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

Michelle Richards was in the news again recently when she was recalled to prison after being granted parole this year on a life sentence for her part in the murder of her partner. After her partner had written her into his will, she convinced her 18-year-old lover to kill him by stabbing him while he lay in bed.

I post this case because it is an example of a woman encouraging or inspiring a man to commit serious violence to another person that she does not want to commit herself. We hear about it from time to time and I believe it is more common than people realise. (more…)

FYI, here is my complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority.

The three advertisements from the same advertiser came as a package and have all been shown in turn and repeatedly over the same significant time period. They portray men and only men causing violence and injury to others through drinking alcohol excessively, while they portray women and only women who drink excessively as only being victims of male violence. (more…)

Two articles and an editorial in the Bay of Penty Times yesterday generally continued our media’s penchant for male-bashing. Only the front-page lead article was available on the web. To their credit, interviewees from Relationship Services avoided gender-specific formulations and referred to couples arguing and hitting each other, and the police interviewee said they were called out to a house where a couple “were fighting”. Sadly, at this stage such care to avoid appearing sexist seems mainly facade, frequent accounts from men suggesting both these organisations operate under male-blaming ideologies.

FYI, here is my letter to the editor:

“Research has clearly established that domestic violence is significantly perpetrated by both men and women against their partners. Why then did your articles and editorial on July 12 describe only claimed examples of men assaulting their partners, perpetrate the long-discredited myth that domestic violence increases when a nation’s rugby team loses, and claim contrary to scientific evidence that “the vast majority of domestic bullies are men”? (more…)

NZ Government funded research has identified total loss of father contact as being a common factor in suicides of youths, who have applied for Independant Youth Benefit. (This does not prove that it is causal, this is more difficult to prove.)

The same researcher asks people to be willing to look at all research and see that mother caregiver’s violence towards children, contributes towards some men’s life sadness and being unable to form constructive functional relationships with women. Thus, this source of violence to boys also needs attention and active support for parents, to reduce the damage being done to these boys. Blame is of limited value, to solving these problems, especially when it is one eyed. In many cases, the problems are life goals and relationships and the solutions lie in support through these problems and mentoring to develop workable solutions that protect all of the people involved. When someone has unrealistic expectations, this is itself a major problem and barrier to allow workable solutions to work! (more…)

For those who don’t yet know, I am putting together a feature length Documentary on Child Support called “The CSA Files”.   I have got a lot of feed back for this doco and a lot of keen people wanting to help and share their stories. 

For a run down and updates on this doco visit my site www.the-csa-files.webs.com

Feel free to leave a post or email me on thecsafiles@xtra.co.nz with any additional information, stories or experiances you or someone you know has had with the CSA.  I’m aiming for between 75-90 mins long for the doco and any sugestions will be welcome.

I am putting together a great team of informed and experienced people to work on this project and all your support is greatly appreciated

Cheers

Tigerseye

National Radio Nine to Noon yesterday interviewed Prof Mark Frydenberg, an expert on prostate cancer who works at the Urology Dept, Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne. 600 men per year die of prostate cancer in New Zealand each year.

Prof Frydenberg explained that several international studies to evaluate the benefits of screening programmes had not been running long enough to come up with results, and the key argument against screening programmes was the lack of evidence that such programmes would actually achieve worthwhile reductions in death rates. However, an informal screening programme introduced by a urologist in Tyrol, Austria resulted in 50% less deaths from prostate cancer than in the rest of Austria where no screening was done. (more…)

Allegations that sexual abuse was committed by several touring English rugby players have been milked by unscrupulous media showing scant regard for civil rights. The NZ Press Association is even quite happy to provide names of those who might have been alleged to have committed sexual crimes.

The case raises important questions relevant to gender politics. For example, why have the police spent what must now be considerable time and expense “investigating” a case for which no complaint has been laid? If you went to the police and told them your mate had an eye injury that he said had been caused by Joe Bloggs assaulting him with a bat, what do you imagine the police would do? There is a good chance they would simply tell you there’s nothing they can do unless your mate came in and made a complaint. If they did not have too much on their plate, they may well pay your mate a visit at some stage and ask him about it, but you can be sure they would quickly lose interest if he made it clear he wouldn’t lay a complaint. So what’s the difference? (more…)

Our Auckland Father and Child Trust Meeting is on Monday night, 7-9pm, at the Onehunga Community Center, 83 Church Street, near the library.

We had our strategy confirmed at the Father and Child Trust AGM in Chch, to positively encourage fathers, as early in their fatherhood as possible. (more…)