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MENZ ISSUES

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

Sun 7th March 2010

Men matter when it comes to family violence

Filed under: Boys / Youth / Education, Domestic Violence, General, Men's Health — julie @ 10:35 pm

United Future, (New Zealand political party) President and gender affairs spokesperson Judy Turner has told the media that her party stands for men’s rights when it comes to family violence. The Families Commission was set up by the Labour Government in a deal with United Future party after the 2002 election because United Future believed that the family is the core unit of our society and is the place where all values and skills for living harmoniously in a modern society emanate from. As we know, feminism (Labour) is about destroying the traditional family unit as it is a radical movement insisting on changing societal norms. So the Families Commission was set up to remove the conflict between the two party’s policies.

One of the things the Families Commission deals with is family violence and the rights of each individual in the family where women are a class, gay and lesbians are a class, children are a class, elderly are a class and minority groups are a class. The only class that doesn’t exist are young men over the age of thirteen to grown men who are not yet elderly. Judy Turner is aware this is discrimination and wants to see this changed.

Her statement comes after the release of the 2010 family violence death report which states 12 men, 16 children and 13 women were abused so badly they died at the hands of the people they should have been able to trust – their own family members.
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Tue 2nd March 2010

Male Psychology – Why haven’t men fought for rights?

Filed under: Boys / Youth / Education, Domestic Violence, General — julie @ 10:25 am

Have you ever wondered why we don’t have men’s rights and yet we have women’s rights, children’s rights, animal’s rights, even rights for plants? You might say it’s because of feminism and you would be right to a large degree. It’s not helpful for men when there exists a man-hate movement. But could there be a bit more to it?

If you’ve ever wondered, like I have, you’ll enjoy this interesting 10 minute presentation by manwomanmyth.com with guest speakers Angry Harry, a well known and well respected Men’s Rights Advocate and Activist alongside Erin Pizzy, author and international speaker of domestic violence who made the world’s first women’s refuge and Stephen Fitzgerald, director of Mankind Men’s charity.

Sun 28th February 2010

Violence will Increase as Fatherlessness Increases – says Family First

Filed under: Boys / Youth / Education, General — julie @ 12:03 pm

Family First NZ says that violence in our community and towards people of authority such as the police will increase as long as we downplay the significance and benefits of strong marriages and committed fathers.

“The response of governments, even today, has been more money and more laws. Yet this fails to deal with the root causes of what is happening. Fatherlessness is a major contributor to increasing rates of juvenile violence,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

“Scientific research is unanimous on a number of conclusions regarding family structure – that strong marriages increases the likelihood that fathers have good relationships with their children and lowers the risk of alcohol and substance abuse, domestic violence and child abuse,”

“Conversely, parental divorce or non-marriage appears to increase children’s risk of delinquent and criminal behaviour, amongst other factors. One only needs to observe proceedings at the Youth Court to see the effect of fatherlessness.”

“According to The Heritage Foundation, an influential US research institute, an analysis of social science literature over 30 years shows that the rise in violent crime parallels the rise in families abandoned by fathers. A state-bystate analysis indicated that a 10% increase in the percentage of children living in single-parent homes lead typically to a 17% increase in juvenile crime. The research found that criminal behaviour has its roots in habitual deprivation of parental love and affection going back to early infancy.”
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Sun 21st February 2010

Men’s Health Australia takes on Minister for Status of Women

Filed under: Boys / Youth / Education, Domestic Violence, Men's Health — julie @ 1:53 pm

A leading men’s health organisation in Australia claims that the Minister for the Status of Women, Hon Gail Gago MLC, misled Parliament by maintaining that false statistics on the Government’s Don’t Cross the Line anti-violence campaign website are accurate, back in October 2009. The Minister defended the misleading statistics in Parliament, claiming that “the data on the Don’t Cross the Line website is sound.”

MHA (Men’s Health Australia) also lodged an official complaint with the Ombudsman after attempting for five months to draw the Minister’s attention to the major statistical errors on the website.

Spokesman for MHA Greg Andresen said, “The Facts and Stats page of the website is extremely misleading to the public. It clearly inflates statistics about domestic violence against women while understating statistics about domestic violence against men.”

Men’s Health Australia supports efforts to reduce family violence in the community but is concerned that the use of incorrect or misleading ‘statistics’ by Governments unfairly stigmatises men and boys as violent and abusive, while at the same time denies services to male victims of violence.

Another concern for MHA is that the Government’s approach is not in the interests of all children in families where there is abuse or violence because it selectively favours those children in families where violence is perpetrated by the father leaving out support for children who are abused by mothers.

Some of the campaign’s errors alleged by Men’s Health Australia include:
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Wed 14th October 2009

Father’s suicides or parental suicides?

Dear Wendy,

I read your article about father’s suicides, with quite a bit of pain.

While men’s suicide shows up grossly and obviously in national suicide statistics, I suspect that women’s suicides due to court traumatisation from removal of relationships with children is a faster growing problem.

The feeling of traumatisation due to injustice does cut very deep and isn’t so obvious to someone who has not experienced it directed in their direction. This is why I see the “judges” who do it regularly, as relationship vandals and slaughterers.

In my own personal experience, I know of several father suicides and no mother suicides.

However, when I think of traumatisation by caught process, I know a roughly similar number of women as men, who are so traumatised that their adult life is presently destroyed.

This leads me to conclude that as the caught processes harden up, we may soon be seeing similar numbers of women’s suicides as we presently see men’s.
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Sat 10th October 2009

Domesitc Violence month has given something for males to celebrate

Filed under: Boys / Youth / Education, Domestic Violence, General, Law & Courts — julie @ 10:59 am

October is Domestic Violence month and one court case alone in West Virginia, USA, has given a shimmer of hope for men in this terrible time of gender discrimination against them. A group of men and women against discrimination (MAWAD) have taken the state’s family service board to court over discrimination laws. Not only are services being biased to men and boys when it comes to domestic violence but feminists are not allowing men or women to work in these services if they don’t believe in radical feminist ideology. They are being bullied by feminists who are retraining them in falsehoods and forced to practice things they know are not true. In this day and age of information there is no reason why feminist teaching should have any say what so ever in family affairs. We don’t follow ideologies any more and consider beliefs a personal thing. They don’t belong in the public arena.

The honorable Judge Stucky handed the Family Services Board of WV a resounding defeat, often citing gender bias and lack of science to their approach, quoting “a substantial chilling effect of suppressing their members expression of speech, thoughts and ideas relative to domestic violence by depriving them even of the opportunity to obtain certified services”. This often included preconceived untruths promulgated by the falsehoods of the domestic violence “experts” within these services. It also found that services “excluded Men and adolescent males from their statutory right to safety and security free from domestic violence for no other reason than their gender”.

http://wadvpress.org/?p=347
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Wed 22nd July 2009

Pathways Through Seperation

Filed under: Boys / Youth / Education, Child Support, General — Scrap_The_CSA @ 11:08 pm

Media release – Familes Commission

Non-resident fathers study suggests more support needed

21 July 2009

A group of separated fathers who experienced enormous grief and frustration when they were no longer able to live with their children have told researchers that community services do not provide the help they needed.

The study Pathways through Parental Separation [PDF, 557K], funded by the Families Commission Innovative Practice Fund, analysed discussions with 20 non-resident fathers to find strategies for supporting fathers through the process of separation.

Mon 8th June 2009

“All custody and access should be 50-50.”: Education expert

Filed under: Boys / Youth / Education, Law & Courts — Dave @ 6:18 pm

Education consultant Joseph Driessen said children who came from broken homes were typically 25 per cent behind other children in achievement.

“Boys are affected by divorce very deeply because 85 per cent of custody goes to the mother and guys just disappear. That needs to change,” he told The Press.

“We need to have a family split-up philosophy where we realise that sons need their fathers. All custody and access should be 50-50.”

Full article here. (includes further useful references.)

boy was found in an alcohol-induced coma

Filed under: Boys / Youth / Education, Law & Courts — Dave @ 5:20 pm

A 13-year-old boy is recovering in hospital after downing a one-litre bottle of spirits in 30 minutes at a sports training camp.

Wanaka police were investigating an alleged theft of a bottle of alcohol from the bar of a backpackers by a 15-year-old boy.

Constable Greg Nolet said reports from other camp participants indicated the boy had drunk the allegedly stolen bottle of spirits after it was produced by another boy.

People “at some stage” needed to be held responsible for the consequences of “peer pressure”, Mr Nolet said.

What I found interesting about this story is a policeman saying that he thought there should be some personal responsibility for consequences. I thought this is a very radical concept for New Zealand. I can’t say I am optimistic but it is fascinating the thought was even published. Obviously a career limiting move by Mr Nolet.

Sun 24th May 2009

Gifted girls conceal their talents

Filed under: Boys / Youth / Education — Darryl Ward @ 12:27 pm
I would question this, given the tendency to “put down” males.
From: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/2436607/Gifted-girls-conceal-their-talents

Gifted girls conceal their talents

By CATHERINE WOULFE – Sunday Star Times
Parents need to watch their daughters closely to work out whether they might be “gifted”, experts say, because girls are far more likely than boys to deliberately “dumb down” to fit in with their friends.

Worse still, says Chris Herbert, head of the assessment team at the Gifted Education Centre (GEC), girls who hide their talents are likely to become bored and frustrated, setting them up for failure at secondary school because they lose all motivation.

“Gifted” children are defined as those who achieve, or have the potential to achieve, at a level far above most other children their age. If they make an effort at school, their marks are likely to be in the top 5% of their class.

A child can be gifted in one area such as mathematics or music or many, and there are different levels of giftedness.

Research suggests that about half of all gifted kids are never identified. But Sheryl Burns, assistant director of the GEC, says gifted boys are much more likely to be identified than girls.

“Little boys, when they get bored, tend to act up and become the class clown so they get picked up [as gifted]. Little girls tend to just become quiet and sit in the corner and don’t say very much so they are never picked up.

“As they get older, the desire to fit in becomes greater… Girls dumb down, they comply, and they become the teacher’s pet.”

Sue Breen, GEC lead teacher, says her gifted daughter (now an adult) deliberately kept her marks to 80% throughout school. This tactic kept the teachers happy, and also meant she didn’t stand out too much from her friends.

Now Breen sees other girls using the same cover-up strategy.

“Eighty percent is a good mark to get. That’s fine, as long as they remember they’re doing it. But sometimes they forget they think of themselves as an 80%-er.”

Breen says she has to work hard to get girls to take risks with their answers, to try new ways of thinking and stop simply delivering what they know the teacher wants. ‘

Education psychologist and head of the New Zealand Association for Gifted Children, Rose Blackett, says it can take just one comment to push a gifted child into covering their talents.

“They will feel it. It will cut to the bone rather than be like water off a duck’s back.”

Parents who think their daughter may be gifted can have her tested by private psychologists or the GEC, which has branches around the country. Once a child is identified as gifted they gain access to the GEC’s special classes, and the acknowledgment can also help parents, and the child’s school, to better understand and work with them.

The GEC centres will hold open days in the third week of June, which is Gifted Awareness Week.

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