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

Someone once said “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” Hitler was less subtle, “your child belongs to us already” Socialism has always realised the power of the child and the need to destroy the family, the church, and to control education and values. The destruction of the family in New Zealand has been a remarkable success over the last 30 years, and men have been removed from schools at an equally alarming rate.

In our legislation we still have one major legal stumbling block. Legal ownership of the child remains with parents as long as we retain section 59. Loose it and we loose not only ownership and authority over the child, but ownership and authority of the Childs information.

You may be left with possession and responsibilities toward the child, but legally you will have lost the power to say what information the child may collect and store. The state in authority will have no legal obligation to tell you its decisions on behalf of the child. What information is stored, where it is stored, who has access to it, and how much of that stored information you are allowed to see.

So many people do not realise the political and legal significance of the section 59 debate. At first it was masked as a smacking debate - then it was use of a weapon for discipline debate. It is not hard to simply alter section 59, so why do those antagonists demand compete repeal.

The real debate is should parents have ownership and autonomous authority over their child, subject to the laws of our country, or should the state have ownership of the child and the parent be subject to the responsibilities the state dictates.

One of the major changes in the care of children bill is that the best interests of the child is now a responsibility in the administration of this act. Who is going to determine what are “the best interests of the child”, and who is involved in the administration of the act.

Teachers, The police, CYPS. The Family Court.

This contrasts with the concept contained within section 59, that parents have authority, unless they appoint another person in their absences, and teachers automatically have authority when the child is in their care.

You will pass on, your descendants however may not enjoy the freedom and community that your parents left you. It is at this point many women will realise that they never gained liberation, they just became a pawn of the state.

Will the real New Zealand journalists please step up to the plate and write the New Zealand stories.

Michigan man lingers in prison on questionable rape conviction.

By Phyllis Schlafly

Feb 6, 2006

William J. Hetherington has been incarcerated in Michigan prisons for more than 20 years for having sex with his wife Linda. In 1986, he became the first man in Genesee County convicted of the new Michigan crime called spousal rape.

Linda was not a battered wife; she testified at the trial that he had never beaten her in their 16 years of marriage. Hetherington was honorably discharged from the U.S. Air Force, received a National Defense Service Medal, and had no police record of any sort.

The sentencing guideline for this new offense was 12 months to 10 years. But, without showing cause, the judge sentenced him to 15 to 30 years (twice the time served by the average convicted rapist in Michigan). Twenty years later, despite an exemplary prison record, the parole board routinely refuses to parole him, giving as its sole reason “prisoner denies the offense.”

Hetherington has always maintained his innocence. It was a he-said-she-said case during a custody battle; he said it was consensual sex, she said it was rape. The judge used Michigan’s new Rape Shield Law to prohibit cross-examination of Linda.
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A new publication calls into question the generally held view that casts males as the perpetrators of domestic violence and females as the victims. The study found that in most couples, men and women are about equally violent.

Lead researcher David Fergusson said agencies dealing with domestic violence should not assume men were the perpetrators or that women hit out only in self-defence.

“In fact, women initiate violence more than men.”

He said domestic violence typically involved both parties.

“If one partner was violent, so was the other one. This contrasts quite sharply with the dominant popular view that domestic violence is largely perpetrated by men on women.”

Professor Ferguson told TV3 News [download 5,421 KB wmv video], that our response to domestic violence has been shaped by a small amount of extreme violence.

“In those extreme incidents we find a predominance of males. But when we move away from the extreme to the more commonplace, both men and woman behave badly in the home.”

MENZ activist Darrell Carlin told TV3 News that he is not surprised by the findings:

“There is a big industry out there, a violence industry. It’s all based on men being the bad guys.”

At the end of the interview Prof Ferguson said:

“There should be broader recognition of the wider issue of couple violence, and services there to assist people to deal with couple violence and its implications.”

Ferguson told the NZ Herald that those who dished out the violence were generally victims too.

“It’s mutual conflict, so they are violent households.”

The study may be seen to contradict the view that men are more violent in relationships.

“It is the case that severe assaults, the kind you see in women’s refuges, are probably committed by males, but most of the family violence that goes on involves mutual conflict between couples,” Professor Fergusson said.

“This study should reshape what we think about gender and violence …

“These are black-and-white stereotypes - males are brutes and females are victims - that dominate our thinking. The evidence doesn’t suggest that, but changing that view is going to take a lot of work. Anybody who challenges that view is likely to be criticised.”