100 Quotes About Bia

BLACK AND WHITEI was born into A religion of Light, But with so many other Religions and Philosophies, How do I know which O N E Is right? Is it not My birthright To seek out the light? To find TruthAfter surveying all the proof, Am I supposed To love Or fight? And why do all those who Try to guide me, Always start by dividing And multiplying me — From what they consider Wrong or right? I thought, There were no walls For whoever beams truth and light. And how can one speak on Light's behalf, lf all they do Is act black, But talk WHITE? . Suzy Kassem

We all know that any emotional bias -- irrespective of truth or falsity -- can be implanted by suggestion in the emotions of the young, hence the inherited traditions of an orthodox community are absolutely without evidential value.. If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. With such an honest and inflexible openness to evidence, they could not fail to receive any real truth which might be manifesting itself around them. The fact that religionists do not follow this honourable course, but cheat at their game by invoking juvenile quasi-hypnosis, is enough to destroy their pretensions in my eyes even if their absurdity were not manifest in every other direction. . H.P. Lovecraft

Take lightly what you hear about individuals. We need not distort trust for our paltry little political agendas. We tend to trust soulless, carried information more than we trust soulful human beings; but really most people aren't so bad once you sit down and have an honest, one-on-one conversation with them, once, with an open heart, you listen to their explanations as to why they act the way they act, or say what they say, or do what they do. Criss Jami

I'm convinced that most men don't know what they believe, rather, they only know what they wish to believe. How many people blame God for man's atrocities, but wouldn't dream of imprisoning a mother for her son's crime? Criss Jami

God doesn't listen to me too, but people have their suspicions. सुनता तà¥â€¹ रब हमारी भी नहीà¤â€š, पर लà¥â€¹à¤—à¥â€¹à¤â€š कà¥â€¹ अल्लाह पे शक बेशक है Vineet Raj Kapoor

It’s not about describing someone as that’s typically an attempt to make whatever they are comfortable for whoever we are. Instead, we may wish to skip the agenda of the description and embrace the wonder of the person. Craig D. Lounsbrough

In my opinion, defining intelligence is much like defining beauty, and I don’t mean that it’s in the eye of the beholder. To illustrate, let’s say that you are the only beholder, and your word is final. Would you be able to choose the 1000 most beautiful women in the country? And if that sounds impossible, consider this: Say you’re now looking at your picks. Could you compare them to each other and say which one is more beautiful? For example, who is more beautiful– Katie Holmes or Angelina Jolie? How about Angelina Jolie or Catherine Zeta-Jones? I think intelligence is like this. So many factors are involved that attempts to measure it are useless. Not that IQ tests are useless. Far from it. Good tests work: They measure a variety of mental abilities, and the best tests do it well. But they don’t measure intelligence itself. Marilyn Vos Savant

One mark of originality that can win canonical status for a literary work is strangeness that we either never altogether assimilate, or that becomes such a given that we are blinded to its idiosyncrasies. Harold Bloom

Armed neutrality makes it much easier to detect hypocrisy. Criss Jami

Rather than swallowing our pride and simply asking what we do not know, we choose to fill in the blanks ourselves and later become humbled. Wisdom was often, in its youth, proven foolish, and ones humiliated were meant to become wise. Criss Jami

You can never make someone like something they don't like, but you can always help them to better understand it. Criss Jami

Mental illness is not a fraternity or a social club for like minds. It is its own religion to each person that has it. Their mind is their pastor, their feelings are their scriptures and their delusions are their own bible story. To break them free, is to break their faith in signs. That is why so many feel lost. Shannon L. Alder

As a citizen of the world, I will not confine myself within the gates of one nation or religion. I will not identify with only one species, sex, class or race; for I am a complete being, and that means that I embrace all of humanity, all of nature, every star and universe within the greater universe as a part of me. If we were all created in the image of God, and his love is unconditional, then why can't we love all living things with the same eyes as God? How can anybody say that one race is more superior than another, when we were all created in God's reflection? . Suzy Kassem

When it comes to moral dilemmas and matters of discerning right justice, my natural sympathy so often happens to land on the opposite end of that of most of my peers. I sometimes wonder if this is nothing more than the misguidedness and the wickedness of my own heart. I wonder other times if God wires some of us in such a way so that fair discourse might then be provided, so that honest and unbiased, due process is ultimately more likely to be carried out. Perhaps it is all necessary for variance of perception, for mindful debate: that the heart is meant to create a bit of bias on certain issues; as between one another, they weigh and balance. For not all hearts are the same. Criss Jami

Believers if opt to practice Favoritism will fail miserably to build a relationship of Mutual Trust & True Respect for themselves. Santosh Thankachan

Mind is greedy. When you sense the benefits with people who previously thought rubbish about you, the mind forgoes those thoughts and inclines toward those people only to gain optimal benefits. Ashish Patel

A...reason we are so-so scientists is that our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not. Steven Pinker

There is always a storm. There is always rain. Some experience it. Some live through it. And others are made from it. Shannon L. Alder

Prejudice is an act of violence. Kamand Kojouri

They said my solution was foreign because I lived on another planet. It required honesty. It required communication. It required kindness. It required integrity. It required compassion. It required empathy. It required a deep understanding of what it meant to be humane. It required courage to be something above the others. It required proving your love of God. Shannon L. Alder

In short, the man displayed a constant and insurmountable impulse to wrap himself in a covering, to make himself, so to speak, a case which would isolate him and protect him from external influences. Reality irritated him, frightened him, kept him in continual agitation, and, perhaps to justify his timidity, his aversion for the actual, he always praised the past and what had never existed; and even the classical languages which he taught were in reality for him goloshes and umbrellas in which he sheltered himself from real life. Anton Chekhov

Quiet people always know more than they seem. Although very normal, their inner world is by default fronted mysterious and therefore assumed weird. Never underestimate the social awareness and sense of reality in a quiet person; they are some of the most observant, absorbent persons of all. Criss Jami

From Colin A. Ross, 1995: The writer is the brother of the man who co-founded the False Memory Syndrome Foundation. He is writing to WGBH about a program called 'Divided Memories', which you may have seen, that was supposed to be an investigation of memory. This letter also went to Congress and to the press, so it's a public letter. It's just unfortunate that the press, as far as I know, didn't pick it up. 'Gentlemen: Peter Freyd is my brother. Pamela Freyd is both my stepsister and sister-in-law. Jennifer and Gwendolyn [their daughters] are my nieces. There is no doubt in my mind that there was severe abuse in the home of Peter and Pam, while they were raising their daughters. Peter said (on your show, 'Divided Memories') that his humor was ribald. Those of us who had to endure it, remember it as abusive at best and viciously sadistic at worst. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation is a fraud designed to deny a reality that Peter and Pam have spent most of their lives trying to escape. There is no such thing as a False Memory Syndrome. It is not, by any normal standard, a Foundation. Neither Pam nor Peter have any significant mental health expertise. That the False Memory Syndrome Foundation has been able to excite so much media attention has been a great surprise to those of us who would like to admire and respect the objectivity and motives of people in the media. Neither Peter's mother (who was also mine), nor his daughters, nor I have wanted anything to do with Peter and Pam for periods of time ranging up to more than two decades. We do not understand why you would 'buy' such an obviously flawed story. But buy it you did, based on the severely biased presentation you made of the memory issue that Peter and Pam created to deny their own difficult reality. For the most part you presented very credible parents and frequently quite incredibly bizarre and exotic alleged victims and therapists. Balance and objectivity would call for the presentation of more credible alleged victims and more bizarre parents, While you did present some highly regarded therapists as commentators, most of the therapists you presented as providers of therapy were clearly not in the mainstream. While this selection of examples may make for much more interesting television, it certainly does not make for more objectivity and fairness. I would advance the idea that 'Divided Memories' hurt victims, helped abusers and confused the public. I wonder why you thought these results would be in the public interest that Public broadcasting is funded to support. William Freyd

Half of the time, the Holy Ghost tries to warn us about certain people that come into our life. The other half of the time he tries to tell us that the sick feeling we get in a situation is not the other person’s fault, rather it is our own hang-ups. A life filled with bias, hatred, judgment, insecurity, fear, delusion and self-righteousness can cloud the soul of anyone you meet. Our job is never to assume, instead it is to listen, communicate, ask questions then ask more, until we know the true depth of someone’s spirit. . Shannon L. Alder

It was after a Frontline television documentary screened in the US in 1995 that the Freyds' public profile as aggrieved parents provoked another rupture within the Freyd family, when William Freyd made public his own discomfort.' Peter Freyd is my brother, Pamela Freyd is both my stepsister and sister-in-law, ' he explained. Peter and Pamela had grown up together as step-siblings. 'There is no doubt in my mind that there was severe abuse in the home of Peter and Pam, while they were raising their daughters, ' he wrote. He challenged Peter Freyd's claims that he had been misunderstood, that he merely had a 'ribald' sense of humour. 'Those of us who had to endure it, remember it as abusive at best and viciously sadistic at worst.' He added that, in his view, 'The False memory Syndrome Foundation is designed to deny a reality that Peter and Pam have spent most of their lives trying to escape.' He felt that there is no such thing as a false memory syndrome.' Criticising the media for its uncritical embrace of the Freyds' campaign, he cautioned: That the False Memory Syndrome Foundation has been able to excite so much media attention has been a great surprise to those of us who would like to admire and respect the objectivity and motive of people in the media. Neither Peter's mother nor his daughters, nor I have wanted anything to do with Peter and Pam for periods of time ranging up to two decades. We do not understand why you would 'buy' into such an obviously flawed story. But buy it you did, based on the severely biased presentation of the memory issue that Peter and Pam created to deny their own difficult reality. p14-14 Stolen Voices: An Exposure of the Campaign to Discredit Childhood Testimony . Unknown

I no longer follow the voices of the sane. I follow the ill because they see farther, feel much more and change what the sane will not. This is the paradox of philosophers---trying to understand mass delusion among great people that have faith and knowledge, yet they can’t graduate from their institutions of religious theology to apply the knowledge they have gained for the shifting of Zion---- from words to action; from comfort to uncomfortable; from self serving to self giving; from competition to supporting; to tradition to unity; from bias to acceptance; from me to us. Shannon L. Alder

If you could do one thing to improve yourself today, it would be this: Rid yourself of bias. If you can do this, you can learn to listen. If you learn to listen, then you can learn to communicate. If you can communicate, then you can begin to verbalize your feelings. When you verbalize your feelings, then you can release stress and frustrations. When you free yourself of what bothers you, then you can fully give yourself to others. When you come this far, then you have learned to grow spiritually. . Shannon L. Alder

Innate in nearly every artistic nature is a wanton, treacherous penchant for accepting injustice when it creates beauty and showing sympathy for and paying homage to aristocratic privilege. Thomas Mann

Once a person has made some sort of stable, symbolic connection between two things, the connection will influence his subsequent behavior and will generate its own 'proof.' This is why it is idle and foolish to try to 'refute' religious, political, and similar beliefs with empirical arguments about referents that are symbols to the believer but not to the non-believer. Thomas Szasz

The honest investigator must be prepared to follow wherever the search of truth may lead. Truth is often found in the most unexpected places. He must, with fearless and open mind "insist that facts are far more important than any cherished, mistaken beliefs, no matter how unpleasant the facts or how delightful the beliefs. Hugh B. Brown

I had an immense advantage over many others dealing with the problem inasmuch as I had no fixed ideas derived from long-established practice to control and bias my mind, and did not suffer from the general belief that whatever is, is right. Henry Bessemer

Bigotry lives not just in our words, but in our actions, thoughts, and institutions. DaShanne Stokes

One editor during the Civil War got a grievous message to meet his brothers corpse, only to find out that the telegraph operator had garbled the message to meet his living brother's CORPS. Harold Holzer

Silence might be a shout for the truth. It might be the speech that someday, in its truest, most uncontaminated, unadulterated state, all will be revealed. Criss Jami

Only a few days after my encounter with the police, two patrolmen tackled Alton Sterling onto a car, then pinned him down on the ground and shot him in the chest while he was selling CDs in front of a convenience store, seventy-five miles up the road in Baton Rouge. A day after that, Philando Castile was shot in the passenger seat of his car during a police traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, as his girlfriend recorded the aftermath via Facebook Live.Then, the day after Castile was killed, five policemen were shot dead by a sniper in Dallas. It felt as if the world was subsumed by cascades of unceasing despair. I mourned for the family and friends of Sterling and Castille. I felt deep sympathy for the families of the policemen who died. I also felt a real fear that, as a result of what took place in Dallas, law enforcement would become more deeply entrenched in their biases against black men, leading to the possibility of even more violence. The stream of names of those who have been killed at the hands of the police feels endless, and I become overwhelmed when I consider all the names we do not know–all of those who lost their lives and had no camera there to capture it, nothing to corroborate police reports that named them as threats. Closed cases. I watch the collective mourning transpire across my social-media feeds. I watch as people declare that they cannot get out of bed, cannot bear to go to work, cannot function as a human being is meant to function. This sense of anxiety is something I have become unsettlingly accustomed to. The familiar knot in my stomach. The tightness in my chest. But becoming accustomed to something does not mean that it does not take a toll. Systemic racism always takes a toll, whether it be by bullet or by blood clot. Unknown

Before you call yourself a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or any other theology, learn to be human first. Shannon L. Alder

Self-serving biases and self-centered agendas are cotton jammed in the ears of our conscience. Even if truth shouts, we can’t hear it. Craig D. Lounsbrough

In evaluating ourselves, we tend to be long on our weaknesses and short on our strengths. Craig D. Lounsbrough

We are not as important to most people as we are to ourselves. As a matter of fact, we are–to most people–not important at all. Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Be very careful when you judge another human being. Do not measure anybody strictly based on the bad you see in them and ignore all the good. Be wary of any man who intentionally ignores another man's record of deeds or work history simply to impose their own agenda. Such a man's judgment lacks merit and should be disregarded immediately. Without a conscience, there is no truth in them. Suzy Kassem

Misguided good men are more dangerous than honest bad men. It is because they are seen as good that, in and by good conscience, the mob will always, stubbornly back them without question. Criss Jami

Never stand in the way of letting God use people’s actions, in order to solve a greater issue in the world. Shannon L. Alder

You can't fight mental health bias if you label people based on a lists of symptoms and you have no medical degree to diagnose people. We all have crazy running through our blood and so many things trigger that. We all struggle with our anxiety and twisted issues. Defamation of character is not kind, nor Christlike. Because when you label people with self righteous vindication you open the door to the very idea that self righteousness is itself a disorder that we should all be afraid of. This doorway when left open too long gets people to pull away from Christ, not run to him. Shannon L. Alder

Jack and Bobby Kennedy were too young, too attached to real family to transfer affection and loyalty to those that of their blood or region or upbringing. David Pietrusza

Under the absolute sway of an individual despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul, and the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose superior to the attempt; but such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved. Alexis De Tocqueville

The greatest difficulty in antiquity with that of altering the law; among the moderns, it is that of altering the manners. Alexis De Tocqueville

It always matters who the storyteller is. It’s a lens. James Still

Sometimes, it is easier for people to believe lies then deal with the uncomfortableness of their own fear of action. These type of people feel uncomfortable unless everyone is the same or God presents them with what is easy and obvious. It is a life long coping mechanism for the greatest fear of all--regret. Shannon L. Alder

Everything took on the color of blood. Barbara W. Tuchman

I am usually able to tolerate all kinds of victims of indoctrination except those who have been infected with xenophobia, racism, or homophobia. Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Scientists are human–they're as biased as any other group. But they do have one great advantage in that science is a self-correcting process. Cyril Ponnamperuma

With enough mental gymnastics, just about any fact can become misshapen in favor to one's confirmation bias. Criss Jami

From: The Portrayal of Child Sexual Assault in Introductory Psychology Textbooks - Elizabeth J. Letourneau, Tonya C. LewisOne of the central questions surrounding the debate on memories of CSA is how often false or repressed memories actually occur. The APA working group (Alpert et al., 1996) and other experts (e.g., Loftus, 1993a) noted that no reliable method can distinguish between accurate and inaccurate memories. Therefore, no one can determine the prevalence of false or repressed memories. Nevertheless, six texts (30%) implied that false memories occur frequently (see Table 1). Of these, three included the opinionated suggestion that a "witch hunt" may be occurring in which innocent parents are routinely accused of, and then severely punished for, CSA. Two texts suggested that false memories of CSA must occur because an entire support group (the FMSF) has been formed for falsely accused parents. These authors apparently failed to consider that some members of the FMSF may actually have sexually assaulted children but are motivated to appear innocent. (85). Michelle R. Hebl

You are not your illness. You have an individual story to tell. You have a name, a history, a personality. Staying yourself is part of the battle. Julian Seifter

Principles are meant to serve people, not people serving to uphold the principle, while harming the people. Shannon L. Alder

Behavior makes sense from the actor's perception or else the actor wouldn't do it. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, you know, today I'm going to be conforming, mistaken, nasty, and so on. Ellen J. Langer

When critics surrender to the prevailing orthodoxy, the author says they adopt the rhetoric of an occupied country, "one that expects no liberation from liberation. Harold Bloom

We still thought that we were the only two people in the world who were interested in the right kind of things in the right kind of way. C.S. Lewis Philip Zaleski

There is no hatred as corrupting as intellectual hatred. George F. Will

The world is a place of constant change. If we are open and ready to consider everything while remaining unbiased, we will be ready to accept these changes and utilize them to improve our lives. Daniel Willey

It is easy for us to criticize the prejudices of our grandfathers, from which our fathers freed themselves. It is more difficult to search for prejudices among the beliefs and values we hold. Peter Singer

A mentoring nurse to new doctors: "Check your own pulse first. Code Black

What I find predictable is crazy people's ability to predict that unpredictable people can be predicted by their consistent unpredictable behavior, thus making all crazy people predictable when the world says they are unpredictable. Therefore, I must be “right” because I can predict crazy because I have been trained in the unpredictable nature of consistent craziness because I am crazy. Shannon L. Alder

Holding one's self responsible is a critical feature in stigma and in the generation of shame since violation of standards, rules, and goals are insufficient in its elicitation unless responsibility can be placed on the self. Stigma may differ from other elicitors of shame and guilt, in part because it is a social appearance factor. The degree to which the stigma is socially apparent is the degree to which one must negotiate the issue of blame, not only for one's self but between one's self and the other who is witness to the stigma. Stigmatization is a much more powerful elicitor of shame and guilt in that it requires a negotiation not only between one's self and one's attributions, but between one's self and the attributions of others. . Unknown

An encounter with God demands a response. An encounter with Satan demands your God's response. Shannon L. Alder

Mental illness is not something you misunderstand in this era. Get educated because bias is no different than racism. Shannon L. Alder

Results of two independent factor analyses of the survey responses of more than 2000 English and American citizens parallel these findings (19, 33):- fear and exclusion: persons with severe mental illness should be feared and, therefore, be kept out of most communities;- authoritarianism: persons with severe mental illness are irresponsible, so life decisions should be made by others;- benevolence: persons with severe mental illness are childlike and need to be cared for." World Psychiatry. 2002 Feb; 1(1): 16—20.PMCID: PMC1489832Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness P A T R I C K W CORRIGAN and AMY C WATSON . Patrick W. Corrigan

I had people saying 'it's all in your head'. Do you honestly think I want to feel this way? Sonia Estrada

When dealing with critics always remember this: Critics judge things based on what is outside of their content of understanding. Shannon L. Alder

It is almost impossible for contemporaries to judge the true value of discoveries, or to give the proper position to the men of their own time who make these discoveries. The Surgeon-General of the Public Health Service expected the greatest results to flow from his commission of medical officers, but the conclusions of the Board turned out to be all wrong, while he did not notice the report from his own subordinate, Dr. H. R. Carter, which turned out to be pure gold and was one of the great steps in establishing the true method of the transmission of Yellow Fever. William Crawford Gorgas

I expected, as I approached the corporate world, to enter a brisk, logical, nonsense-free zone, almost like the military - or a disciplined, up-to-date military anyway - in its focus on concrete results. How else would companies survive fierce competition? But what I encountered was a culture riven with assumptions unrelated to those that underlie the fact- and logic-based worlds of, say science and journalism - a culture addicted to untested habits, paralyzed by conformity, and shot through with magical thinking. Barbara Ehrenreich

Although the terminology implies scientific endorsement, false memory syndrome is not currently an accepted diagnostic label by the APA and is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Seventeen researchers (Carstensen et al., 1993) noted that this syndrome is a "non-psychological term originated by a private foundation whose stated purpose is to support accused parents" (p.23). Those authors urged professionals to forgo use of this pseudoscientific terminology. Terminology implies acceptance of this pseudodiagnostic label may leave readers with the mistaken impression that false memory syndrome is a bona fide clinical disorder supported by concomitant empirical evidence.(85)... it may be easier to imagine women forming false memories given biases against women's mental and cognitive abilities (e.g., Coltrane & Adams, 1996). 86 . Michelle R. Hebl

An ideology can provide a satisfying narrative that explains chaotic events and collective misfortunes in a way that flatters the virtue and competence of believers, while being vague or conspiratorial enough to withstand skeptical scrutiny. Steven Pinker

Majority is not always right. The fact that many people are in support of a wrong thing does not make the thing right. After all, the number of persons who with poor reasoning capacity is higher than those with better reasoning capacity. I don't read or care about majority's stance on a particular issue before expressing mine. I look at issues critically before expressing mine, not minding the reaction of majority. There are more foolish people than there are wise people. People who think deeply and critically are fewer compared to those with poor thinking I can handle majority but can't handle my conscience. OMOSOHWOFA CASEY

Majority is not always right. The fact that many people are in support of a wrong thing does not make the thing right. After all, the number of persons with poor reasoning capacity is higher than those with better reasoning capacity. I don't read or care about majority's stance on a particular issue before expressing mine. I look at issues critically before expressing mine, not minding the reaction of majority. There are more foolish people than there are wise people. People who think deeply and critically are fewer compared to those with poor thinking I can handle majority but can't handle my conscience. OMOSOHWOFA CASEY

I pick up a copy of Newsweek on the plane and immediately notice how biased, slanted, and opinionated all the U.S. newsmagazine articles are. Not that the Euro and British press aren't biased as well--they certainly are--but living in the United States we are led to believe, and are constantly reminded, that our press is fair and free of bias. After such a short time away, I am shocked at how obviously and blatantly this lie is revealed--there is the 'reporting' that is essentially parroting what the White House press secretary announces; the myriad built-in assumptions that one ceases to register after being somewhere else for a while. The myth of neutrality is an effective blanket for a host of biases. David Byrne

Look at the language. If a scientist delivers the simple, unconditional, absolutely certain statements that politicians and journalists want, he is talking as an activist, not a scientist. Daniel Gardner

Implicit [in the psychiatric literature] is a set of normative assumptions regarding the father's prerogatives and the mother's obligations within the family, The father, like the children, is presumed to be entitled to the mother's love, nurturance, and care. In fact, his dependent needs actually supersede those of the children, for if a mother falls to provide the accustomed intentions, it is taken for granted that some other female must be found to take her place. The oldest daughter is a frequent choice.. The father's wish, indeed his right, to continue to receive female nurturance, whatever the circumstances, is accepted without question. . Judith Lewis Herman

There was no one to blame but the mighty, ruthless stranger. Thus was complexity reduced to demonology, which is a defining feature of anti- Americanism, anti- Semitism, or, indeed, any "anti-ism. Josef Joffe

Several psychologists (L. Armstrong, 1994; Enns, McNeilly, Corkery, & Gilbert, 1995; Herman, 1992; McFarlane & van der Kolk, 1996; Pope & Brown, 1996) contend that the controversy of delayed recall for traumatic events is likely to be influenced by sexism. Kristiansen, Gareau, Mittleholt, DeCourville, and Hovdestad (1995) found that people who were more authoritarian and who had less favorable attitudes toward women were less likely to believe in the veracity of women’s recovered memories for sexual abuse. Those who challenged the truthfulness of recovered memories were more likely to endorse negative statements about women, including the idea that battered women enjoy being abused. McFarlane and van der Kolk (1996) have noted that delayed recall in male combat veterans reported by Myers (1940) and Kardiner (1941) did not generate controversy, whereas delayed recall in female survivors of intrafamilial child sexual abuse has provoked considerable debate. Rachel E. Goldsmith

I'm a professional journalist. Making up lies to fit the facts - it's what we do. Andrew Klavan

Men as Victims: Challenging Cultural MythsJudith Herman’s recent treatise on “complex PTSD" (Herman, 1992) is an extremely articulate and compelling analysis of some of the failings of the current PTSD diagnosis, and of some of the psychological legacies of prolonged, repeated trauma. However, there was one aspect of the article which concerned me and which I wish to address. Throughout the article, "Complex PTSD: A Syndrome in Survivors of Prolonged and Repeated Trauma, " whenever reference is made by pronoun to perpetrators or "captors, " the pronoun "he" or "him' is used. There are four such references. Whenever reference is made by pronoun to victims or survivors, the pronoun "her" or "she" is used. There are 11 such references. This is not simply an issue of the use of sexist language, which it is. By uniformly linking perpetration with males and victimhood with females, a misconception is perpetuated, one that is shared by the public and by mental health professionals. While there is evidence that most perpetrators of sexual abuse are male, and that there are more female victims of sexual abuse than male victims, it is not true that all perpetrators are male and all victims are female. In fact, in the article, some of the traumas from which Dr. Herman was deriving her argument–political torture, concentration camp survivors, for example–affect as many males as females. Even in the case of sexual abuse, there is increasing evidence that the sexual abuse of males is far more prevalent than has heretofore been believed. Research on male sexual victimization lags more than a decade behind that of female victimization, but several recent studies have reported prevalence rates near or above 20% (Finkelhor et at, 1990; Urquiza, 1988, cited in Urquiza and Keating, 1990; Lisak and Luster, 1992). . David Lisak

The biased use of pronouns serves to perpetuate the culturally based myth that men are perpetrators and women are victims. This myth is extremely damaging to the millions of male victims of sexual and physical abuse who live unacknowledged by our society. David Lisak

When theology recognizes one thing properly, it mis-recognizes something else all the more thoroughly. Karl Barth