown on statutory rape as part of welfare reform.
In all the uproar, no one really stopped to examine the
evidence being advanced for all these claims. For one thing, the
evidence was anecdotal. For another, many social-service agencies
reporting this "evidence" were staffed with activists who had an axe
to grind. And -- is this still surprising? -- their axes were often
aimed straight at the neck of the male gender. The tip-off should have
come as these activists raved about the male "predators." That
suggests an atmosphere loaded with anti-male stereotypes even as they
started collecting their evidence.
Now, image that you are a pregnant teenage girl, and your
counselor is pumping you to find out if the father was one of these
"predators." Obviously, a lot of teenage girls could realize they
could pass the buck by claiming to be victims of statutory rape. It
shifts the responsibility off them, and it tells the counselors what
they want to hear, thus getting the counsel off their backs. Is this
so hard to predict? We've seen girls send innocent men to prison on
false rape charges because the girls thought they were pregnant.
Well, someone finally did take a tough look at all this
anecdotal evidence about statutory rape. And guess what? They found
the claim that half of teen pregnancies were due to statutory rape to
be a wild exaggeration, and the claims of abandonment as well.
The new study, conducted by researchers from the Urban
Institute, found that only 8 percent of all births to 15- to
19-year-olds would be covered by statutory rape laws. "Nearly two
thirds of all teenagers who have babies are 18 or 19 years old, too
old to be covered by statutory rape laws in any state," the study
says.
As reported in the Washington Post, the study found that "some
of the fathers were only a year or two older than the teenage mothers.
Statutory rape laws typically require a five-year age difference
between the mother and father, according to Laura Lindberg, one of
four co-authors of the report to be published today in Family Planning
Perspectives. Also, some of the couples were married when the child
was born." (See "Statutory Rape-Pregnancy Link Reassessed: Crackdown
Will Have Limited Impact on Births to Teens, Study Says, in the
Washington Post, April 16, page A3.)
Once again we have the anti-male forces playing fast an loose
with the statistics. Sure you can say that a 20-year-old man sleeping
with a 19-year-old woman is technically an adult male sleeping with a
"teenager" (though it's a teenager who can vote.) Then you can take
that kernel of truth and blow it up into an epidemic, rephrasing it so
it sounds like lots of (older) men sleeping with lots of (younger)
teenagers.
The Post said the new study "also challenged the popular
perception that large numbers of older men are taking advantage of
vulnerable young girls and then abandoning them to be cared for by the
nation's welfare system. Less than 2 percent of all adult men father a
child with a teenage girl, Lindberg said, and half of the minors who
had an adult partner were still living with him as long as 30 months
after the birth of their child. This suggests that the men were not
impregnating the girls and walking out."
We know what some feminists will say to all this: that grown
men should not be fooling around with young teenage girls. We
*absolutely agree.* But we are not going to fix our real problems by
chasing imaginary or exaggerated ones. Is feminism interested in
looking at the real problem, or just in bashing men? Studies show that
many girls who grow up without fathers are more promiscuous and start
having sex at earlier ages. They're looking for the love they've
missed. The answer is making sure that our children have loving and
complete families.
When some feminists start spreading the rumor that there is an
epidemic of male predators preying on young teenage girls, it might
launch those feminists into that high level of outrage and moral
superiority they crave so much. Problem is, it doesn't help anyone,
and it just further poisons the air between women and men. It merely
feeds the anti-male feminist's sense of self-righteousness. And
some feminists seem more interested in complaining than in fixing real
problems.

==========

PUNISHING A RESPONSIBLE MAN
After reading the previous article, some feminists and their
supporters might shrug and say: "What's the harm? So what if the
original studies weren't all that accurate? Are we hurting anyone?"
You might ask Kevin Gillson of Port Washington, Wisconsin.
When Kevin Gillson found out that his girlfriend was pregnant,
he did what countless men do across the country without attracting any
headlines: he acted responsibly.
Gillson, who is 18, set out to marry his girlfriend, get a
job, and support his family.
Is this a crime?
According to the justice system in Wisconsin, it is.
Police found out that Gillson's girlfriend is 15 years old.
The law says that sex with anyone under 16 is statutory rape.
Well surely they'd just warn Gillson and let him go, right?
After all, he was getting married and supporting his family, wasn't
he?
Sure. But feminists will tell you there's a "rape epidemic"
going on, and we can't let them get away with it.
So Gillson was arrested, put on trial, and convicted. He faces
sentencing of probation to 40 years in prison. (Yes, 4 followed by
zero.) His girlfriend even tearfully pleaded that the sex was
consensual and that she was marrying him. To no avail.
And Gillson will have to register from now on as a convicted
sex offender.
Gillson is free on bail pending sentencing June 24.
The Ozaukee County District Attorney is a woman, Sandy
Williams. She defends her efforts to put a man behind bars after he
marries the woman he supposedly "raped." "Does it mean that because
he said he's sorry, we're supposed to close our eyes to it?" she asks.
Well, that's sort of what was done with Tracy Ribitch.
We discussed Ribitch's case in the last issue of MANifesto.
She killed her newborn child, and was sentenced to not one day
in prison. Her sentence was to go on the lecture circuit telling other
teens about the perils of unprotected sex.
Of course there are major differences between these cases.
Gillson assumed responsibility for his actions and tried to
make good. Ribitch assumed no responsibility for killing someone, and
blamed her boyfriend for not being supportive.
Oh, and Gillson's crime was to love someone. Ribitch, however,
killed someone.
Obviously, the man has to pay.
Feminists, just keep repeating to yourselves: "Society is
biased against women, society is biased against women ..."
==========

THEIR CHOICE, OUR RESPONSIBILITY
Speaking of responsibility: the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention reports that "pregnant women are drinking harder than
they did four years earlier, raising the risk their babies will suffer
mental retardation, learning disorders and other problems," according
to an Associated Press report.
The study "found that 3.5 percent of 1,313 moms-to-be in 1995
admitted they had seven or more drinks per week or binged on five or
more drinks at once within the previous month. That's up from 0.8
percent of 1,053 pregnant women in 1991."
"The sample suggests that 140,000 pregnant women nationwide
were frequent drinkers in 1995, compared with 32,000 women in 1991."
Many feminists insist that it is "her body, her choice," and
men have to "get their hands off women's wombs."
Unfortunately, her choice has consequences for us all.
First, there's the consequences for children who are damaged
by their mother's drinking. They are sentenced to a lifetime of
punishment for the mother's "choice."
And these children often need care throughout their lives,
never living up to the potential that was taken from them. Your money
and ours goes for medical care, treatment, and programs they will
need. These women exercising their "choice" create a burden that we
all have to pay.
And we don't have a choice about it.
==========

DESTROYING DEMOCRACY?
Recently, TV journalist Cokie Roberts and her husband, Steven,
warned about the grave dangers of the internet. It could, they said,
destroy democracy.
How touching for aristocrats of the airwaves and newspapers to
be so concerned for democracy. Tell me, fellows, is Cokie known for
giving your views a democratic airing on her broadcasts?
In a syndicated column, they start right off with the
stereotypes from the first: "Cyber seduction, cult by computer, kids
caught in an indecent web! The headlines have been scary of late as
we learn more about the dangers of the brave new world of the
Internet." The Robertses know that one sure way to get people to make
emotional reactions is to scare them about their kids. It worked for
Gloria Steinem in the satanic panics over the supposed cults in
daycare centers. It's sure to work for the Robertses.
"The horrible thought that, in the privacy of your own home,
your child could be the target of some sick predator was frightening
enough," they say as they try to suggest that the uniform for every
net user is the flasher's trenchcoat. Sure it's horrible to think that
right in your home your child could be the target of some sick
predator bent on twisting the kids to their own purposes. So turn off
the TV.
We all know there's junk on the net. There's junk on TV, too.
The problem is when kids aren't supervised. The Robertses want to
scare you about the net. Why?
Obviously hoping that their contrived chills will get others
shuddering, they say that supporters tout the net "like an electronic
town meeting. That analogy makes our blood run cold. Remember, that
was Ross Perot's big idea. Let's just all get together, via computer,
and let the politicians know what we want, so then they will do it!
No more pandering to the big contributors, no more deals between
members, just the voice of the people will be heard! We hear that and
shudder. To us it sounds like no more deliberation, no more
consideration of an issue over a long period of time, no more
balancing of regional and ethnic interests, no more protection of
minority views."
(You can see the rest of this pap at
http://www.essential.org/listproc/info-policy-notes/0257.html)
Their concern for protecting minority views certainly is
touching. Always nice to see a white woman saying that protecting
minority views requires that she keep her seven-figure salary. But can
Cokie claim to be protecting the views of people who disagree with
elitist and feminist views? Sure she can. She's got them safely locked
up and hidden off camera. How safe can you get?
And that's what's really at issue here. The Robertses are
media stars, and they want to keep it that way. Cokie's a fixture on
ABC News' "This Week," Steven wrote for the New York Times and U.S.
News & World Report. They make a lot of money. And, with the positions
they've been in, they often get to decide what gets covered and what
doesn't -- and how it gets covered, who gets a chance to speak, what
emotions get manipulated, whose "spin" gets passed along as the latest
study.
People who are protecting their own power base start telling
us that the upstarts who threaten them are dangerous. Of *course*
they're dangerous. Take any clout away from Cokie and she might have
to drive the same Volvo two years in a row.
People who control access to information want to keep it that
way. Once upon a time, the Bible was available only in Latin, and
Latin was available only to the elite.
For translating the Bible into English, Oxford scholar John
Wycliffe was condemned as "the very herald and child of anti-Christ,
who crowned his wickedness by translating the Scriptures into the
mother tongue." Sort of like the Robertses trying to convince us that
the net is in the grip of religious cults.
The established powers were all for keeping the Bible out of
the hands of the commoners. Bible translator William Tyndale was
burned at the stake. Pope Innocent III said "the secret mysteries of
the faith ought not to be explained to all men in all places, since
they cannot be everywhere understood by all men." Pope Gregory VII
supported the ban, saying translations "might be falsely understood by
those of mediocre learning, and lead to error." Like these clerics,
the Robertses can cite all sorts of noble-sounding arguments against
the net. And as with the clerics, it's a smokescreen. They don't want
to dilute their own influence. This isn't about what benefits society.
It's about what benefits the Robertses and those like them.
We're touched by the Robertses dedication to democracy, but we
have to wonder if it matches Cokie's dedication to truth. A while
back, Cokie was supposed to deliver a report from in front of the
Capitol building, but for some reason she couldn't get there. So she
stepped in front of a big blow-up picture of the Capitol and faked it.
Someone noticed that it was cold outside and it would look funny for
Cokie to be standing at the Capitol without a coat.
So she put on her coat to further reinforce the deception.
If Cokie thinks the net is a threat to democracy, she's having
as much trouble understanding the concept of democracy as she does
understanding the concept of truth in journalism.
==========

FEEDBACK ON HARASSMENT COMMENTS
In last January's edition of Per's MANifesto, we discussed an
article on employers who overreact to sexual harassment charges. The
story quoted attorney Rita Risser, a principal in Fair Measures, a
workplace training and advisory firm in Santa Cruz, Calif. "Some
organizations will tolerate gross harassment -- rape, stalking,
attempted murder -- and won't do anything, but other organizations
will fire someone for doing something minor ..." We thought it odd
that companies would tolerate attempted murder, and we said so.
Ms. Risser found MANifesto while surfing the net and asked for
a chance to reply. So we're about to "destroy democracy" again by
actually giving her space to respond and clarify her views. She sent
the following item to Per's MANifesto. It is reprinted in its
entirety. Her remarks are in quotes, and our replies are set off by
the word REPLY:

Setting the Record Straight on Sexual Harassment
by Rita Risser
"I am an attorney who has specialized in sexual harassment law
since 1981. As an attorney, I have represented both male and female
victims of harassment, men accused of harassment, and companies
defending such claims. As a business owner for almost 20 years, I
have handled harassment claims among my employees, and have been
accused of harassment by employees. As a high school student, I
experienced harassment from an employer. For the past eight years, I
have conducted over 500 training programs on harassment for managers
and employees in companies throughout the U.S. I have a web site
devoted to employment law issues which includes harassment, and I have
just completed a study of all of the federal Court of Appeals
decisions on harassment written since November, 1993 (the time of the
last U.S. Supreme Court case). "
"An article in Per's Manifesto (Jan. 1997) recently described
as "bizarre" a quote from me in the Washington Post in which I said
that some organizations "tolerate" attempted murder, stalking and
rape. Per challenged me to back this up. I cite the case of Fuller
v. City of Oakland, Cal., 47 F.3d 1522 (9th Cir., 1995)"
"In this case, a woman police officer was harassed by a fellow
officer. He followed her on numerous occasions, obtained her phone
number illegally from personnel files every time she changed it to
avoid him, and one time pinned her against her car until she would
give him her number. One day, she was driving her boyfriend (another
police officer) when the harasser came speeding at them in an unmarked
police car. She was forced to swerve to avoid a head-on collision."
"This is properly characterized as attempted murder. In order
to prove murder, it is not necessary to show intent to kill, only that
a person was killed because the perpetrator acted with malice
aforethought."
"However, the woman did not report this incident or any other
incidents because she was afraid for her physical safety. Other
officers reported the incident and an Internal Affairs investigation
was begun. Two months later, the "investigation" was closed due to
"lack of evidence," even though the investigating officer had not
talked to the accused, the boyfriend who witnessed the incident, or
any other witnesses."
"In my opinion, this is "tolerating attempted murder." "

REPLY: Some people might see this as "tolerating" attempted murder.
The word "tolerating" makes it sound as if the police force had no
objection. But, from the details you supply, it appears they could not
prove the case one way or the other. This seems more like tolerance
for due process. If the officer indeed was guilty, we sincerely hope
he is punished. We also hope that society does not start punishing
people on the basis of accusations that cannot be proven. One drawback
to this system is that sometimes the guilty get away. But in the long
run, it protects all our rights. And, because false accusations do
occur, we need those rights now more than ever.
You say: "In order to prove murder, it is not necessary to
show intent to kill, only that a person was killed because the
perpetrator acted with malice aforethought." We note that, since no
one was killed, murder obviously wasn't proven.
There is a serious dilemma in cases like this. If the charge
is true, then you've got to do something to stop the dangerous person.
But how do you know the charge is true? If the answer is to
automatically jail any man as soon as a woman accuses him, then sure,
that will protect a lot of women. It will also mean a lot of women
will figure out that they can get immediate action with a false claim.

Rita Risser continues:
"Tolerating rape? How about Tomka v. Seiler Corp., 66 F.3d
1295 (2nd Cir., 1995) where a woman was gang raped by three of her
managers. She did not come in to work the next day (or ever again),
but called in to report the rape. The employer investigated by
talking to one of the men, who said she consented. The employer then
closed the "investigation," without ever talking to her in person,
talking to the other perpetrators, or asking themselves, "Hmmm, would
a reasonable person voluntarily agree to have group sex with three
managers? Or might there have been an abuse of physical and/or
managerial power here?"

REPLY: To that, we reply, "Is every woman reasonable?"
We certainly wouldn't make the claim that every man is
reasonable. Not with so many male feminists out there.
We could look at the situation as "every woman is reasonable,
and no reasonable woman agrees to group sex, therefore this is rape."
But some women do agree to group sex. And some reasonable people do
things they are later embarrassed about, especially if they had been
drinking at the time. After you've seen enough cases of girls sending
an innocent man to prison on a false rape charge because the girls
feared they were pregnant by their boyfriends, you know that some will
claim rape to protect their reputations. Could it be possible that one
of the participants began talking about the episode and the woman
decided to say it was rape?
We are also bothered by the phrase "talking to the other
perpetrators." Calling the men "perpetrators" seems to presume they
are guilty. Until we decide that a rape accusation equals a rape
conviction, we have to fall back on that tired, cliched, unfashionable
old idea of innocent until proven guilty. We are open to the suspicion
that these men are guilty. But we're also open to the suspicion they
are innocent.

Rita Risser continues:
"Many of these cases are "she said/he said" claims. That does not
make them inherently unbelievable. Many cases go to trial on the
basis of one person's word against another, such as mugging, robbery,
car-jacking, assault and battery, or where there are no eyewitnesses
(e.g. O.J. Simpson). Employers have a duty to investigate; and if
they don't, they are tolerating the behavior."

REPLY: It looks like they did investigate, though. If the
investigation was deliberately shoddy or incomplete, that's wrongdoing
on the part of the company. But we'd need evidence that that was the
case, too. (We're sticklers.) As for shoddy investigations, remind us
to tell you sometime how we were treated for reporting a hostile
working environment by some fire-breathing feminists.

Rita Risser continues:
"I very much agree with Per and others who say that employers
often overreact to claims of sexual harassment that clearly are not
harassment. But it is also true that some employers fail to conduct
reasonable investigations of claims of serious violations."
"The courts since 1993 have significantly limited the
definition of illegal harassment. This has given me the ability to go
back to my clients and train the people in personnel and Human
Resources to stop overreacting to claims of "harassment" which are
based on no more than personality conflicts, politically incorrect
speech or common courtesies (such as opening doors). The pendulum is
swinging back, and publications such as the Manifesto can help by
publicizing this fact."
More information about my research report, tape and video on
"The New Law of Sexual Harassment: Everything You Know is Wrong" can
be obtained at http://www.fairmeasures.com."

REPLY: Thank you, Rita, for a thought-provoking discussion of the
issues backed up by facts. We don't agree with all of your
conclusions, but we respect your work and your willingness to
communicate. Good luck.
==========

MORE STUPID LAW TRICKS
Here's an item we intended to include in our "Stupid Law
Tricks" issue.
9-year-old Jeremy Anderson of Las Vegas was arrested and
strip-searched. The charge: writing name in wet cement.
Jeremy says he was walking home with friends when a
construction worker invited them to write their names in a sidewalk of
fresh cement. So they did.
Then the contractor called his family demanding $11,000 to
redo the work. They didn't pay, and in January he was arrested. In
Nevada, 8-year-olds can be arrested, and property crimes over $5,000
are considered felonies. So Jeremy, who has won citizenship awards at
his elementary school, was booked and strip-searched.
The story got remarkably little coverage, and even then it
seemed as though the strip-searching of a boy was fodder for humor.
==========

ETHICS WATCHDOGS
We've heard all the rhetoric about how women would clean up
government and provide a more moral, caring leadership. In other words
"women good-men bad, so vote for the woman."
This was a form of man-bashing -- implying that men are less
honest and that women are morally superior. In fact Senator
Christopher Dodd, head of the Democratic National Committee and a
major player in President Clinton's reelection bid, pandered
shamelessly to that anti-male stereotype. "Women are more inclined to
think less of themselves and their own immediate needs and more of
their families." That translates into broader support of a government
role in guaranteeing things like education and health care, he said,
hoping that pandering to such women-are-superior rhetoric would help
keep men like him in office.
So from time to time, Per's MANifesto likes to take a look at
the moral leadership that women are providing. After all, if they're
going to sell us that bill of goods, we ought to check it over.
Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez is accused of stealing her seat
through vote fraud, by registering non-citizens and having them vote
for her. Sanchez defeated a fire-breathing conservative, Congressman
"B-1" Bob Dornan. Many liberals are so delighted that Dornan was
ousted that they don't seem to mind the methods that were used in
doing so.
And there is mounting evidence that Democrat Mary Landrieu
stole the U.S. Senate election in Louisiana, a state famous for its
ballot-box chicanery. Among the evidence: Her opponent has gathered
testimony from people saying they were paid to vote for Landrieu,
sometimes more than once. However, Democrats on the Senate Rules
Committee are refusing to even look at the evidence -- see no evil,
hear no evil. (See Robert Novak's column "We're Going to Louisiana" in
the April 24th Washington Post, page A25.)
And what sort of moral leadership is feminist Senator Dianne
Feinstein providing on the Landrieu election? Is she holding to that
high moral standard that we were told women politicians would bring to
office?
Nope. She's right down there in the mud with the big boys,
bashing men in her efforts to defend her fellow member of the Senate
good-old-girls club. When evidence is presented that Landrieu stole
the election, Feinstein sneers that "hell hath no fury like a man
beaten by a woman."
Lots of MANifesto readers are used to that reaction from
feminists on the internet. If you object to being discriminated
against, bashed, smeared, threatened, or censored, it's really your
fault because you're a "backlasher." According to Feinstein, the only
reason to object to evidence of government positions being stolen and
the will of the people being voided is that you're somehow against
women. Take note. This ripe bit of hypocrisy is not just the trait of
a few whacko feminists on the net, as some claim. It's a trait of a
feminist right at the top of the heap. If you object to your job being
stolen, it's just because you're trying to keep women down.
And lastly, let's look at Valerie Lau, the Treasury Department
Inspector General. She is accused of awarding a no-bid contract to a
longtime associate -- someone who just happened to recommend her for
the job to begin with.
So she gets the job, and he gets the contract.
Oh, and do you know what Lau's job as Inspector General is?
She's the Treasury Department's ethics watchdog.
We've said it before and we'll say it again. Women really are
equal to men.

==========
HUMOR
POW DEMANDS PARITY WITH HOSTAGES IN PERU.

The government of Peru, the Japanese Embassy in Lima, and all
officials who took part in the hostage situation there should be
condemned for their sexism and take steps to atone, says Colleen
Hyphenated-Lastname, president of the Propaganda Organization for
Women.
"We know that men hold all the power," said
Hyphenated-Lastname. "And all of the hostages inside the compound were
men. Why were women systematically shut out from this center of power?
Any time you see a group made up solely of men, you can be sure that
discrimination against women is the cause. The Propaganda Organization
for Women must insist that society set up special hostage-mentoring
programs for women to make up for this injustice.
"We cannot overstress the damage that has been done to women
by refusing to let them be hostages. It sends women the message that
their lives were not considered valuable enough to be held as ransom.
And it meant that, as in so many other areas of life, women were
shortchanged of the valuable life experience and the contacts they
might have acquired while being held captive.
"History shows that women were originally full members of the
party in December at the Japanese compound in Lima. In that early
time, before sexism, women did an equal share of the work in attending
the party, and they even held high positions. But then men took over
the compound and women were systematically excluded by the patriarchy,
supposedly for their own 'protection.'
"We are sure that many of the women wanted to stay on as
hostages and face the dangers right along with the men. Unfortunately,
the men would not let them. Besides, many of these women had to drive
their kids to soccer practice.
"To make up for this past injustice, we now demand that women
be given preference in entering the Japanese compound and holding
positions there. We can start by having Japan name a woman to be its
next ambassador. We were shocked to see that the current ambassador --
a man, of course -- had to be carried from the compound on a
stretcher. Obviously they're willing to let any old sick person be an
ambassador just so long as he has a penis.
"The Propaganda Organization for Women regrets that we were
not quicker in demanding that more women be present in the compound.
Some people might be suspicious of our timing -- just when the
hostage situation ended. The timing is merely coincidental, and anyone
who disagrees really just wants to keep women down.
"Besides, POW was distracted by some urgent business. We have
recently heard rumors that some woman named Paula Jones has accused
President Clinton of something or other. We intend to give the matter
our fullest and complete attention sometime in the next millennium."
=============================

THE FINE PRINT
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people interested in gender equality and gender stereotypes.
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What if you subscribed but did not get the latest issue? Our
experience is that the issue "bounces" for a couple of people every
month -- probably because some server between here and there is on the
fritz at the time. If you don't think you received the latest issue,
please e-mail us again saying "subscribe, send latest issue."
Each month's current issue of Per's MANifesto is on the Web at
http://shell.idt.net/~per2/manifest.htm
And the Per's MANifesto Home Page is at
http://shell.idt.net/~per2/index.htm featuring links to back issues.
With a link to The POW Page! -- a collection of favorite satire
featuring Colleen Hyphenated-Lastname and the Propaganda Organization
for Women.
You also can find Per's MANifesto on the Usenet each month in
the following groups: soc.men, alt.feminism, and alt.mens-rights.
(MANifesto is copyright 1997 by Per. Please feel free to copy,
forward, repost, fax and otherwise distribute MANifesto. If you
excerpt any section, please excerpt it in its entirety.)
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Tired of man-bashing and anti-male stereotypes? Read
Per's MANifesto, a monthly newsletter on anti-male attitudes
and related topics. An informative package of news and humor.
http://shell.idt.net/~per2/manifest.htm