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

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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Craig writes:

I’m looking for a standard form prenuptual agreement.
One that I can fill in two names and a date, after reviewing the wording.

I’ve never heard of one, Craig.

I would imagine that they usually contain details of specific assets which are intended to be excluded from jointly owned Relationship Property.

I’m not an expert though, so I’m making your request public in the hope that other men will add useful information. (more…)

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.

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 am young enough to be a father but too old to rebuild all my life after divorce again. I still want to be an involved father more than anything in the world. Until just recently I thought this meant I needed to get married again. However the dates I have had recently have caused me to question this assumption. Do I need a wife? Perhaps good reader you would like to offer your view on this topic.

Under NZ law a 3 year defaco relationship is the same as marriage. So for a male any long term relationship carries all the same risks as marriage. For simplicity I will talk about “marriage” or “being married”. However in fact I mean “have a relationship for longer than 3 years”. In other words it is not relevant if there is a marriage ceremony or not. That is not the issue. It is just rather long winded to say should I stay with a woman for more than 3 years?

Dear reader keep in mind that my parents were childhood sweathearts who married until “death do us part”. Which to them meant exactly that. Hence this is my view of marriage also. I have never had any problem getting dates. I was married. Staying married requires both peple to work on the relationship which requires certain qualities. Finding a woman who is and will always stay comitted to marriage I have found to be so far impossible.

I am still open to that. If happen to bump into the love of my life then great. I certainly take great pleasure in loving and being loved by someone special.

However now I am questioning why would I hunt for it and sign up to marriage?

It is nice and would be best for any child but the risks and costs are extrodinary. Any child has a high risk of being denied one parent anyway.  It seems to me that the laws and women themselves have priced themselves out of the market. I don’t want to reach retirement in poverty it is true. But more than that I can’t afford to have another child shut out of my life. However there is a greater than 50% chance of  exactly both of those things happening.

Do I risk having a shortened life of poverty for a 50% chance of having a child and a wife?

Or do I find another way to have a child (who may well have no mother) ?

Please don’t tell me to change the system. In case you haven’t noticed the system has not changed and I will not live for ever. I have to make a decision based on the society and the system I live in now.

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…)

In 2005 airlines such as Air New Zealand and Qantas were found to have a policy that children and teenagers who are unaccompanied by parents or caregivers cannot sit next to men. Air New Zealand spokesman David Jamieson said the company had no intention of reviewing the policy and admitted that it had been in place for many years.British Airways also has the same policy which was revealed in 2001.

Ex Feminist leader of the Children’s Commissioner Cindy Kiro stated “children’s safety is paramount and she commends the airline for putting thought into how it can keep children safe.” Interestingly, her feminist ideology states that men cannot be trusted with children and they should not be encouraged to have a position of trust around children.

In return a number of men spoke up against the policy including politicians.

Michael Irwin, a former school principal and now senior lecturer at Massey University’s College of Education, says the policy adopted by Air New Zealand and Qantas sent a “misleading message” that men were uncaring when it came to young children.

“It’s saying to society that it’s not men’s role to be involved with their children or any children and that’s ridiculous,” he said.

Mr Irwin said such policies could cause men to feel alienated from schools, childcare centres and nursing, and were also harmful to the wider society, which would miss out on male involvement.

“If a child falls down and hurts themselves. . . is a man supposed to stand around until a woman can be found to help?

“I believe it sends a signal to children: ‘don’t trust a man’.”

The director of the Centre for Public Policy at Massey University, Stuart Birks, said the ban was “a clear case of discrimination with no obvious rational basis”.

It was as “pointless and ridiculous” as discriminating against passengers on grounds of race, religious belief, or appearance, he said.

“Would they have a policy of not seating children next to Maori passengers, or skinheads or Muslims? or only male Maori, skinheads and Muslims?”

The story also featured on TV One Close Up. Susan Wood read out part of an e-mail by MRA Darryl Ward:
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I wrote a post about the UK men’s movement and how men (mostly young men) are speaking up and starting to ask for rights. Men never had any rights. They were also oppressed in society as women were and the gender roles did them no more favours than it did women.

They are not asking for the world or for women to be discriminated against but instead are asking for equality. Something that feminism is based on.
This is in reply to one of the comments. I thought it more appropriate to make it a thread of it’s own rather than turn the comments about the UK men’s movement into a New Zealand thread.

The commenter said:

I want men who are accused rapists to be forced to take the stand and be asked questions to ascertain their characters just as the rape survivor is forced to.

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There’s an interesting rape case being followed on the Internet. It involves an alleged rapist named Kevin Driscoll and an alleged rape victim named Melissa Leahy-Rossow. It’s a very sad reality that many, many young men go through while the rape industry continuously pushes for males to have harsher treatment and women to have lighter treatment by police and the judiciary court system.

On January 23rd 2009 Kevin Driscoll and his friend were out having drinks at a bar where they met Melissa Leahy-Rossow and her acquaintance Dennis Baker. Kevin invited them to his house where other guests also joined them.

On the night in question Melissa Leahy-Rossow had sex with Dennis and Kevin, separately at Kevin’s house. There would have been a third man except Dennis wasn’t interested in having a threesome. Dennis reported that Melissa sought three-way sexual intercourse in the hot tub with both himself and another man who was present, but that he would not agree to this, and that Melissa became angry at his refusal. He also gave her a hooded sweatshirt to wear because she wasn’t interested in wearing her own clothes.

Kevin reports that when he went to bed Melissa was already in his bed and wanted to have sex with him and he consented. This sex was reported by Melissa to be long lasting and extremely brutal where bruises and bites were left on her body as a result. She also said she ran to the door and tried to get out but he wouldn’t let her.

She said this happened at around 1.30am and that after the rape Kevin drove her to her car. The actual reality is that Kevin and Melissa had sex in the bedroom at 1.30am with the guests still in the house and the last left a 4.30am and Kevin drove Melissa to her car at 7.30am where they chatted for a while and Kevin gave Melissa his phone number.

The reason a lot of information is known is because there were security cameras at Kevin’s home and at the bar where Melissa’s car was left but this was something the police were not aware of at the time they arrested Kevin.
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