In another example of the bizarrely inflexible nature of restraining orders, John Yount was recently arrested for violating a restraining order that Kim Schreckengost had obtained against Yount on January 18, 2001. Yount was arrested at the Meadville district court where he and Schreckengost had gone to get married.

Rather than getting married, Yount was instead arrested, charged with violating the restraining order by being in Schreckengost’s presence, and shipped off to a county jail to await prosecution.

Appearing before District Justice William Chisolm, Yount said that both he and his fiancee were under the impression that once she chose to spoke to Yount again, that the protection order was null and void. In fact, of course, not only is that not true, but in many jurisdictions such protection orders are enforced even when the person who applied for the order takes active measures to establish contact with the person the order is taken out against.

Or, as Judge Chisolm summarized the current state of the law, “I don’t think you understand, the fact is, it doesn’t matter what she does, you already violated the order.”

In this case, Yount served 11 days in a county jail for a previous violation of the restraining order, and at that time the order had been extended an additional six months. At his arraignment following the botched marriage attempt, Yount was warned that any attempts to contact his fiancee by phone from jail would result in additional charges for violating the restraining order.

In many jurisdictions, the application of restraining orders was long ago pushed passed any and all reasonable bounds, and it is an area of law that is in need of serious re-examination and reform.

Source:

Man arrested at his wedding for violating PFA order filed by bride. Marianne Oberley-Orris, Meadville Tribune, September 27, 2001.

Women’s groups in the Mexican state of Chihuahua recently won an important victory when they pressured the state legislature into repealing a noxious law which had provided for lighter sentences for rape if the defendant could prove that the victim had “provoked” him.

The minimum sentence for rape had been four years, but the revision to the penal code set the minimum at only one year if the convicted rapist could prove that the victim had provoked the rape. This compared to the 6 year minimum sentence in Chihuahua for anyone convicted of cattle rustling.

The penal code had also been revised to reduce the minimum sentence from four years to six months for victims who were penetrated only with an object (which was an even more bizarre revision, in my opinion, than the provocation nonsense). That change was also overturned.

Jorge Ramirez Marin, a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party which has an overwhelming majority in the Chihuahua legislature, claimed that the law had been misunderstood. Apparently the law was intended to curtail a perceived problem that women were charging their boyfriends with rape rather than admit to their parents that they were having premarital sex. Even if that’s accurate, however, it’s hard to see how a reduced sentence for rapes that were “provoked” would be a viable solution to such a problem.

Mexico’s national Congress had threatened to intervene if the Chihuahua legislature did not act.

Source:

Mexican lawmakers revoke law reducing penalties for rapists ‘provoked’ by women. Associated PRess, SEptember 19, 2001.

Kansas state senator Kay O’Connor, a Republican, made headlines last week for asserting that the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed women the right to vote, was a mistake.

O’Connor had been invited by the Johnson Count League of Women Voters to attend the league’s “Celebrate the Right to Vote” luncheon. Instead of accepting, O’Connor declined and added that, “You probably wouldn’t want me there because of what I would have to say.”

After word got out that O’Connor had reportedly told the league that she didn’t think the 19th Amendment was a good idea, O’Connor confirmed and clarified her views for the Associated Press. According to O’Connor,

We have a society that does tear families apart. I think the 19th amendment, while it’s not an evil in and of itself, is a symptom of something I don’t approve of.

…

The 19th Amendment is around because men weren’t doing their jobs, and I think that’s sad. I believe the man should be the head of the family. The woman should be the heart of the family.

This radical conservative view of women as little more than children to, at least ideally, be watched over by men is as bizarre as any of the radical feminist views of relations between the sexes. It is difficult to fathom how someone living in a liberal democracy in the 21st century could seriously hold such archaic ideas.

Source:

Women’s suffrage called ‘mistake’ by conservative Kansas politician. John Hanna, The Associated Press, September 29, 2001.

After the 9/11 terrorist attack, the United States government began openly and privately courting Pakistan for obvious strategic reasons. According to an MSNBC report,

Afghanistan’s neighbor, Pakistan, also has incentives to cooperate. For siding with the U.S. against the Taliban and bin Laden, Islamabad stands to get as much as $3 billion in debt relief, emergency aid for refugees and the removal of sanctions that were imposed when they tested nuclear weapons and staged a military coup. That would enable Pakistan to also get military aid, including spare parts for its F-16’s, Tow missiles and armed personnel carriers.

Before we climb into bed with Pakistan, however, lets remember that Pakistan shares many of the features that President George W. Bush so eloquently noted plague Afghanistan, especially in the way its legal system treats women.

Two years after General Zia-ul-Haq took power in Pakistan in 1977, Pakistan’s criminal code was modified with what are called the Hudood Ordinances. These encapsulate some of the anti-female attitudes that are so derided in Afghanistan.

In Pakistan, extra-marital sex is illegal and the age of majority for women is 16 or the onset of puberty, whichever comes first. In practice what this means is that if a 30-year-old man has sex with a 12-year-old girl, rather than prosecute that as statutory rape, Pakistani authorities will in fact go after the 12-year-old girl as well. There are a couple dozen girls 12 and up in Pakistani prisons due to precisely such charges.

And unbelievably the girl cannot even testify in her own defense at such a trial. As a 1999 State Department report on Pakistan noted,

Likewise, the testimony of women, Muslim or non-Muslim, is not admissible in cases involving Hadd punishments. Thus, if a Muslim man rapes a Muslim woman in the presence of several women, he cannot be convicted under the Hudood ordinances because women cannot testify. Similarly, if a Muslim man rapes a woman in the presence of non-Muslim men and women, he cannot be convicted because women and non-Muslim men cannot testify.

And these folks are going to be our new allies?

Sources:

U.S. Department of State Report on International Religious Freedom for 1999: Pakistan. Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Washington DC, September 9, 1999.

Professional golfer Fred Couples became embroiled in controversy in August after it was revealed that he is helping to design a golf course for the Southern Dunes Golf Course near Maricopa, Arizona. The club, intended for avid low-handicap golfers, will be men-only.

The club will be completely member-owned; once all of the 500 or so memberships are sold, the members literally own the club. Because this makes the golf club completely private and not open to the general public, this means that any sexual discrimination lawsuit against the club would have a huge mountain to climb.

Kathleen Ferraro, director of the women’s studies program at Arizona State University, told the Associated press, “I find it rather shocking that there are still such bastions of intolerance.”

But Brian Curley, a partner in the firm designing the club, points out, there are plenty of women’s only athletic clubs which no one ever accuses of being “bastions of intolerance.” Surely if there is nothing wrong for women to desire to join athletic clubs that only admit other women as members, it is a bit hard to understand what the problem would be with a men’s only private athletic club.

Source:

Couples helping to design men-only course. The Associated Press, August 23, 2001.

Time Asia recently published a horrifying account of a young Pakistani woman who left her husband and was subjected to an apparently all too common punishment — her husband doused her upper body in acid, severely disfiguring her.

Writer Hannah Bloch describes how Fakhra Yunas rose from rather humble beginnings to marry the son of a wealthy politician. But after several years of unhappy marriage in which she claims he regularly beat her, she left him to live with her mother.

In April, while Fakhra was napping at her motheouse, her husband entered the house, pushed her mple, Bloch reports that “the acid burned the hair off Fakhra’s head, fused her lips, blinded one eye, obliterated her left ear and melted her breasts.”

As with Honor Killings in some countries, such acid attacks are apparently rarely prosecuted. In fact, when Fakhra tried to obtain a passport to travel outside Pakistan for reconstructive surgery, she was initially refused on grounds that the story might harm Pakistan’s reputation abroad. And, so far, Fakhra’s husband has faced no punishment for his actions.

Source:

The evil that men do. Hannah Bloch, Time Asia, August 20-27, 2001.

The Houston area branch of the National Organization for Women recently announced that it and several other groups had formed the Andrea Pia Yates Support Coalition to raise money for the defense of Yates, 37, who admitted drowning her five children. As Debora Bell, president of the group explained, “One of our feminist beliefs is to be there for other women. Some good may come out of this tragedy.”

Along with possible future fund raisers, the group is planning to hold a candle light vigil on Sept. 12 for Yates — the day before she is supposed to appear in court for a hearing to determine whether she is competent to stand trial.

In a column on the topic, Wendy McElroy report that FEMNET, an online forum used by the Houston area NOW, included a request to send “cards or notes of caring” to Yates in prison. McElroy adds, “I searched but found no record of FEMNET requesting ‘notes of caring’ be sent to the funeral of her children.”

I wonder if Nikolay Soltys, who is still on the loose and accused of murdering his wife and unborn baby, 3 year-old son, and five other family members, will receive similar sympathy and outpourings if he explains that he was insane at the time of the killings. Even if he does, however, I don’t think any men’s groups will come out and say they have to support Soltys because they have to “be there for other men.”

Sources:

Rallying Around a Baby-Killer. Wendy McElroy, IFeminists.Com, August 28, 2001.

NOW, ACLU oppose seeking death penalty for Yates. Pam Easton, Associated Press, August 28, 2001.

NOW creates coalition to raise funds for Yates. Lisa Teachey, The Houston Chronicle, August 23, 2001.