Sex, Lies & Feminism by Peter Zohrab: Chapter 9: Lies, Damned Lies & U. N. Statistics

CHAPTER 4
LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND U.N. STATISTICS

Introduction
The chapter on the Media University Complex, among others, provides specific instances of how the Feminist research industry exploits its control over gender research by publishing and disseminating false and misleading statistics. Statistics which arise out of an ironic combination of Feminist incompetence, their ruthless disregard for the truth and the cowardly reluctance of many non-Feminist academics to inquire too closely lest they damage their careers.

The only way to counter their propaganda machine is with courage, persistence, unbiased studies and accurate statistics. Neutralizing the bad with the good. There are many who have attempted precisely that. But then comes the hard part – getting the truth past the Feminist-dominated bureaucrats, booksellers and publishers who suppress or ignore virtually any data that do not support the Feminist view. For example, I once wrote to the New Zealand Police asking for details of their prosecutions for false complaints by category of crime involved. They replied they didn't keep such statistics and wouldn't compile them for me, nor would they let me go through their files to compile them myself

On another occasion, I wrote the New Zealand Minister for the Courts asking for statistics on how often fathers got custody of their children in the family court, and I received a similarly negative answer. This negative approach to keeping statistics that are relevant to the needs of men and fathers was echoed in the following email I received from Robyn Munro, Planning & Information Unit, National Office, New Zealand Ministry of Courts, on November 12th, 1999:

In response to your phone call earlier today: Unfortunately we are unable to provide you with detailed information on Custody/Access outcomes from the Family Courts. We hold numbers of cases processed but no information on the actual outcomes of those cases. There were 9068 Custody/Access cases processed nationally in the last financial year. I'm sorry I cannot help further. The information you seek is not collected on a national basis & I do not know whether individual courts keep such records either.

In Britain, the situation is similar:

"Unfortunately, the numbers dry up once men stop being the bad guys. (Thomas 1993, page 145)."

This goes beyond data being merely unavailable – statistics previously published are removed from the record! The Statistical Abstract of the United States, for example, used to publish a breakdown by sex of perpetrators of child abuse. Once men's rights advocates publicised this, however, a government bureaucrat decided the world didn't need to know that most perpetrators of child abuse are female. So 1992 was the last year they were published. (Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1992, Table No. 301).

The GDI and the GEM
From the United Nations Women's Conferences to documents such as the United Nations Human Development Report 1995, we can see the Feminists are now well entrenched in the United Nations. Worse, they are using the UN to export western Feminism to the rest of the world.

On page 73 of the 1995 Human Development Report, for example, in a chapter focusing on "the measurement of gender inequality by simple composite indices based on readily available data," they propose two measures: the GDI (Gender-related Development Index) and the GEM (Gender Empowerment Measure). The GDI is purely an adaptation of an already existing United Nations index – the HDI (Human Development Index). The HDI gives a country a relative development ranking according to the income, life expectancy, and adult literacy of their citizens, and according to the numbers of people enrolled in their education system.

Similarly, the GDI gives countries a feminisation ranking according to the relative male and female income, life expectancy, adult literacy, and numbers enrolled in educational institutions. Of course, "life expectancy" is the odd man out here, and ordinarily Feminists would never allow it in one of their indexes. But to get the GDI accepted they had to compromise.

They had to deal with the propaganda problem of the life-expectancy issue, however, since women outlive men in all but about two countries in the world. But at least they were in! To draw attention away from the life expectancy issue, Hillary Clinton made a speech deploring the lower-than-men life expectancy of women in the two South Asian countries when she visited them. That set the stage for what they had planned, next.

First the UN Feminists did a statistical conjuring trick: They set an artificial maximum life-expectancy for women that was five years greater than men's, and an equally artificial minimum life-expectancy for women that was likewise five years greater than men's, then proceeded to "adjust" their raw data and make their calculations and rankings on that basis. But aren't the differences relevant? Should they be hidden by such sleight of hand? As justification for this cunning ploy, they state:

"There is indeed strong evidence that the maximum potential life expectancy for women is greater than that for men – given similar care, including health care and nutritional opportunities."

They cite two relatively old works by female writers (Holden 1987 and Waldron 1983) in this connection. On the same page, they go on to state:

"Women's higher potential life expectancy is anticipated in demographic projection as well. For the year 2050, for example, life expectancy in industrial countries is projected at 87.5 years for women and 82.5 years for men...."

This demonstrates how women don't have to be competent to hold down a job in a politically correct environment. It is not people's potential life expectancy that is anticipated by demographic projections, but their actual life expectancy; after all, social factors such as health care have played their part! If the aim is to predict the actual course of events as accurately as humanly possible, no demographer would be stupid enough to make projections based on potentials.

Moreover, Vallin (1995) takes a contrary view as to the causes of the difference between men's and women's actual life-expectancy:

"For many years now, most authors have agreed that social role differences between men and women and related factors are the main cause of their inequality in the face of death. (page 178)."

If the difference between men's and women's life expectancies is indeed the result of their different social roles, then the Feminists should not hide the fact by tampering with the figures. There are some theories (see Kirkwood, 1999) that women live longer than men because of society's need to assure the primary caregiver lives long enough to see her children through to maturity, but this is purely speculative. Particularly as until the relatively recent development of hygienic practices at the turn of the 20th century, women died younger than men and the constant parent was the father.

Next, the UN Feminists developed their Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) – a completely new index unpolluted by any inconvenient facts relating to life-expectancy. This measure compares men and women according to:

1. the number of seats held by them in parliament;
2. their proportions in the administrative/managerial and professional/technical employment categories; and
3. their relative incomes.

This index is arbitrary, politically motivated and aimed purely at demonstrating that women are "oppressed," and therefore deserving of sympathy and targeted political action and funding. To say GEM is biased would be an understatement.

Conclusion
The Men's/Fathers' Movement would do well to propose their own GEI (Gender Empowerment Index), which would compare men and women according to:

1. their proportion in the national electorate;
2. their proportions in the mass media news and current affairs production, editorial, and journalistic employment areas;
3. their life-expectancy;
4. their proportions as recipients of sole custody rights on separation and divorce;
5. the proportion of health and welfare spending that they benefit from (including single-parent benefits, pensions, research, publicity, prevention and treatment relating to sex-specific diseases, and visits to General Practitioners);
6. their proportions in death-rates by suicide;
7. their proportions in the bureaucracy;
8. their proportions in the prison population;
9. their proportions in wartime casualties;
10. their proportions in conscripted armies;
11. their power to determine whether or not their child is aborted;
12. male and female circumcision rates;
13. numbers of academic Men's Studies and Women's Studies departments;
14. presence or absence of Ministries of Men's Affairs and Women's Affairs.

Consider France, where men commit suicide three time as often as do women, and male suicides have increased by 35% since 1974 while the female suicide rate has remained static over that period.1 Men are not committing suicide in greater numbers than women because they run society for their own benefit and oppress women! If that were the case, women would be committing suicide more and dying at a relatively younger age.

The Feminist research industry has exploited its virtual monopoly of gender research by publishing and disseminating statistics tailored to its own political goals. It is hard to get hold of statistics that support pro-male views because the Feminist-dominated bureaucracies in western countries see no need to collect or publish statistics on such issues. Additionally, the Feminist-dominated universities are afraid to research such topics – indeed, university ethics committees often act as filters to prevent pro-male research.

It's an information war and the Men's/Fathers' movement must see knowledge and data as weapons of mass instruction. We must, therefore, mount siege against their lies, bomb the media with salvo upon salvo of facts until their ears ring with the truth, and storm the arsenals where these weapons are stored – the universities and government bureaucracies. No more lies, no more half-truths, no more witchhunts.