Actually, yes I have had to live/deal with abuse issues and am well aware of dynamics of it. When I was a kid, my kid brother and I used to watch my Mom beat up on my Dad (who was too much of a gentleman to fight back), and then call the cops called on him for DV. But that is a long and unpleasant story unrelated to this thread. Let’s just say I have a different perspective based on my experiences, than is espoused on many a pro-feminist blog..

The ‘facetiousness’ of this example, was used to illustrate the VMI story where the institute was either given the option to comply or be destroyed (not driven to private money, which would not have been adequate to support the existing programs at the time). Yet, Mythago seems to want to blame the victim, VMI, for being threatened and bullied with closure. Sure.. they could have, and eventually did, knuckle under and take both the money, and the strings attached to it (the beatings).

Oh, and also, I never called my Dad a fascist.

OK, NOT going to run off on this tangent, but OI!!!

Double OI!!

I sure hope you were being facetious. If not, then it would be blatantly apparent that you’ve never had to live/deal with abuse issues.

Are you implying that threats to withhold financial support or threatening legal action is not coercion?

Are you one of those women that blame the victims of DV for going back to their abusive spouses because they have children and are financially dependent on their partners? She should have just been brave and lived on the street with her children right? Or she could just accept the occasional recreational beating and gone on about her business, secure and happy.

The choice for VMI was to kiss government ass, or fold up shop. Now that *is* fascist..

No, it was not. VMI had the choice of relying on private money. You were probably one of those teens who called your dad a Fascist when he made you take out the garbage, right?

And you think in VMI’s case it was not ‘forced re-education’?

VMI’s directors had their own ideas how the school should be run. The government showed them the error of their ways, in the way the government usually discourages actions they [we] find undesirable. They threatened them with both legal action and the withholding of public funds, which pretty much would have shut the doors of the institute.

Isn’t that pretty much the way forced re-education works? Coercion and Threats?

It’s surely true that disagreeing with the government doesn’t mean you hate the government, but I rather think VMI showed disdain for the government–or at least, for its insistence that if you take the money, you have to play fair with it. Certainly its supporters showed something more than ‘disdain.’

I’m curious as to how you think enforcing rules against sex-based discrimination is analogous to a forced re-education camp. Did the FBI send the directors of VMI to Gitmo?

I take exception to the analogy that VMI ‘hated Dad’ part. VMI wasn’t showing disdain for the government. They may have been trying to stick with a tradition that might have been anathema to dear old Dad, or in this case, not within keeping of the strings placed on the public money by government policy.

Rebeling against one’s parents’ ideals doesn’t mean you hate them. Following the analogy, desiring to continue the long standing single sex tradition, one that was working well by most accounts, doesn’t mean you hate the government, or even that you hate women….

Of course, ‘Dad’ ended up sending VMI to ‘Love in Action’ to get them straightened out..

More like “Dad, I’m Gay! By the way, can I have a bigger allowance?”

How so? VMI’s position was that its traditions should exempt it from the government’s rules against sex discrimination, yet it should still receive government funding. Perhaps the better teenager analogy is “No, I didn’t take out the garbage. I hate taking out the garbage and I’ll never do it again. You should give me my allowance anyway.”

More like “Dad, I’m Gay! By the way, can I have a bigger allowance?”

I must admit, single sex education, while it might be good for some people, for me would be a non-starter. I like all that distraction you women provide :)

Religion is a fine area in which to rely on faith and personal feeling. Statistics about education, and what kinds of education are successful, is not an area where faith is all you need.