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

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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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.

French men who seem likely to be violent towards their wives and female partners will be tagged and monitored under new feminist law.

The proposed measure means men who have received court orders to stay away from their partners will wear an electronic bracelet and if they break the order, police are alerted.

Parliament is also considering outlawing psychological violence. This new creation of crime has many outside parliament worried on how this will work. Supporters of the law say psychological violence turns into physical violence while lawyers and professionals in the field are nervous saying it will be impossible to say at what point verbal abuse – for instance in an argument – suddenly becomes a criminal offence.

Critics argue the psychological violence clause is unlikely to make any practical improvement to the lives of women who suffer domestic violence.

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A Queensland mother has been sentenced to life behind bars for the gassing murders of her two children and the attempted murder of her teenage son.

The woman, who cannot be named, was found guilty in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Friday night of two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder after jurors deliberated on the case for six hours.

This afternoon she sobbed as Justice Philip McMurdo described her actions as “horrible”.

“The prime motivation was to avenge what you regarded as the wrong done to you by your ex-husband, the children’s father,” he said.

“On no rational view could this begin to justify an attack on the children, let alone the killing of them.”

She will not be eligible for parole until she has served 20 years.

At the time of the killings she had been angry that her ex-husband had won a Family Court order to have the children for the first half of the 2002-2003 school holidays, which included Christmas.

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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I think it is appalling when men who study men’s issues under ‘gender studies’ at university condemn father’s and men’s groups who stand up for fathers and men to have equal rights. Women have come a long way changing society for females while men are still stuck in the past. Up until 2004, when a father took Germany to court in the European Court of Human Rights over discrimination, an unmarried man with a child was not accepted as a father. Still today this discrimination exists in the United Kingdom where an unmarried man can’t even sign for his child’s health, even though he is on the birth certificate and living with the mother. Decades ago unmarried women were sent to church facilities, had their child taken away and adopted out while they were sent back home childless.

Unfortunately, misandry (hatred of men) runs rampant in ‘gender studies’ (because it follows feminist ideology of man = perpetrator = bad and woman = victim = good). It takes a strong man to stand up to do what’s right instead of what’s easy and popular. And it just so happens there are men out there strong enough, who are insisting men have their own studies away from misandry (hatred of men) but that’s the American Men’s movement and for another article.

I am also appalled and think it is very sad and extremely bad that we don’t have New Zealand men representing New Zealand men but instead use (selectively chosen for their radical feminist outlook), men from overseas. Men as close as Australia with Michael Flood whose says his higher education made him want to be a feminist supporter. In other words, he is caught up in the man=bad, woman=good ideology. ……. to far away America with Lundy Bancroft who thinks every man who doesn’t follow feminism needs to be in prison for reprogramming that he insists takes as long as it takes (a life time for some).
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Lately I have been receiving e-mails from mothers introducing themselves as being in a shared parenting arrangement. It is nice for me to hear this because after 2/3 generations not very good at sharing, we have a new generation mediating between each other well.

I am worried though, because I have been to a radical feminist meeting where they’ve said fathers who use the family court as a means to be in their children’s lives just want control of women, and I know here in New Zealand we do have a national group of radical feminists who lobby against shared parenting.

My worry has turned to fear by the actions of radical feminists and their radical socialist male supporters in Australia where father’s groups worked hard to change the law in 2006 so fathers could share their children and be a part of their lives as they grow up instead of just paying child tax to the mothers.

I like what Australian journalist Angela Shanahan of the The Australian newspaper had to say on how feminists are depriving children of their fathers. I’d enjoy reading YOUR opinion and perhaps having some discussion over this; Do you think children have a right to a relationship with both mum and dad?
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I need to get some advice as to what i should do next.
My ex has been physically and psychologically violent in the past. We are still in the family court and as such I am self represented.

We had mediation a couple of years ago and agreed a new custody arrangement which did not work as both the kids and parents were confused as to which day they went where (I’ve had to keep a calendar to help me!). Both parents agreed it wasn’t working. L4C agreed it wasn’t working… BUT I’m the only one who has attempted to change it through face to face discussion or by court mediation.

Because I’ve proven that the appointed psychologist lied and that the cyfs report was biased (also proven) the court has seen fit to appoint itself counsel to assist the court. We were supposed to have mediation soon but now the counsel for court + my ex’s lawyer have agreed not to.
In the meantime one of my children is getting psychological abuse from his mum on a constant basis.
I don’t trust CYFS to help and the police have proven themselves useless too.

IRD think I can pay nearly all of my job seeker allowance to my ex even though I am unemployed and have a shared parenting agreement. How I’m supposed to feed, cloth, and house my kids and I is beyond me

I can understand why people take off with their kids. I’m at the point where I just don’t know what to do next.
I’m a rational guy, and just need advice!

Over recent weeks there has been heated (and often abusive) debate about Union of Fathers’ president Alan Harvey working as an access supervisor. He is not the first men’s advocate to have done so – Craig Davis from Shore Fathers has also been employed in this position, and likewise faced a torrent of abuse and accusations from an angry male client.

It will be obvious that I have not been doing much moderation in recent weeks – many of the comenters repeatedly break the MENZ rules – my only excuse is that the sun was shining, and the trail inviting.

I’m leaving the discussion unaltered because I think much of it is valuable. There is very little mention of the NZ Supervised Access regime in the mainstream media, and many important issues are raised. (more…)

Journalist AN MUNRO over at stuff.co.nz has written an very sad and detailed article about Anthony Sherna killing his partner after suffering years of abuse and being sentenced to 14 years in jail.

For almost 20 years he submitted in order to keep the peace. When she demanded he change his surname to prove he loved her, he agreed.

When she insisted he not see his friends or family, he complied. When she taunted him by resuming an affair with a former boyfriend and suggested he ”grow some balls”, he swallowed the insults.

When she said he was too smelly to use the toilet at home, he restrained himself until he arrived at work. When she refused to let him sleep in their double bed, he dossed down in the spare room on a camp stretcher.

He was sole breadwinner but she rationed his cigarettes – just 12 each day – and controlled their money. Each week after withdrawing the housekeeping money he handed over the cash, his ATM card and receipts.

It is shocking that he was sentenced to prison when he is a domestic violence victim and she a controlling abuser. If it had been the other way around and he was a she, he would have gained sympathy and walked free.

She is what is known as a narcissist and over at mensnewsdaily, they have Dr. Tara J. Palmatier writing articles about this type of women and the abuse men go through. She writes:
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