MENZ Issues: news and discussion about New Zealand men, fathers, family law, divorce, courts, protests, gender politics, and male health.

NZ Herald 14/5/05

Police are seeking nearly $5000 from a woman they claim wasted their time over a false rape complaint.

The case highlights a dilemma for police, who do not want to discourage women from reporting sexual abuse.

But they say that when an accusation is blatantly untrue, they will lay a charge of making a false complaint and seek reparation for investigation costs.

Detective Senior Sergeant Richard Middleton, of the Manukau Crime Squad, said that of 75 sexual complaints in his area since Christmas, about 10 were believed fake.

“But we would only charge them with making a false complaint where the complaint was clearly false,” he said.

A handful of women have faced prosecution.

One claimed she had been kidnapped, raped and locked in the boot of a car.

Police sought reparation from her to cover about 40 hours of police time at $80 an hour, plus medical expenses, which can be up to $1500.

In the current case, which has yet to come to court, it is understood police want the woman to pay for more that 50 hours of officers’ time plus medical expenses.

Mr Middleton said detectives sometimes interviewed women who spun a web of lies to “cover up indiscretions” or simply to seek publicity.

He said police took complaints of this “abhorrent crime” very seriously, but false complaints were “not acceptable”.

This report leaves a lot of unanswered questions for me…… the most important being “where is the victims story here?” The police do a job and get paid regardless, however the poor bastard who gets labled with a false rape allegation can have his life destroyed. Waisting police time is a minor offence in comparison. As all men are rapists I suppose I am just being a bit sensitive.

There is a little old lady in Auckland with whom Helen Clark would not be very pleased. If she knew who she was, that is.

Back in the 1970s, when the little old lady was much younger, she used to go to feminist meetings. Not because she was a feminist, but because she and her husband were concerned at the sorts of things being discussed.

“So I would go off to all these meetings around the country to monitor what was going on,” she says. “I remember there was an outcry at one conference because a woman had brought along her baby son. He wasn’t wanted in the room because he was a male.”

She also remembers many of the women who attended or addressed these events, among them Helen Clark, Sylvia Cartwright, Marilyn Waring, Cath Tizard, Ros Noonan and Margaret Wilson.

For decades she has watched as the young feminists of the 70s became some of the most powerful leaders in New Zealand. And for decades she held on to a couple of documents which outlined, all those years ago, a long-term feminist agenda to change New Zealand society by attacking the traditional family unit.

How can we help children and young people increase their participation in society so they and everyone else might benefit from their input into decision-making processes?

This is one of the key issues to be discussed at a major conference running from July 7 to 9 at the University of Otago. Children and Young People as Citizens: Participation, Provision and Protection is the sixth Child and Family Conference run by the Children’s Issues Centre, which is based at the University.

The international speakers are Bruce Smyth from the Australian Institute of Family Studies, who will talk about encouraging more creative post-divorce parenting arrangements that meet the needs of children and parents; and Dr Ruth Sinclair, Research Director at the UK National Children’s Bureau, who will present on the English experience of children’s participation in public life.

The other New Zealand keynote speakers include Principal Family Court Judge, Hon Peter Boshier, who will look at how the Care of Children Act 2004 will affect children’s participation and protection rights in court cases.

Girls have out-performed boys in every school subject and low male achievement is spurring concern.

Secondary school NCEA results were released yesterday by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.

The profiles show a growing gap between girls’ and boys’ achievement, and suggest children might be better off in single-sex schools.

Girls-only schools dominate all NCEA levels. Their pass rates are far above the national average.

Wellington High School principal Prue Kelly was not surprised.

English was particularly geared toward girls and many of the topics did not interest boys, she said.

“Analysing characters and having to think about why an author wrote what is often of no interest to boys.”

Education Ministry learning policy manager Steve Benson said the gender gap was a big issue. A research project was under way to address boys’ under-achievement but there were no easy answers.

Others had suggested the problem lay behind typical Kiwi attitudes to masculinity, with boys more interested in rugby than study.

As part of a comprehensive overhaul of the [Australian] family law regime, scores of new services for men will be funded in a $74 million prevention package.

Mensline Australia will get a big funding boost to support more fathers and to help them become more involved with their children before and after separation.

Up to 45 new “men and family relationship centres” will be funded to help men manage difficult relationships with partners, ex-partners and children.

The extra services are part of a $392 million family law reform plan, which has at its heart a radically different system for handling separation and custody.

Instead of heading to the Family Court, separating parents will be sent to one of 65 new Family Relationship Centres to see if they can agree on a custody plan for their children before they engage lawyers.

On April 22, 2005, Harvard University’s Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative (MBB) held a defining debate on the public discussion that began on January 16th with the public comments by Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard, on sex differences between men and women and how they may relate to the careers of women in science.

The Science of Gender and Science - Pinker vs. Spelke

A DEBATE
…on the research on mind, brain, and behavior that may be relevant to gender disparities in the sciences, including the studies of bias, discrimination and innate and acquired difference between the sexes.

Who won the debate? Make up your own mind. Watch the video, listen to the audio, read the text and check out the slide presentations.

STEVEN PINKER is the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. His research has won prizes from the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Institution of Great Britain, and he is the author of six books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, and The Blank Slate.

ELIZABETH S. SPELKE is Berkman Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, where she is Co-Director of the Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she is cited by Time Magazine as one of America’s Best in Science and Medicine.

Very interesting material here.
I’m also very impressed by the comprehensive presentation of different media, a good model to aspire to for those of us using the web to educate others.

Fascinating that Pinker, arguing against the Extreme Nurture position (that males and females are biologically indistinguishable, and all relevant sex differences are products of socialization and bias), says:

“I am a feminist. I believe that women have been oppressed, discriminated against, and harassed for thousands of years. I believe that the two waves of the feminist movement in the 20th century are among the proudest achievements of our species, and I am proud to have lived through one of them, including the effort to increase the representation of women in the sciences.”

“But it is crucial to distinguish the moral proposition that people should not be discriminated against on account of their sex — which I take to be the core of feminism — and the empirical claim that males and females are biologically indistinguishable. They are not the same thing. Indeed, distinguishing them is essential to protecting the core of feminism. Anyone who takes an honest interest in science has to be prepared for the facts on a given issue to come out either way.”

I had to laugh when I read:

“It is said that there is a technical term for people who believe that little boys and little girls are born indistinguishable and are molded into their natures by parental socialization. The term is “childless.”"

TVNZ has an extensive report with video on the Stephen Jelicich case:

A long and public tug of love entered another phase last week when a family court judge ruled that nine-month-old Caitlin Jelicich could return to Wales with her mother.

Within hours the pair were on a flight out of Auckland before Caitlin’s father could prevent his daughter’s departure.

- - -

Union of Fathers co-ordinator Jim Bagnall says Stephen didn’t have a fair say.

Bagnall reckons some fathers get a rotten deal in the family courts and in some cases “there is obviously a gender bias”.

“There’s an agenda within the court in my opinion by certain judges and certain solicitors that fathers will be split from their children,” Bagnall told Sunday.

“The New Zealand Family Court in my experience is a very scary ordeal.”

Stephen Jelicich felt helpless and believed he was up against a system stacked against fathers who want to retain custody of their children. He was desperate and felt his only option to stop his wife leaving with Caitlin was to abduct his own daughter.

TV One News Summit tackles men’s issues (includes streaming video).

The state of “New Zealand manhood” was the topic of the first ever Men’s Issues Summit at Auckland on Friday.

Bleak predictions of the future of the New Zealand male were being made at the summit, which was held at the Waitakere City Council Chambers.

“The kiwi bloke for quite a long time has been under threat,” said conference organiser Warwick Pudney.

Delegates at the summit called for action on the issue of the male suicide rate - with men three times more likely to kill themselves than women - and a national screening programme for prostate cancer.

NZ Herald ‘Crisis of spirit’ hits health of NZ men

A former director of Lifeline, Bruce Mackie, says more men than women are dying in the workplace, on the roads and in water, and from cancer, heart disease and suicide, because they have learned not to value themselves.

He told the first national “men’s issues summit” in the Waitakere City Council chambers yesterday that boys grow up with no male role models of work/life balance and with media portrayals of men as “an irresponsible herd of buffoons”.

“The more we examine the state of men’s health, the more we expose problems of hopelessness, helplessness, meaninglessness and despair. This is a crisis of the spirit,” he said.
(more…)

Firstly, welcome to any new readers who heard about MENZ Issues for the first time at the Summit yesterday. I look forward to any contributions you might be inspired to make.

I have to confess that my note-keeping tailed off somewhat after the first few sessions, however if all goes according to plan there will be a future publication of the papers presented. They will also be made available on the web. What follows is a brief summary of the other presentations I attended, and some of my personal reflections on the summing up.
(more…)

Today’s summit at the Waitakere City Council chambers got off to a late start, which as it turned out was lucky because opening speaker John Tamihere was also slightly delayed. We were informed that his son had needed a bit of fatherly input into the matter of him staying at school for longer than it took for dad to drive away.

Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey opened the summit by acknowledging Felix Donnelly as one of the founders of the NZ Men’s movement. Twenty-five years ago, Donnelly ran a series of workshops one winter which Harvey attended. Bob then talked about his own early involvement in fathering issues, which resulted in him co-writing a book titled ‘Hey, dad! - a New Zealand father’s guide to survival’. He sees that we are not mentoring young men collectively as a society, and noted that young men are often lost right at the time they need most support.

Harvey says we must see women as team-mates and not opposition. Men can still be staunch and tough, but about the right values – the things that are decent about society.

John Tamihere - keynote speech
A TV crew was right in JT’s face all through his opening address, but they were probably disappointed that he didn’t say anything particularly inflammatory, and disappeared without filming much else. Two video cameras did manage to catch most of the speakers however, and it is hoped that some footage may be broadcast at a future date – MENZ Issues readers will be the first to find out where and when!

Tamihere spoke about the importance of fathers’ involvement with children, and the value of supporting families. He also said New Zealand men must have meaningful conversations about health issues so that they become more health conscious. Currently many men’s health problems are being dealt with by the criminal justice system.

“I’m not interested in men claiming victimhood”, Tamihere stated, reinforcing my belief that the time has now come for politically minded men to focus on concrete solutions and proposals, now that the problems are widely recognized. He finished on an interesting note, given some of the recent comments on other posts in MENZ ISSUES – “this is not a party political issue – it is about building nationhood.”

Men’s Health - Bruce Mackie
Bruce began his presentation by outlining some of the positive changes taking place in other western countries as well as NZ, noting a paper written with Stuart Birks by my wife Felicity titled ‘Gendered approaches to health policy‘.

Mackie also discussed the rise of independent men’s groups acting outside the established policies and delivering health services. In NZ, successive governments have ignored the groundswell. He said that an accountable national body addressing men’s health issues was long overdue.

Echoing the previous speaker, Mackie told us the biggest male health issue is the huge number of men in prison with mental health disorders. He noted that an unhelpful climate of blame and accusation exists towards male health that emanates from the epidemiological data and its related literature on risk.

In conclusion, Bruce said that at heart Men’s Health is an issue of the spirit, and many men’s problems are related to a loss of identity, meaning and purpose: “Without an intense awareness of our wisdom, a strong vision of role, a deep sense of calling – a lofty and noble dream of a new world – men will continue to get sick and die”.

I’m too tired to write more tonight, but here’s some photos of the Summit: