Several media items yesterday deserve mention. On National Radio’s “Best of Nine to Noon” there was an interview with Pauline Grogan, a nun who wrote a book about her life that has been made into a play. At age 30 years she was approached by a priest and she agreed to meet the priest for a romantic rendezvous. He then encouraged her to leave the nun’s life and he set her up in her own accommodation, then some time later offered to marry her. She declined marriage because she was too “confused”, but later she married another man and had three children. In describing the events concerning the priest, both Mrs Grogan and the interviewer Kathryn Ryan spoke about the priest as if he were a rapist, accusing him of manipulating and exploiting the poor young woman. The priest lost his job as a result of Mrs Grogan’s book. It struck me that this 30-year-old woman was being seen as not responsible for her decisions when faced with a sexual advance from a man. It highlighted the minefield that courtship has become for men. Even when a man follows normal rules of communication and approaches a mature woman reasonably (and in this case responsibly offering to marry her) his behaviour is seen as exploitative. Yes, feminists might claim that he was exploiting a power imbalance, but in fact I understand that he was not in any position of direct authority over this nun. And power analysis of relationships is of questionable value; after all, most courtship is between people of different status, wealth and so forth. If being in a superior position within a workplace ruled men out of courtship participation, then the huge proportion of long-term, fulfilling relationships that begin between work colleagues would never have happened. While I wouldn’t applaud a priest going outside the rules of his employment, the rules for men’s participation in relationships in the feminist era are somewhat incomprehensible, unpredictable and often seem to be dictated by the retrospective preference of the women involved.

Another story, front page headline in the Rotorua Daily Post today, was about a 52-year-old man who sent suggestive and sexual text messages to a 16 year-old “girl”. The man had previously been imprisoned for sex offences against under-age females. He was now convicted of misusing a telephone device. While I have no respect for this man’s sexual offending against children, or indeed for his current sexualized behaviour towards a 16-year-old, the case again raises serious questions about men’s rights and the way they are seen under feminism. Firstly, he was in this case dealing with a young woman who had reached the legal age of consent in this country. Why would his sexual text messages then deserve front-page coverage that treated him as if he had committed further child sex offences? How is it that rules around courtship are specified but if a man stays within those rules he is still condemned and treated as a sexual offender? And nothing in the article was said about the young woman’s role in the texts. We don’t know whether she responded in an encouraging way, though one presumes she did because he continued to correspond with 57 text messages. We don’t know whether she asked him to stop or indicated that his messages were not welcome. This has been a defining issue in whether workplace advances would be viewed as sexual harassment (though here too the rules seem to shift unpredictably based mainly on the subjective preference of the women).

Interesting that on page 4 of the same paper there was an article reporting that Violet Mahari, the woman who stabbed her partner to death at Papamoa Caravan Park just before Christmas, has been released on bail. How many males facing murder charges are released on bail? Such charges if proven are almost certain to result in imprisonment, and the length of such imprisonment makes absconding on bail a high risk, so how can bail be justified? And of course this surprising example of female privilege in the justice system was not seen as deserving of front-page coverage whereas some inadequate bloke who sent dirty texts was.

The last story is about the police “saving” a “traumatized” 16-year-old from a sex attack in a car by a 44-year-old man. Now perhaps that is exactly what it was, but the story sounded suspicious. The police in a random patrol checked a car parked in a major Tauranga shopping centre about 6am. They spoke to the male driver then noticed a “young girl” in the car who was “quite traumatized”. The man had “befriended” the “girl” three days earlier. Well, 16 is the legal age of consent and she can hardly be described as a young girl. She was out with this guy in his car at 6am. There was no indication that she sought to attract the police’s attention or jumped out of the car to escape when the police were talking to the man. Was her “trauma” mainly embarrassment and fear at being caught in sexual experimentation, knowing her parents would disapprove and perhaps punish her and that her friends would give her a hard time about going with such an older man? So, as often seems to happen, the young woman seeks to absolve herself of blame by accusing the man of trying to rape her. The police operate under their own value system and decide that an older man with a teenager deserves a hard time, then they suggest through their questions of the young woman that she must be a poor exploited victim. (The first questions were probably “do your parents know you were out with him and what would they think?”, then “was he trying to force himself on you?”) Again, we have a case where a man who keeps to the rules as far as age goes nevertheless is treated as a child molester. Why specify rules if staying within them is still seen as criminal? I acknowledge that the facts of the situation are unclear and it may be that he was a rapist, but the story implied that he was seen as a rapist because she was 16 and for no other reason.

Men live in a minefield.

Parents for Children today announced that it will no longer be conducting advocacy work for parents facing child support issues but will commit its full organisational focus to law change.
“It is clear that the real need is for legislation that enshrines equal parental rights and responsibilities into New Zealand law not an ambulance service at the bottom of the cliff. From a strategic viewpoint advocacy, while alleviating individual issues, does not remove the root cause of the problems with the current matrix of Family Law and does little to progress real change.” Responded Mark Shipman when asked why advocacy services were being withdrawn.
“We are advising all those who have issues with Child Support to take the issue to their Member of Parliament. This is part of an overall strategy designed to force Politicians to make real reform. This strategy will be outlined in detail at the National Child Support Reform Conference in Wellington this month. ” Commented Mark when asked what avenue was open to aggrieved parents.
?

In the past 2 years Parents for Children have received over 1000 requests for assistance with Child Support Issues.
?

Ends

Dateline: UK
By: Intrepid
From: The Honor Network
Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

In a move that is bound to turn heads F4J (UK) has made the first moves to copy the New Zealand MRAs bothering campaign of judges in response to the failure of any kind of reform from the UK establishment. Using a new term of “Judgebusting” they hope to apply more pressure on the government to not ignore their just demands. Ten of the UK worst judicial offenders have had their personal details, including addresses, published on the Internet as a first step in this new move. F4J wants family courts to be open to scrutiny so they may be gauge on what is happening, and believes there should be a presumption of equal access by both parents when court proceedings begin- instead of the social dysfunction that is put forward under the veil of feminist compassion.

(more…)

Dateline: USA
By: Thurston Pundits http://thurstonpundits.blogspot.com/
From: The Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

The Zero reports today that Gregory would like to hire 77 new employees in Washington’s most bloated and corrupt department- DSHS. These employees would supervise visits between convicted child abusers and their children in foster care.

Just to be clear- the state will not spend one nickel on making sure courts prosecute flagrant violations of parenting plans so non-custodial parents get time with their kids. The state will also not spend one nickel checking the rate of parents getting screwed out of joint custody in family courts or the track records of judges “managing a very complex process.”

(more…)

Dateline: UK
By: Intrepid
From: Agence France Presse through My Nation India
Via: the Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

A Durex Big Sex Survey of some 3,000 British citizens averaged a 72 per cent of people want more sex — 62 per cent of women and 82 per cent of men. Women are more unfaithful to their partners than men, the survey showed with some 40 per cent of female respondents saying they have cheated, compared with 34 per cent of men.

(more…)

A panel discussion on National Radio yesterday about NZ’s ‘Man Drought’ was noteworthy for the comments by one of the panel members, psychologist Pru Fisher who specializes in working with women and relationships. From the interview it was evident that she was educated in the 60’s or 70’s and her world view is dominated by the bitter feminist ideology of that time. It’s quite frightening to think that she is let loose on young women in the role of a life adviser. Interestingly, no discussion arose about why the man drought might have developed in New Zealand. I wonder to what extent the selfish, man-hating ideology demonstrated in this panel discussion is driving men out of the country. Although the following quotes from Ms Fisher are a bit long I think they are a good example of what we’re dealing with in the way powerful women nowadays think. Sadly, this kind of ideology is common for parliamentary women and for those who provide specialist reports in the Family Court, not to mention the lawyers, judges and other personnel. Bracketed and italicised words are added for clarification, with my comments included also in italics:

“I won’t accept it (the ‘man drought’)as a phenomena as yet”
Aside from the grammatical error in using the plural form of ‘phenomenon’, Ms Fisher decides that her preferred view of the world needn’t be concerned with established facts.

“I work largely from a gendered power perspective”

“From my perspective women get sick when they have high levels of responsibility and low levels of productive power and few choices within sexual relationships” Is there evidence for this perspective? And without good evidence what is she doing bringing this feminist paranoia into her role as a helping professional? People get sick for many reasons.

“So (by using the term ‘man drought’)why do they want to position women as victims again in the media?” The term ‘man drought’ arises completely from the self-centred perspective of women; i.e. “will there be enough men for us to choose from?” Seeing this term as victimizing women is quite a twist of reasoning, typical though of feminists keen to maintain their victim status in order to justify ever-increasing privilege and power.

“The desire to be girlfriend is causing ill-health in young women” Funny, that doesn’t seem to have been identified as a health factor in epidemiological research!

“The desire (in young women) to be a girlfriend … is really distressing me” ?!

“What we’re not providing our young women with is alternative sites for pleasure” Ms Fisher repeatedly referred to “other sites for pleasure” but didn’t elaborate. However, the next quote, taken out of sequence, may give a clue about her thinking.

“We’ve been in them (relationships), we’ve had them, we’ve seen the health effects from trying to juggle work life with a family life and many of us look to when we’re going to get our proper life back. They’re still waiting to have a proper life and that doesn’t necessarily need to be within a heterosexual relationship.” So when the ‘girls should do everything’ approach doesn’t entirely work, throw out relationships and family life. And pleasure should be sought outside heterosexual relationships, i.e. homosexuality?

“They present with physical health problems, so we need to be aware that the underlying restraint to them changing is their desire to be a girlfriend” Aside from the lack of reasoning in this statement, Ms Fisher’s beliefs about underlying causes of health problems are not supported by medical science. But as they’re feminist and male-blaming they will be readily accepted by her profession.

“They’re wanting pleasure and they’re wanting intimacy and they’re wanting love but could that not be in a more flexible way that doesn’t commit them to one relationship all the time and earlier on and leave that for later” Yeah, it’s o.k. for women to seek pleasure and intimacy but they needn’t be burdened with any commitment or obligations to the men they use for that purpose.

“I would like to see our young women place less emphasis on being a girlfriend between the ages of 15 to 25 and more an emphasis on what other sites they can get pleasure from” Yes, let’s try to deny biological reproductive drives because these are inconsistent with feminist ideology, and let’s encourage young women to think only of how they can get pleasure.

“(My clients) present with health problems from trying to maintain possibly what for them may be an unsuitable relationship. I may be reading it wrongly. But if someone like me who has worked for 30 years with women says “let’s get concerned” I think we should start to be concerned” It possibly may or may not be true and she may be reading it wrongly but it suits feminist assumptions to blame men and heterosexual relationships for women’s health problems so we’d better listen up.

“If we use this term ‘man drought’ do you think as single women it’s increasing or decreasing authority in relationships, is it giving you more choices or less choices?” More authority and choice for women is what it’s all about, and reliable facts or statistics can be ignored in promoting beliefs that will help forward feminist aims.

(When another panellist stated that men generally have little awareness of any man drought) “I think it’s a lovely concept that men aren’t aware of their power when they’re a scarcity, and if you are dating mature men I suppose that they may choose not to exploit that.” Yeah, let’s keep men in the dark so they don’t exploit women because usually they do; hey she’s not paranoid!

(Another panellist: “I run a dating agency because people want to get together and that is considered a proper life…” ) Ms Fisher: “And I want to shift that idea.” There’s a good feminist idea, turn women away from marriage and families and replace this with selfish pleasure seeking.

“Women, for example, who get cancer recover far more quickly if they have a loving partner, so men can add to our mental health, but… It’s all about how men might be useful in forwarding women’s interests, nothing about women’s responsibilities or care towards their partners.

Dateline: Australia
Placed: Ross Mitchell
From: News.com.au via Dads On Air Australia

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

Ross Mitchell: Seeing as this is Queensland, one must ask why Ms. Hagerty is not terminally incarcerated until the children are returned, as a father (who was alleged to have removed his children from Australia) was-and still is.

AUSTRALIAN: Federal Police are searching for two Queensland children at the centre of a bitter custody battle.

(more…)

Dateline: Tennessee, USA
By: North Carolina Dad
From: The Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

-Complaint cites judge in terror-linked case
Woman protecting sons from Islam charges divorce court rules broken

Judicial ethics complaints are being filed against a Tennessee judge by a
woman battling her Muslim husband in a divorce case she fears could leave
her teen sons at the mercy of violent Islamic jihadists and a lawyer who was
asked to take notes in the case.

(more…)

I heard an edition of National Radio’s “Best of Insight” late last night entitled “Children’s Behaviour”. This radio documentary was first broadcast in mid 2006. It set out to explore possible changes in children’s behaviour in our time, interviewing teachers, other child experts and some parents and students. I found it noteworthy in several respects.

It stated that New Zealand has the third highest rate of single parent “families” in the OECD. One interviewee made the wise observation that the difficult task of rearing children became much more risky and less effective when undertaken by sole parents functioning with little support in the parenting role.

The documentary referred to serious concerns held by many teachers from pre-school to secondary concerning deteriorating behaviour in students, including several conferences in the last few years specifically devoted to such concerns. The documentary repeatedly emphasized the old (and valid) retort that each generation sees its children as deteriorating, as shown by relevant excerpts from writers from Socrates to Dr Spock. It highlighted claims by experienced pre-school and primary-school teachers that children’s behaviour was essentially the same as it was 30 to 50 years ago. This view though was contradicted by other statements from those and other teachers, and sadly the documentary did not refer to any research that might shed light on the question “should we be concerned about any deterioration in the behaviour of children in our era?”.

However, in the case of secondary schools there seemed to be a strong consensus that pupils’ behaviour had deteriorated seriously with more violence and bullying, less obedience and co-operation, less respect for teachers and for most behavioural rules, and more “disengaging” from the education process and any effort to benefit from lessons. What I found particularly interesting was that all teachers, commentators and the documentary makers steadfastly avoided discussing changes in school discipline and specifically the banning of corporal punishment. The documentary host even claimed that punishments in schools now seemed much the same as in the past. Deterioration in behaviour was attributed to all manner of things including “inadequate home life”, too much effort by modern parents to mould their children, insufficient opportunity for children to develop their own individuality, parents’ expectations that their own personal development and selfish wishes must be fulfilled, the impact of the “me” age on children, lack of community support, poor literacy, boredom, inability to keep up with lessons, wrong teaching styles, technological distractions such as mobile phones and Ipods, limited attention spans due to television and video games, the close scrutiny that children were now subjected to, derogatory stereotypes and descriptions in the news media concerning children, parental insecurity about managing children, less interpersonal respect in society.

The fact that the removal of corporal punishment was totally ignored pointed (I think) to the extent to which politically-correct (largely feminist) ideology has permeated our society and is now considered sacred, beyond scrutiny or challenge. The banning of corporal punishment and the associated, feminist-based ideology about children’s “rights”, “violence is bad and modelling violence through physical force is worse” etc constitute the most obvious and probably the most important factor causing deterioration in children’s behaviour. Voluntary blindness towards this, as demonstrated in the documentary, now also threatens to allow the illegalization of smacking by parents and thereby a further lurch in a direction already shown to be unsuccessful, or at the very least unsupported by any outcome of banning corporal punishment in schools. (Note though that I believe there are positive aspects to some formulation and recognition of rights for children, and there was plenty of need to change the way corporal punishment was used in schools, but the ideology has led to excesses and to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.)

The question “is there deterioration in children’s behaviour worth worrying about?” seems to me similar to the question “is there any real process of global warming worth worrying about?”. There seems to be plenty of evidence suggesting both are real trends with potentially catastrophic results, but global warming is now widely accepted whereas social anarchy in our schools and upcoming generation is denied.

To some extent our blindness to the lack of positive outcome from removing corporal punishment parallels the Swedish stance on their smacking ban. The Swedes committed themselves ideologically to that stance and have gained an international identity as leaders in shaping a “brave new world” of enlightened civilisation; they now ignore the many indicators that the policy is failing to improve their society and instead is degrading it. At some point the social problems caused by Sweden’s policy will increase to a point where the Swedes and onlookers will be forced to acknowledge the truth, but in the meantime they maintain a process of denial and distortion of reality to avoid the need to review the largely feminist ideology on which their policies are based.

But these are only my musings. The Insight documentary itself can be heard anytime through National Radio’s web page.

I usually watch very little television, (and then, mainly foreign channels like Aljazeera and NASA), but I am on holiday at present and last night I watched a film on Channel Three.

I was very disturbed by a new advertisement from the abuse industry.

A woman was shown listening to a sports commentary (almost certainly of a rugby test) with great interest, and she became quite disturbed when New Zealand lost in the dying moments of the game.

This was followed by the following (or a very similar) caption: “When his team is beaten, so is she”.

I understand that the claim that major sporting events are accompanied by a rise in domestic violence against women has long been discredited.

I also understand that there probably is a rise in domestic violence against men, who are beaten by their partners for over-celebrating and not meeting their curfews.

If you see any similar advertising, please document it for the basis of a possible complaint, sooner rather than later, before too much damage is done.

2 January 2007

Todd Minerson

Executive Director

White Ribbon Campaign

Canada

[email protected]

Dear Mr Minerson

AN OPEN LETTER TO TODD MINERSON, THE WHITE RIBBON CAMPAIGN, CANADA

I am writing to express my deepest regret at the misleading and hateful attitudes that your organisation is promoting. I am particularly concerned that you totally ignore women’s violence against men, which is just as prevalent as men’s violence against women.

For many years I have counselled many men who were victims of domestic violence at the hands of women. Few of them dared report their suffering to the authorities. If they were lucky they would be laughed at. If they were unlucky, they would be arrested for the crimes of their batterers.

I have met many men who feared their violent partners, but were more afraid of people finding out they were scared of a woman. The shame of being a battered man is often worse than the actual battering.

Studies undertaken by independent bodies (as opposed to groups with vested interests like the refuge industry) are overwhelmingly consistent in the conclusion that women can be just as violent as men.

We often hear the red herring of physical size, but the reality is that most men would never hit a woman; it is not the done thing for a man. Conversely, it is not rare for a small woman to physically attack a larger man, pull his hair, scratch his face, bite him and kick his genitals, knowing that he will never fight back. On the rare instance that a man does defend himself, he is invariably the one arrested.

Your white ribbon day campaign helps to suppress the grim reality of violence against men.

Male victims of domestic violence do not have national networks of refuges. They do not have state-funded support agencies. Their plight is not the subject of massive advertising campaigns. They are left to suffer in silence.

The very least they deserve is recognition.

Allow me to ask you a question. Would you ever promote a high profile nationwide campaign that only addressed violence by First Nation Canadians? Or Muslims? Or women?

I believe I know the answer.

If I am correct, and your answer is “no”, why then are you promoting a campaign that only highlight’s men’s violence and why will you not be promoting a similar campaign against women’s violence?

By highlighting men’s violence, you are contributing to the invisibility of women’s violence, which is constantly under-reported and over-excused.

I therefore respectfully call upon you to make white ribbon day inclusive to acknowledge of the reality of domestic violence against both women and men.

By challenging the one-sided view of domestic violence with which we are presented, you can make the one step that is needed to really do something about domestic violence. You would show that you genuinely are concerned with violence and not just political correctness.

What a wonderful legacy that would be for your organisation to leave.

Or would such a bold move impact negatively on your organisation’s funding?

Violence is violence, regardless of the sex of the perpetrator, and it is not helpful for groups with vested interests to promote irrational fear and hysterical hatred of half of the population.

Until it is recognised that domestic violence is a two way street, and that women are just as capable of violence as men are, this blight on our society will never be removed.

Yours sincerely

Darryl Ward

Dateline: US
By: Pitbull
From: The Honor Network
Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

Trash talk on the field moves to a whole new level as the Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Joey Porter can attest. He has been fined by the NFL $10,000 for calling Cleveland Browns tight end Kellen Winslow a derogatory term normally used for gay men (no one seems to report what the actual word was out of fear of being targeted as well it would seem). Porter’s comments came last Thursday after the Steelers trounced the Browns 27-7.

(more…)

Dateline: Japan
By: Toshi
From: The Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

Well only another month has gone by and we again have the same topic to deal with. Another woman has been charged with killing her boy (4 year old), and she too has another questionable death in her background being more closely looked at by police. Yet the excuse given for the murder is noteworthy and we will discuss this and its global scope too.

(more…)

Dateline: Australia
By: Christian J
From: The Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

This release from the Fathers for Equality should demonstrate to all a sundry the level feminism has scourged Australia.

(more…)

Dateline: India
By: 498A Crusader
From: The Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

For centuries, married men have been brutally nagged and have considered it as part and parcel of a married life. There will be not a single married man who has never been emotionally abused, threatened, brutally nagged, and even physically assaulted by his wife. However, looking at the present scenario, it seems that men are the architect of their own precarious condition in the present woman’s world. (more…)

Dateline: Boston, USA
By: F4J(US)
From: Hands On Equal Parent
Via: The Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

Steve McDonough and friends stage an event in Boston and successfully received some media attention. Click to watch the Boston action below:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=539756907024646890&pr=goog-sl

Dateline: Australia
By: Ozy Dads
From: Dads—On-the-Air
Via: The Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

For those of you who are unaware of Mr. Magill story here is brief summation:

Liam Magill, 54, sued his ex-wife Meredith, 38, in the County Court after DNA tests confirmed he was not the father of two of the couple’s three children. His former wife lied in court documents and in court about who the real parent was.

Mr. Liam was breifly awarded $70,000 for pain and suffering and economic loss, but three Appeal Court judges overturned the decision at a higher court level. They also awarded legal costs against Mr Magill, while Mr Magill drove himself into further debt on his own for the state doesn’t fund men so wrongly abused.

(more…)

Dateline: Atlanta, USA
By: Pitbull
From: The Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

With stats from both the UK and USA governments showing that Deadbeat Mothers are worse than Deadbeat Dads you would think that they could jail at least one such woman, yet what is in fact happening is the state is trampling over itself and other departments (and all traditional laws and rights in many countries) in an effort to put fathers only in jail. In this head long rush innocent men are having their reputations destroyed and are being jailed, bankrupted and I’m sure in some cases much worse, from possible suicide from their unjust situations in jail. Why? Well the establishment wants money from those who have it, and thinks it can get more from bleeding a stone.

(more…)

Dateline: BC, Canada
By: Tom Zytaruk at the Now Newspaper
Via: BC Fathers & The Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

A New Westminster, BC man who dressed up as Robin and perched on the Pattullo Bridge for nearly five hours in 2004 has lost an appeal of his mischief conviction.

Hal Legere – a.k.a. the Boy Wonder – was arrested after climbing onto the girders about 50 feet above the bridge deck and unfurling a large banner supporting Fathers4Justice, a national organization for which he serves as B.C. coordinator.

He was protesting against court bias in child-custody cases.

(more…)

Dateline: Canada
By: Jim Hodgins of The National Post (article now removed)
Via: The Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

A federally funded report says “masculinists” are orchestrating a backlash against feminism and blaming women for oppressing and discriminating against men.

The report’s authors claim that masculinists portray men as victims and link feminism with boys’ poor performance in schools, male suicide, loss of male identity and discriminatory divorce and child custody laws.

(more…)

Dateline: World
By: Carey Roberts
Via: The Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

As early as 1980, UNICEF director Jim Grant championed simple yet effective programs to promote child welfare. These strategies included immunizations, promotion of breastfeeding, and training birth attendants. Grant’s initiative has been credited with saving the lives of over 25 million children.
But in 1995, Grant tragically died, and radical feminist Carol Bellamy took over. UNICEF was due for an ideological overhaul.

(more…)

Dateline: UK
By: Daddy Ian
From: The Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)
(All Comments on Laws Relate to the UK Only)

This news story is exceptional for a number of reasons and highlights the problems men face in the UK.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/southern_counties/6037701.stm

1) After sex, a man is accused of rape. Under the current law in the UK, the accused man is named, the female ‘victim’ remains anonymous. This applies to accusations of sexual and other abuse against children as well. The inevitable result of that publicity is a ‘witch-hunt’ and the accused man is persecuted, threatened and otherwise bullied and in many cases either lynched or commit suicide. This is even before he has been to trial. Many, perhaps most cases collapse before trial. In rape cases barely 6% reach a conclusion with the accused man found guilty, around 300 per year. There has been a massive jump in rape accusations in the last few years, but the actual level of convictions has stayed at around 300 per year.

The feminists argue that the Police and courts are failing women. I argue that women are swamping the system with false accusations knowing they can destroy a man without actually having to stand trial or be named – the damage is done immediately.

(more…)

[email protected]

I am looking at a recent copy of the Kapiti Observor highlighting letters to the Editor on domestic violence. Three of the four authors of these letters are well known amongst men’s groups, of which I am sure you are aware. It is a small orchestrated effort to make a point and obviously one in which you have participated. While some will view this as a small victory to have their position recognised, and while many readers may welcome the acknowledgement of a male perspective, what you have done is illustrate the reality of how we deal with this issue in New Zealand. In a society that now seldom recognises male men’s fathers’ perspective, amongst published letters, (courtesy of a sympathetic editor), is about the only place you might find such perspectives, because it is seldom sought as an opposing or contributing view in either television or print media articles, which are generally obsessed with feminist perspective.

As Christmas nears what we will do throughout this country via the media is undertake our annual condemnation of what hasn’t yet happened, but is anticipated and expected, and media will give unlimited airplay to a particular theme from a small group of women.

When things fall apart at home, come to us, and we will make sure it never happens again.

What they don’t say is regardless of the circumstances we will rip your family apart, regardless of circumstances we will blame the man, and the women and her children, will live in the re modelled state sponsored family — just mum and the kids — that’s the kiwi way now.

Get help before it happens, and those with the courage to venture forth will find something even more insidious. It is a regime of excuses and condemnations, remarkably for the same behaviour, but your gender will determine whether such behaviour is excusable or condemnable. Every ounce of belief you once had in institutions of justice and help, will slowly drain away as you become aware that this is required behaviour from state employees. (Once called public servants)

What will many children get for Christmas this year — a fatherless home! This is the pathetic attitude that we as a society allow to pervade services that we will give money to, in order to create the perception that we are dealing with “the problem”
The same social personality that makes young New Zealand women unattractive enough to make young New Zealand men consider celibacy or relocation. The particularly venomous bite of these creatures elicits an increasing disrespect and disdain of women in general, and for the concepts of relationship and reproduction.

Underpinning these perceptions attitudes and many organisations is a government who’s most politicised issue and policy vehicle is domestic violence. Not for the purpose of helping families, but to underpin its policy position on the unqualified definition of family, the increasing funding of single parenting and the evolution of child tax.

This is the manner in which we socialise help and protect thousands of children, and yet there appears to be some inconceivable mystery behind the increasingly brutal, bizarre and more frequent headlines that dominate the daily news line up. Perhaps it may occur to some people one day that their reaction is much more understandable than our own contributing behaviour.

Bevan Berg
Project Re-Union.

Dateline: USA
By: Fielder
From: The Honor Network
Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

Under a bill recently passed by the Michigan House of Representatives, fathers & men are reaching all time lows in any kind of legal rights, and this is sure to increase the marriage strike by men along with their fleeing from western nations as fast as they can.The House Bill 5882 creates the Coercive Abortion Prevention Act. The purpose of the bill is to prohibit the putative father of a pregnant woman’s child from coercing or intimidating the woman into terminating her pregnancy.

(more…)

Stuff: Men marginalised as parents

A Nelson research project on fathering has revealed natal support services focus on women, marginalising men and their role as parents in their own right.

Men interviewed said they lacked preparation and information, and the process stressed their relationship.

While this is not exactly earth-shattering news, it’s great to see the Nelson-Marlborough District Health Board funding this kind of study. Men in other parts of New Zealand might find it interesting to check what kind of similar initiatives their health boards are involved with.

Co-author and NMIT lecturer and researcher David Mitchell said the project highlighted the continuing difficulties midwives and support agencies, such as Plunket, had in engaging with and understanding the roles of fathers as a parent in their own right.

I know a lot of young men feel dis-empowered around childcare issues when confronted by assertive women, especially en mass which is the likely experience in female dominated organisations.

Co-author Philip Chapman, a Public Health Service fathering promoter, said the research showed men wanted to be better informed about fatherhood.

If there ever is any genuine commitment on the part of the government to encouraging males to be more involved with fathering, I think programmes targeting young men are likely to be extremely effective – provided they are delivered by experienced fathers!