Here is exactly what I have a problem with: One of the cornerstones of our society is the presumption of innocence UNTIL proven guilty. It permeates not only judicial matters but the way that we interact with people. IMBRA assumes from the word go that I am a liar. That I am being untruthful with my significant other about my life. I have never raped, sexually assulted or otherwise harassed any woman in my life. Why should I have to prove that I am not a good and truthful person to the government in order to LEGALLY marry a foriegn woman, simply because I met her through a 'marriage agency'? I have to prove all that and more to the government's satisfaction before I can even say, 'Hi my name is Bob, how are you' in an email.

I dont have to do any of that before I marry a woman from my own country. Whats more, I dont have to do it with a foriegn woman as long as the place that I met her through does not charge men 'significantly' more for membership than they do for women. I also dont have to prove it when I meet a foriegn woman on a free website or through a church sponsored website or a website like Match or Yahoo Personals. Why is that? Are women on free websites or match or yahoo better equipped to protect themselves? I dont think so.

This law is obviously significantly catywampus with respect to its 'protection'. It makes distinctions that completely undermine what the law is trying to accomplish. It is ABSOLUTELY man-centric and I have to wonder why that is. It seems to me that its bias is clear - if you are an American man actively seeking a foriegn woman for the prospect of marriage, SOMEONE has decided that things should be more difficult for you. BUT, if you are an American man who HAPPENS to meet a foriegn woman and you DECIDE to get married, you dont need to jump through the hoops.

This law was based on a sample size of occurances that was so small it has no statistical significance.

I don't support IMBRA, BTW.

At this point in time, the world view of men is not good. Some of it we brought on ourselves and some has come from misguided and warped feminist thinking.

The woman's movement started off as a legitimate social movement for economic and legal change; then abruptly morphed into hard left, fringe, man-haters. The movement was taken prisoner by goof balls. The word feminist can refer to women or to men (and I use the term lightly) who embrace the anti-male rhetoric and political and philosophic stance that sees masculinity as the enemy of the modern world. It's hard to hear this stuff from women; it's shameful to hear it from fellow men.

Once a decent organization, NOW is today a marginal group of radicals and malcontents...and a very vocal subgroup of man-hating lesbians who want a life devoid of men.

Maybe this is why you don't hear much about "feminism" these days. Yet, with many women in key positions in both sides of the capitol, or in positions as influential lawyers and judges and lobbyists, the feminist agenda slips through in shadowy ways and we get anti-male laws. Should we be surprised with IMBRA?

And should anyone need to ask why guys are going overseas to find women who respect good men?

thats AWESOME!!!! congratulations!!

There are still a whole bunch of people out there who swore to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic... however the other part of that oath they took states they must obey the orders of the President, and he's the first one in line to ignore the Constitution whenever it's convenient. So, kind of hard to hold everyone accountable when the BS starts at the top and rolls right on down hill.



These women can be protected much in the same way any women can be protected - .357!



You are correct that the vast majority of rapes go unreported and a large number of those reported go without convictions. However, there's a HUGE difference in being one of the four women who get sexually assaulted in their lives and someone who is raped.

The instances that you list above place you at just as high a risk of being victimized in any type of crime as they would in rape. The fact that you're a woman definitely increases the probability of being raped, as the specific crime, but your probability of being victimized doesn't change. In fact, you're much more likely to be a victim of robbery or assault (possibly together) than any other crime while you're walking alone.

When you look at actual figures from the "one in four" women who are sexually assaulted, there's a figure that is often overlooked, and that is their relationship with the offender. More often than not, women are assaulted by someone they know and are close to. Women who are raped almost always know their rapist. While I'm not going to go so far as to say the "one in four" placed themselves in situations where they allowed themselves to be victimized, I will say they definitely increased their probability of being victimized, and that's not something that's fair to blame on the other sex as a whole. No one ever deserves to be victimized, but placing yourself in a position to be victimized is not something that can be accurately represented in a different figure later, and often times, it is cited as the figure for victimization.

And since we're already here...... My personal belief is if you get raped, you should have two black eyes, a couple of broken ribs and at the very minimum a big knot on the back of your head. If you don't, then you were raped before you were victimized.

Someone busting down your door, holding a gun on you while their friends take turns gang banging you, and you don't know who they are, sure, I can see not having the black eyes and not fighting back. However, in this type of scenario, or the "walking alone late at night" scenario, "one in four" doesn't apply.

You can't use the "one in four" to argue that women need special protection.



Dave Chappelle does a nice bit on this very subject. He talks about having the woman sign the consensual sex agreement BEFORE engaging in any sexual activity..... "and sign here for anal."



Women, (and men too) please educate yourselves and each other on the course of actions necessary to convict someone in your state.

As illustrated above, the "he said she said" simply does not hold up in court. Why? Because as shikarnov also illustrated, there is an extremely high instance of folks being "a little bit drunk and going too far..." only later to realize they were "raped." In the case of walking to a parked car late at night and someone jumps out of the bushes, the social stigmata associated with being raped by someone known isn't present and the conviction rates go up astronomically.

Why? Because of the actions taken by the victim immediately after the incident. The "pressing charges" is something that's usually done WAY after the fact, (anything more than 24 hours is WAY after the fact) and that's why there's a very small conviction rate. If you report the crime immediately and comply with the local procedures, conviction isn't guaranteed, but it's way more likely. If that were to happen, you'd see that "one in four" statistic decline dramatically.



What does all this have to do with IMBRA? Absolutely nothing. IMBRA is as useless as every other "background check" the govt. does. You don't stop criminal activity by making them voluntarily conform with the law. They don't follow the law, that's why they're criminals. (Unless they're the President, then they can just do whatever they want.)

The only thing I'd say to this is that the POTUS is only the head of one branch of government -- and that's not even the part that makes laws. So, when you have Congress passing things like IMBRA, it can hardly be considering following orders from the top. Additionally, the President can't do anything without, at the minimum, the implicit approval of Congress.

We're supposed to have a system of checks and balances designed to protect the Constitution. The folks who framed it understood that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that each branch should stand independent with the goal of ensuring that no one branch, or indeed one person, would ever attain the power to do anything they desired. Unfortunately, that system is broken, but it's not because people serving as POTUS are naturally clamoring for more and more power -- it's because everybody else allows it to go unchecked, unbalanced, and undisputed.

Z

No, it's because the system has become too big to function effectively. When something like IMBRA has to be included in a Justice Department bill that has absolutely nothing to do with immigration, then you start having various forms of government overlapping the others. When that happens, there are no checks and balances. Even when they're designed to be checks and balances. (Like IMBRA.)

And as far as the President not doing anything without the implicit approval of Congress, how can you justify his blatant disregard for the Constitution and international laws? Not even the U.N. or NATO has stopped him.

Plain and simple, the America that our forefathers attempted to set up does not exist anymore. It's supposed to still be there, and you have the right to believe it is, but it's more perception than practice.

oh, come on. the world is not anti-male. trust. when men start making 75 dollars to every 100 dollars a woman makes in the same job, then you can start saying that stuff.

there are very few women in positions of power in politics. there are sixteen women in the senate out of 100 senators. If there was any real gender equality in this country, there would be many more women in the senate and CEO positions and everything else. And women who do reach high levels or professional success have to do deal with comments and issues that men never ever have to deal with. Women whose jobs have nothing to do with appearance are criticized for their clothing choices and makeup. Employers often do not want to hire women who seem like they could be ready to start a family.

I respect men. All of my close friends are men. But I have always considered myself a feminist. Yes, like in any movement, there are people who take it to extremes. There's women who hate men, but there's a lot of men who hate women too. These ultra-manhater feminists are NOT going to be elected to positions of power, especially in America. Go to the general polls sections and look at the poll there about what factors would make you not vote for a presidential candidate--an alarmingly large number of people said they would never vote for a woman president.

Feminism is the idea that women are equal to men and should enjoy all of the same advantages that men do. If someone sees fault in that, well...

Maybe you have to go overseas to find a woman who is willing to fulfill a more traditional role in a relationship. But you don't have to go overseas to find a woman who RESPECTS men. There is a huge difference there. I really have no desire to do the majority of the housework and child-rearing. I don't want to spend my life working at my career and then coming home and having to do all the housework while my husband goes drinking with his friends or lies down on the couch watching tv. I have always made it clear to my guy that I would NEVER be like a typical Russian wife/mother and do everything for the men in my family while they sit around and do nothing. And if he were unable to accept that fact, we would not continue with the relationship. This does not mean that I do not respect men. It means that I think that life is short and it's unfair that I would be overly burdened with these kinds of responsibilities just because I happen to have two x chromosomes. You can respect men AND respect yourself.

IMBRA is not really a feminist issue per se.

There are things that irritate me though about certain subgroups of feminists--like people who try to eradicate gender from the english language completely.

I don't justify President Bush's action with regards to the Constitution or International Law. I think its reprehensible what the Congress is allowing him to get away with. Congress passed the PATRIOT Act. Congress approved the changes in the Executive Branch that unified many separate agencies into a single monolith force. Congress has not stood in this president's way as he sought to consolidate and centralize power around the Executive Branch and his own office.

And the founders of this country understood that centralization is a bad bad idea. They understood this basic Aristotelian principal that inefficient democracy is far preferable to efficient tyranny. They chose our system because it wouldn't be efficient. They knew that government could be a force for good or for evil. Rule by many is slow work, for good or for bad. Rule by one is efficient, in being good, or doing harm.

Consider the following table:


As for NATO -- that organization isn't designed to stand against the United States. Its principal purpose is to mount a credible threat to Russia. That's all that it ever really was. I don't see what the European members would do about things like our PATRIOT Act, or other erosions or violations of our Constitution, as long as we stand with them when the time comes.

Z

This is an often quoted statistic that has been explained many times by the fact that it's an overall average that doesn't take into account the number of women who take years off or leave the workforce entirely for one reason or another. It also doesn't take ambition, or lack thereof, into account. Men are more likely to fiercely climb to the top of the corporate ladder, where as women (in general) are more likely to wait for rewards to be handed to them as a form of recognition.

By and large, two people working in the same position, with the same experience, bringing the same zeal, and offering the same contributions will make the same money - regardless of gender.



This is like saying that because 50% of the population is a woman, 50% must be qualified for every position everywhere regardless of preference. While I agree that discrimination based on gender is wrong, I just can't see that there's no room for women to indicate a statistically disproportionate preference or distaste for certain types of jobs. I'd be curious to find out how many states put up female candidates that got rejected because of sexism, before railing that there aren't enough female senators.



That's real feminism that you're talking about. And I don't disagree with it. Unfortunately, more often than not, feminism is about women's rights instead of equal rights. Why does there need to be Violence Against Women Act (of which IMBRA is a part), when we already have all kinds of laws protecting all citizens from all manner of crime, violent and other. The message is clear: women are special. They have special needs, and require special considerations. It's not about equal rights.



If Ira comes home after a hard day's work to clean the house and cook supper, bathe the kids, and put them to bed, I'd be astounded. I never went overseas looking for a new wife, even though I'm coming back with one. And I'd never expect her to be some kind of glorified maid. But it is nice that she appreciates me opening the car door for her, whereas I've been on dates with women would bristle if opened the door for them, paid for dinner, or did anything else that, in the civilized world, is considered good manners.



Maybe it's not to you, but to NOW and other members of the feminist lobby it certainly is. Maybe you didn't read some of the quotes upthread about their involvement...



Extremism, in any form, is never good... Unfortunately it often goes unchallenged. And all that's needed for evil to reign is for good people to do nothing.

Z

I'm not saying it has to be 50%. I'm just saying it's really odd that it is not more than 16%. And there are A LOT of factors which would lead to these statistically disproportionate preferences which start in kindergarten or even earlier.



When women are no longer bearing the brunt of domestic abuse and sexual assault, then I will say that yes, women do not need special protection. But that hasn't happened yet and probably never will. IMBRA is just weird. That's why I say IMBRA is not a feminist issue. WTF does where you meet and how much you paid to join a site have to do with anything?

I think it's odd that there are so many lawyers, and so few economists, or doctors, or teachers, or other groups that would bring fresh and important perspectives, working in the senate. But how many of those people actually try running for senate? We have to apply some kind of logic to these things before jumping to the conclusion that a statistically low percentage of any particular group is the result of unfairness.



The point is that we have laws to protect people from violent crime. Because it happens to a woman doesn't make it any better or worse than if it happens to a man, or to an African-American, or any other group. If you assault somebody, you should be punished -- whether that assault happens in the home or on the street. But setting up laws with a thesis that men are abusive SOBs is as wrong as setting up laws that assume African-Americans driving nice cars are criminals, or Muslim clerics getting on airplanes are terrorists.

Z

Doctors, lawyers, teachers etc. are generally working as doctors, lawyers, and teachers. There's a difference between a profession and an entire gender that constitutes half the human race.

Ok, so now you are saying that women should not be equal to men and be afforded additional protections under the law, in addition to the protections that everyone is entitled? I dont understand, up until now you wanted equality and now you want to be more than equal? Up until now I thought women didnt need to be considered "special" under the law.

In my eyes the fact that IMBRA is 'just wierd' is a clear sign that it is a militant feminist issue. If it was well thought out and provided the same protections to ALL women regardless of country of origin or method of aquaintance, then I would say it is not militant feminist and just misguided. Where you met and how much you paid are the ways that the law SINGLES OUT the subset of overall population that SOMEONE wants to control. Who would possibly want to control that particular subset of the population? Feminists like yourself? Men? non feminist women? Militant feminists? My guess is the former three groups of people could care less how two people met or where they come from. Which of those groups seems to be the likely candidate?

I don't know, I'm really hungover today. my head is really swimming right now!!!

I suppose it all depends if you see it as a) more than equal OR b ) something that helps women to BECOME equal.

I should have said western world view...namely western Europe and America are anti-male bastions.

You have the speaker of the house who is a woman and you have a presidential candidate who's a woman and at one point two women on the Supreme court...not bad for the downtrodden gender. As far as counting heads in congress, you have to add in all the nice boys who jump to the feminist tune...Kennedy, Schumer, Reid, etc.etc. Lots of allies. These to are feminists.

Only morons would argue against women getting a fair shake around jobs and pay and respect...but when you start to throw around the term "equal" you've taken the conversation into the great abyss. Equal in what ways? What does equal mean? Equal enough to go into the infantry? Equal enough to change the flat tire on the SUV in a snowstorm? Equal enough to bench press the same amount of weight as a man can? Equal enough to produce sperm? And can a man have children? Nurse a child?

The current male-female confusion over life and marriage roles goes directly to the need for women to be "equal" to men...only they want to cherry pick when they are equal and when they are the weaker sex. I remember with great anger at dating well off American women...and they never picked up the dinner check...never. After getting tired of shelling out my hard earned money to feed my date, I'd suggest maybe it was her turn to buy or let's just go "Dutch." Oh man...they did not want to hear that. What kind of gentleman am I? It's traditional that the man pays. And, of course, I'd never hear from them again.

Equal indeed.

You may mean, "equal under the law" and I totally support that sense of "equal." But feminists want it to mean something else. That's the gray area and where the battleground lies. Men don't get a fair shake around child custody and frequently get screwed in divorce settlements (Paul McCartney coughs up $50 mil). I went through the 1970s when the lesser female job candidate got the job or promotion based only on her gender...reverse discrimination. I remember unisex this and unisex that. Such nonsense.

The enlightened thinkers on gender issues now also speak about the differences between men and women and urge a new line of thinking that ends the view of women as equal to men or vice versus. Mutual respect and honoring our differences is what the conversation should be about.

The question I was asking, and you've evaded, is this: if only a relatively low percentage of women apply for the job of US Senator, is it logical to expect that a relatively balanced percentage would have that job.

I looked up figures from the 2006 contest. Interestingly enough, there were 100 candidates in the 33 total contests. Of that group, I counted only 18 female candidates. Of those, 6 won their contests, which is about 18%.

Sounds to me like women simply aren't trying to get this particular job.

Z

Actually, men can and do lactate. There have been many documented cases of "sympathy" lactation. As far as the army goes... that's a whole other issue i won't get into. Can I change a tire? Yes, because I was taught how to and it is really not that hard. Is my SO a LOT stronger than me despite the fact that he is only maybe 4 kilos heavier than I am? Yes. There are definitely PHYSICAL differences... but I don't really believe so much in mental ones.

I am not talking about male feminists in the senate. That is immaterial.

it is wrong to cherry pick. I agree with that. But I don't have any friends who expect the man to pay. This is actually a problem with my American guy friends who dated Russian girls... since in our generation it's not expected, they just did not treat the girls the way the girls were used to being treated. That's why I say that for people my age, American woman + Russian man is better because we expect so little from boyfriends. And thus when someone carries your bags without you asking them to it is like WOW. But when we first started dating him I said to him that I didn't expect him to pay all the time.

Paul McCartney could have been screwed over a lot more considering UK divorce laws. If Heather Mills wasn't such a disagreeable person he probably would have been.




Exactly... and that's the real question.

I might have missed something here?

Is this the real question: Why aren't women trying to become US Senators in greater numbers? I would suggest looking inward for that answer. Ask your friends. Your neighbors. Why don't they get involved in politics? Why should they? And if they're genuinely not interested, what difference does it make?

Z

But there is no way that the law (in the instance of domestic violence) can help women to 'become equal'. Lets take this to the extreme. Lets say that a new law was passed that said that if a man hits his wife, it is an automatic 25 year sentence with no chance for parole in the federal hoosgow. That law (and all laws) can only give someone pause because laws dont prevent crime. They tell you what will happen if you do something. Since most domestic violence is not caluclated beforehand, the fact that the punishment the law provides (pause is nonexistant due to heat of the moment/crime of passion) will not be a factor and the woman will still get hit. It is already illegal to beat up people, woman or man. I dont see how a law with stricter punishment (which is really what 'special protections') are can help anyone become more equal.

The law doesnt stop me from running idiot drivers off of the road. It doesnt protect those people or prevent me from doing it. It only provides a structured outcome for if I do it and get caught. My self control and sense of right vs. wrong is what keeps me from mowing them down with my '48 Buick.

OK... looking more into it, it should have been the violence against PEOPLE act.

But doesn't IMBRA apply to both men AND women who used a dating service? For instance, if I had used russianhusbands.com wouldn't I also be subject to IMBRA law?

When I was in preschool they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. All of the girls said they wanted to be the first women president.

The women bears the brunt of the family. i think that's the main answer.

I think it's VERY material given the origin of this discussion...the infamous IMBRA law which some of us argue is a feminist driven law. Certain male senators and congressmen buy into the feminist agenda and this is obviously critical to pass legislation like IMBRA. Yes?

The law does not explicitly state that "men" are the targets of this legislation, but as you've pointed out in the past, women are usually the victims in the types of domestic violence situations this law is purported to prevent. And, as you've also noted, men, in massively disproportionate numbers, seek foreign wives. The target of this is quite clearly men.

Z

but not to the particular point i was making.




Who knows? Maybe in the future things will change and women will go elsewhere for husbands.

So then you're saying that ANY law which deals with domestic violence/sexual assault is targeted towards men, because they commit the vast majority of such crimes?

So what? When I was in pre-school, I wanted to be a fireman. And then a doctor. And POTUS. And a teacher. And a mathematician (ok, this particular desire came later). In real life, I never did any of those jobs. I mean, this pre-school analogy is really a stretch.

Z

and my brother wanted to marry chocolate milk. but the point is i don't think females come out of the womb not wanting to go into the politics. there are societal things which come into play.

BTW: eekee, I'd like to take a moment to say "Thanks." It's nice to have a conversation with somebody offering a differing perspective. And even though we seem to oppose one another, I'm confident that we all believe strongly in equal rights for all people even if we get hung up on some of the details of how best to make that happen.

Z

Much better than the fight on got into on a russian website where all of these Russian girls were saying that since I felt that women and men can be genuine friends without anything sexual, i must be very narrow-minded and have low self-esteem and hail from a small village in Russia.

Did you ever see When Harry Met Sally? If not, you have to. It deals with this exact theme, and it's hilarious.

Z

This is starting to leave the broader topic of treating people equally under the law. If women don't want to be involved in politics (or any other profession for that matter), does it really matter if that's a result of nature or nurture? Is it really so hard to believe that men and women might naturally think differently?

And even if we don't think differently, and all this turns out to be the result of nurture, so what do we do then? Engage in cultural engineering with the hopes of manipulating females from birth so that they'll be more interested in holding political office?

Z

I think that laws which make it more favorable to have both a family and a career would help.



Nope... don't really like meg ryan. But actually it's not a theme that interests me so much, because for me the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. I have too many good male friends to make it a subject of debate for me personally.

Ok... You've piqued my curiosity... How would laws making it favorable to have both a family and a career help get more women involved in running for office? And what kinds of laws do you envision the country needs that aren't already in place?

I dont know the answer to that question due to the vageries of the way the law is written. Check out this website which has a PDF of the IMBRA Law. Check out Part 2 sections 2-5. It is all about American men and foreign women. Then the rest of the document is vague about the sex of the person seeking a foriegn spouse. But, it seems pretty man-centric to me. Plus, it IS part of the Violence against WOMEN act, and of course there is no Violence against MEN act.

For what its worth, here's the act in HTML format from the Library of Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc109/h3657_ih.xml

Z

Miss a day, miss a lot....


OK, so if there's not enough women in Congress and only 16/100 Senators.... then who voted for so few of them? Are we to believe that only men vote? Last I checked, women have had suffrage for a long time. (That was probably even the first "feminist" issue.) If there are too few women in office, shouldn't we blame the people voting, or more appropriately, not voting for them?

This was a similar issue when black men were trying to get into politics. Even when they first ran they weren't getting elected. Why? Not enough voters were voting for them. (Not getting into the race issue, simply illustrating one side of voting/representation.) Once people started voting for them, they got elected. The same will eventually happen with women. I really don't see women's votes getting disqualified simply because they're women though.


And as far as women only getting 75% of what men get and having to put up with all the comments and this and that.... business is business. If you're not getting paid what you're worth, that's your problem. Do what you have to do to get the job you want and keep it, even excel at it. As for women having to worry about how they look.... nobody did that to women except other women. The only requirements men have ever had about your looks is that you look like you don't have a penis. (No mustache is also nice, but often not even required.)

let me know when you do that,ill be a very loud protester.

Rest assured, I'll be certain to let you know.

Z

Haha funny the way you tell us about it:)
I had to re-do my immunisations too,since i did not have a record and i am still alive:))also they did not do all in moscow for interview,so when i came here for filing AOS i had to do more..:)Tell her not to worry:)

Quesiton for someone from St. Petersburg.

When my I130 gets aproved and we move to the next step, do they setup interviews, medicals in St. Petes or Moscow? Thanks in advance!

Moscow

Super congrats - the patient one, Alane & Ramzis