Creepy Columnist's Marriage Advice Full Of Domestic Violence Fiction

On June 10, 2014, the Daily Kos reported on the Washington Post Op-Ed by W. Bradford Wilcox in which he states, “The data show that #yesallwomen would be safer with fewer boyfriends around their kids.”  

Wilcox is a sociologist who contributed to a study that “showed” gay parents cause their kids to be maladjusted. He also went on record in a letter to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, saying that Arizona's proposed legislation allowing discrimination against gays by businesses was a good thing.

It appears that Wilcox’s goal is to tell women to get married, already!  Which, as an opinion, is okay, but he then suggests consequences for failing to do so.  That’s NOT okay.

Wilcox states that women are safer in married homes.  My previous post here says otherwise, and is based on facts from a local county police agency, published on 06/08/2014. 

In his Op-Ed, Wilcox states that “married women are the least likely to be victimized by an intimate partner.”  (False.)  They are “less likely to be the victims of violent crime in general.”  (Perhaps.)  He even says that a U.S. Department of Justice study proves that never-married women are nearly 4 times more likely to be the victims of violent crime.  (Maybe in 1994!)

The linked study dates from 1994, and surely can not be relied on as fact 20 years later!  Trends in crime, just like fashion, change over time.  In 1994, reporting of domestic violence was still coming into the fore mainly because police had never taken it very seriously in years gone by, but as public awareness increased so, too, did police response to the issue.

As mentioned in my previous post, according to current, local data, in 2013, in California's Riverside County, married women were at a slightly higher risk of being killed by their husbands than girlfriends were at risk of being killed by their boyfriends.  Boyfriends also tend to kill other people, probably in a misguided effort to express just how much they 'care'.

Later in his Op-Ed, Wilcox admits that women involved in healthy, stable relationships are more likely to choose marriage.  But he also says that women who are NOT in healthy, stable relationships lack the power to demand marriage, or don’t wish to become married.  In a total DUH! moment, he fails to realize that a woman in a bad relationship lacks all types of power, least important of which is the power to demand marriage.  And why should she?  She would be better advised to demand the lout leave her home, and never darken her doorstep again!

In a testament to the obvious (and also relying on the 1994 study), Wilcox goes on to tell us that younger women, lower-income women, and women with less education tend to be victimized violently more often than older, financially secure, well-educated women.  Imagine my surprise when Wilcox failed to associate those less vulnerable qualities specifically with the state of being married!

I am disappointed in the Washington Post for printing this Op-Ed for the following reasons:

• Wilcox is a hack who has a clear agenda against gays and women;
• The opinion relies directly on very old information; and
• Wilcox is A HACK!  He purports to be a sociologist, but his brand of social-science lets him masquerade as someone who knows what he’s talking about, instead of the ill-informed sexist he truly is.

Domestic violence is a serious issue.  Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise, or that the simple solution is to "do what I tell you," is an idiot.  W. Bradford Wilcox is just this type of idiot.  He wants YOU to get married, so YOU don't get beaten, raped, or murdered.  He wants YOU to believe that marriage is the only circumstance that can save you from men, even as he fails to address that he wants you to marry men.

It's almost as if Wilcox truly believes that men become better men by simple virtue of getting married.  This is generally untrue.  Men are good, or men are less than good, and in varying degrees.  The event of marriage will not make a dud into a prince, ever. 

Here are some real facts on domestic violence, to counter the fiction presented in Wilcox's op-ed. 

image credit acelebrationofwomen.org