An objective (read:non-feminist) review of the dating service dynamic.

[bronxman]

"They (dating services) do not, however, correspond to the media stereotypes about mail-order bride‘ sites in which the women are presented as a product available for purchase‘ from a catalogue. Despite the language and images used, the focus of the sites is mainly assisting the introduction of consenting adults with a view to serious relationships."

http://www.law.uq.edu.au/documents/humantraffic/victimsupport/Mail-Order-Brides.pdf

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[tristan]

This is a very good, unbiased academic study of international dating by a law professor at the University of Adelaide, Australia.  Unfortunately, it only deals with Australian international marriaged.

[Delphi_Programmer]

In response to repeated reports of violence against Filipina women in relationships with Western men, the Government of the Philippines not only banned internet introduction agencies, but also introduced a system of mandatory counselling and guidance for those who intend to travel abroad as fiancées or spouses of non-citizens, as well as developing repatriation and financial assistance programs for spouses within to return to the Philippines.

Instead of trampling on the free speech and assembly rights of individuals seeking companionship, why not address the issue of violence by simply punishing the offenders?  The idea of providing women (and men) with information and guidance to help them understand their rights, responsibilities and resources available to them is a good thing.  But a sweeping ban on a person's ability to seek happiness through communication and introductions is a human rights violation.

[Delphi_Programmer]

This report, while it has some objective and rational language in it, deteriorates into the typical feminist anti-"mail order bride" diatribe as you advance into it. I would be careful before calling it a "non-feminist objective report".

For instance, the use of isolated, individual incidents of "mail order bride" abuse as evidence of a "larger" or "growing problem", so typical of feminist attacks on international dating, is used quite a bit throughout this article.  Below are some examples:

Rowena Sokol, a 17-year-old woman, was killed on February 27, 1987 by her husband, Christopher John Sokol, from whom she had recently separated. They had married in the Philippines when Ms Sokol was 15 years old, and they subsequently had a child together. Police reports indicated that the couple had been having marital problems, mainly resulting from Ms Sokol =wanting to be free‘ and wishing to go out and socialize.

More recently, the murder-suicide of a 24 year old Filipina mail-order bride and her eight-month-old son in 2004 was considered indicative of the isolation and lack of support felt by many new Filipina brides when they move to Australia.

So what?  In 1998 an American was killed at a nightclub in Georgetown in Washington D.C., so I guess we should close all Georgetown nightclubs? Can I say "Susanna Blackwell and Anastasia King"?

And now we get into the "facts and stats".  Anybody can sensationalize data reporting and blow the numbers out of proportion.  42 Filipina victims is "a substantial number"?  Out of how many total?  What is the percentage? How many spouses met through personal ads?  Missionary work?  Business travel? And why do we have to go all the way back to 1988 – 1992?  Filipina brides are six times more likely to be abused than domestic brides?  Where have we heard that before?

In 1993, the disappearances and deaths of 18 Filipina women in the preceding six years prompted calls for a national inquiry into the mail-order brides industry in Australia.

There have been substantial numbers of documented deaths or disappearances of Filipina women and children in Australia. According to the CPCA, there have been 34 cases involving 42 Filipino victims, and most of the perpetrators were non-Filipinos. The website of CPCA sets out a complete list of victims and their name.

Chris Cunneen and Julie Stubbs, who have been examining the issue of foreign marriages for several years, found that between 1989 and 1992, Filipina women in Australia, aged between 20 and 39, were six times more likely to be victims of homicide than Australian women. This rate of homicide also exceeded that for Filipino men during the same period.75 In the cases for which information was available, none of the perpetrators were Filipino.

Ahh. so now we're going to blame age difference.  I knew that was coming!  I guess we need to regulate the ages of foreign spouses?  We need "big brother" to dictate your social life and protect those poor vulnerable mail order brides.

The average age difference between the victims and perpetrators was 13 years, though in one third of the cases, the difference exceeded 20 years, and in one case 38 years. This finding is unsurprising in light of other studies conducted in the mid-1990s which found that Australian men taking Filipino women as wives or as potential spouses were generally much older than these women.

Now we get to the real meat and potatoes of the matter…

An interesting problem in relations between the genders in Australia […]. A lot of men aren‘t able to let go of their privileges and relate on an equal level with women. They expect women to fit into the traditional family that the man controls, and sometimes controls through violence […]. The power dynamic in inevitably unequal […]. The woman comes from a situation that she is desperate to leave economically. She is forced into a situation where she will be sexually used for a living. There cannot be equality, and for some men this is actually terribly exciting.

Has anybody heard this before?

Violence against women is generally under-reported due to factors such as fear and perceptions of a poor response resulting from the criminal justice system.104 These factors are often exacerbated for migrant women who are exposed to violence from their partners,105 as ‗women from different cultures may be especially reluctant to approach the police, particularly where they are afraid of being deported‘.106

Ahhh.. and here's the answer… Let government dictate who marries whom, and enforce their influence through a system of bans, counseling, "guidance" and money spent to return the poor victims home so they can find nice local boys their own age who drink all day and beat them up… but hey, she won't be a "mail order bride victim".

In response to repeated reports of violence against Filipina women in relationships with Western men, the Government of the Philippines not only banned internet introduction agencies, but also introduced a system of mandatory counseling and guidance for those who intend to travel abroad as fiancées or spouses of non-citizens, as well as developing repatriation and financial assistance programs for spouses within to return to the Philippines.

I'm sorry.  Maybe this man set out to do a "fair and balanced" report on "mail order brides", but any report that parrots all of the nonsense I quoted above is highly suspect.

One of the main themes in reporting like this is:  "We have data that suggests that women who meet through venue-X are N-times more likely to be abused than those who meet through venue-Y".  The implication is "ban venue-X".

These reports are moot and pointless.

It is fundamentally wrong to punish a crime before the fact.  We have a due-process clause in our constitution for just that very reason.  If there is no probable cause of wrongdoing then the law can't punish you.  Telling you that you can't marry someone because you met her through a matchmaking column, or because she's X-years old, or because of what country she's from, is punishment.  We don't close 7-11 stores because more crimes occur there than in other food stores.  We don't arrest people for driving through red-light districts because they are "more likely to be Johns".  We don't ban greenhouses on domestic property because people might use them to grow illegal drugs.  Therefore, we shouldn't sanction a particular venue or demographic in dating/marriage even if people who meet or marry that way are statistically more likely to be mistreated.  It is not a crime to get married.  It is not a crime to marry someone from another country, even if he or she is younger or older than you within legal age limits.  Women are sometimes abused in relationships, as are men.  As much as people want to deny it, it is a fact of life.  No government law or regulation will ever create a perfect Utopian society.

The way to solve the domestic crime problem is to punish the offenders and let law-abiding citizens be free.

[tristan]

Delphi,

You did a way better job of analyzing this report than I did and I thank you for that.

You are correct in that the author starts out reasonable but begins to show his feminist bias as the report goes on.

My mea culpa is that since ODR doesn't get a couple of million dollars of taxpayer money per year to hire staff to do these analyses as does the Tahirih Justice Center and the Polaris Project, sometimes I do them myself when I am not busy dominating my (foreign) wife and I do a quick and insufficient job.

[Delphi_Programmer]

Thanks.

I didn't realize the author was a he. I made the reference correction in my response/analysis above.

By the way, here is a list I came up with today:

These are some telltale signs that a report is a feminist rant and not an objective analysis of international marriage.  I invite anyone to contribute to this list.  It can serve as a guideline in analyzing immigrant marriage reports and news articles.

1. They use the word "mail order bride", even if they "qualify" it and put it in quotes.  The obsession with the "MOB" word is an indication of feminist bias.

2. They cite news stories of individual cases of abused or murdered immigrant spouses, often going into detail about the personal lives of those involved.  These isolated examples are statistically insignificant and only brought up to arouse passion and anger in the audience.

3. Examples of abused female spouses include underage teenagers.

4. They try to make age difference an issue.

5. They use misleading or exaggerated language to report statistical studies on spouse abuse or homicide; such as "substantial numbers of documented deaths" ... in reference to "34 cases involving 42 Filipino victims" (out of how many women?  How many were married?  Of those, how many met through an introduction service?  What is the homicide rate per 1000?).... "In the cases for which information was available, none of the perpetrators were Filipino" (How many is that?  The number of cases where "information is available" is missing).

6. They include a paragraph that delves into core feminist issues with female equality, male dominance, men being afraid of "equal relationships" with women, and the power imbalance of "inherently abusive men" who seek "weaker women to control".  The discussion often includes a blurb about women being "oppressed" in "patriarchal societies".

7. There is a stated or implied call to action.