Last Friday night I sat with some friends who know me well and told them how I had shared my story and to around 400 people. (Why do anything small?) It seems that after posting my story, I seem to have an extra spring in my step and I am more focused on life in general.Why is this? Well, basically I have been living a double life so to speak.

Friends, neighbours, people I work with and for, etc have no idea what happened to my family and that is because I felt so ashamed and embarrassed. How could this happen to me? What would others think? Who could possibly understand let alone believe me?

But while hiding this I had to make up something. This caused me pain because I didn’t want to lie to these people that I liked and needed. What if they one day found out I lied? How could they trust me? So instead I shared as little as possible about my family and talk about something else. I was basically functioning physically but emotionally a mess.

We can talk about the cost of money that is paid to lawyers which is important but it is not the only costs. These custody battles affect our thoughts and emotions and we can’t properly concentrate on our jobs or we just don’t seem to connect to life and people as we had. We don’t sleep well and of course we try to take the pain away through liquor or medication. Anxiety and stress take over.

Oh, the insanity.

But getting back to my point. Today, tomorrow and the next day I intend to hold my head up high and be real about myself to everyone because I realise it isn’t and wasn’t me but the system. And not only that but heaps of others are going through or have gone through the same thing.

It is still sinking in that in the year 2006 our leaders are destroying our families and the law which is supposed to protect us is harming us and our innocent children.

Bullies in the work place have alway been see as male. Here is evidence that the tyrants have no gender boundries.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article360408.ece

Can you please help? URGENT.

We are doing a story on men who are physically assaulted by their female partners, a story that is rarely told. We are looking to talk with a woman who is a reformed husband abuser to talk with John Campbell regarding her experiences and what she did to help herself.

The aim of this story is to help men who are victims of domestic violence, as well as the women who abuse, who need help. Can hide identity if needed.

Please call Solina on 021 897 815 / [email protected]

Gwynn writes:

Dear John,

It saddens me to see that your website is devoted entirely to the rights of fathers who have been separated from their children by the family court.

I am a mum and have been separated from my children also by way of the family court because of the ‘status quo’ that you will be familiar with.

I wonder if you will ever see that the family court is so far out there with its views and it can be either a dad or a mum that can suffer EXACTLY the same fate through FC.

Ok thanks.

Guess I’ll start a non-gender support group against the injustices of the FC myself!

Anyone who has spent time reading the very numerous pages on this web site will find that there is actually very little about the “rights of fathers”. Copy and paste this phrase (with quotes) into the search field on the top right of this page and see for yourself.

If you search on “fathers rights” you will find a few more references, among them the June/July 2001 MENZ Issues, which has an article Spinning the Feminist Line detailing how the phrase “fathers rights” is largely an invention of radical feminist activists, and used to discredit fathers’ groups and individual fathers receiving support from them.

There have been a few groups who have been interested in father’s or men’s rights, but the vast majority of MENZ contributors and readers would say they are primarily interested in children’s rights.

Examination of the Family Court protest photo above the article, or most of the hundreds of other protest photos on this site will show that woman have always been involved with this movement. Woman have always attended fathers group meetings, and taken part in management of organisations.

I suggest Gwynn, that you make contact with the fathers’ group nearest you and see what kind of reception you get. My guess is that you will find that your “non-gender support group” already exists. Perhaps you might like to report back here?

A while ago I put my case to Ruth Dyson (Min of the CYFSterhood).

I showed, quite clearly, in my posit, that the CYFSterhood had simply created an opinion on my fitness to be a care-giver, and then went about digging up as much trash as they could to support thier opinion.

And that included a speeding ticket I got in 1989! And, that I have a firearms licence. See? It all just goes to show that I’m a speedy little bastard with guns ready to blaze away.

Today, I received Dyson’s reply.

All she has done is contact the CYFSterhood, got a repeat of the crap they have put before the court, and arrived at the conclusion that they are clearly quite right! Of course they are. They’ll all sisters, aren’t they. And it is their duty to drown as many of us predatory men as possible.

So what is it, precisely, we pay these parliamentry clowns to do?

Dealing with these people (and I use the term cautiously) is kind’ve like being in a court where the bench is staffed by wolves sitting in judgement on the fate of the Rabbit.

‘Off with his head!’

I see another contributor has mentioned the scandalous practices of the Catholic Church during the Inquisition.

On that subject, here’s a funny. The Catholic Church still have a list of penance payments for wayward priests. To see more, and get totally outraged I recommend you visit the site of luigicascioli.com and read all about it.

But isn’t that exactly what we men are dealing with here in NZ? The ducking-stool justice system. If he lives he’s a scumbag. If he drowns he was probably a scumbag who just couldn’t breathe underwater.

Has anyone ever considered or actually contacted Grey Power for support?

I bet there must be an awful lot of seriously unhappy grandparents out there. Maybe it’s a source of support for us.

If nobody has made the approach then maybe I will.

Cheers
David.

Canadian Father on Hunger Strike
(From Our Friends in the US with Glenn Sacks)

Canadian father Gerry Nicolas is now on his 9th day of hunger strike in front of the Quebec Provincial Court of Justice in Gatineau. Nicolas has a six year-old boy and a four year-old girl. He only gets every other weekend “visitation,” and says his ex-wife often interferes or eliminates even that. He says that at one point he went three months without seeing his children because of her interference. The police (of course) refuse to enforce the order.

Nicolas also says his children are being alienated from him. Nicolas is black, his ex-wife is Asian, and Nicolas claims his four year-old daughter told him her mother told her not to kiss him “because he’s black.”

Nicolas says he and his ex-wife both earn around $60 or $65 thousand dollars a year, but that he has lost his business and his savings and after his wages are garnisheed he is left with less than $300 a month to live on. He says he has been unable to get a court to resolve these issues, and is on hunger strike to try to force the court to give him a hearing.

I called Gerry yesterday, and he seems very sincere and determined. I’m not sure that a hunger strike is the best tactic–I prefer the bridge and rooftop protests of Fathers 4 Justice–but I support him in what he’s doing. To contact Gerry and give him encouragement, call him on his cell phone at 00 1 (819) 921-1877. His email, which his sister is retrieving and printing out for him, is [email protected].

Freedom is a wonderful place. Many pursue it, whether it is freedom itself, or whether it is a specific freedom: Political, intellectual, cultural, religious, spiritual, sexual, however with personal freedom comes personal responsibility, something many would rather not have.

Within the confines of a social contract we agree to sacrifice that degree of freedom which we accept is irresponsible. Our laws should reflect that boundary that differentiates between responsible and irresponsible.

Society in this respect becomes a security that many willingly trade their freedom for. It is far easier to be a prisoner of the world than a child of the universe, far easier to be held responsible by society, than to be responsible for yourself. At this point we must exercise caution, if we absolve that responsibility it must be to a leadership that respects our trust and seeks our acceptance, not to one that abuses our fears and takes advantage of anyone’s ignorance.

Is it the vain dream of one man in every language that there may be a number among us that would sacrifice self interest for the mantle of leadership, to preserve the integrity of society, and perhaps the peace of the world.

Juxtapose if you will the actions of dealing with the domestic violence industry by the police and courts today and in the movie “The Devils”, directed by Ken Russell in 1971. It is set in the Middle Ages when the church and state were one. The movie had a tremendous impact on me because of its ability to expose the abuse of power.

Cardinal Richelieu and his power-hungry entourage seek to take control of pre-renaissance France, but need to destroy Father Grandier – the priest who runs the fortified town that prevents them from exerting total control. So they seek to destroy him by setting him up as a warlock in control of a devil-possessed nunnery, the mother superior of which is sexually obsessed by him. A mad witch-hunter is brought in to gather evidence against the priest, ready for the big trial.

The ignorance of the general public and the shrewd conniving cunning of those up the chain of command were evil personified. Owing to the churches control over the general public, (all media) what ever the Cardinal deemed as evil was evil. Demons were to be found everywhere, particularly if they could be utilised to cover truth so the Cardinal could pervert justice. (sound familiar?) Sometimes, as a temporary measure, they would tie rocks to the suspects take them out onto a lake and ask God to not let them sink if they were innocent. (ever had an Exparte order slapped on you and been thrown out of your home, then, when you react to injustice have the state tell you that indeed you do have an anger problem?) The state employees of this evil regime acted as they were told. It was a good thing they did, they thought. The devil was being dealt to and they were eradicating evil. (Don’t expect Police in NZ to see your point of view because they must carry out their duties. They are just ignorant foot soldiers who see themselves as doing a good thing)

The sexual orgy that eventuates amongst the Nuns at the climax of the movie reminds me of how it must be at a ‘Woman’s Affairs’ end of year party when they count up the number of men’s lives they have fucked up. “Sure a few kids have been stung but at least we fucked those men over.”

The answer then was to not let religion and the state be as one. The answer now is to not let feminism and the state be as one.

In 1973 when I saw this movie I felt so bloody lucky not to have lived in those times…….. Down stream in generations to come men will look back at this time and say… Why in Gods name did men have children, were they all masochists?

Police are on the front line when it comes to dealing with volatility in relationships so one would think that they would be given special training with regards to inflaming situations by making decisions that lack any intelligence.

This appears however, not to be the case. I have found that whilst the police do not have the power to convict they do have the power to abuse their position. Driven by bigotry and prejudice they can make your life a misery. They know that putting you into the system, by laying charges , is going to cost you money and stress over a considerable length of time. Without any evidence and in a situation where it is evident that a complainant has been involved in previous false allegations against me, a police woman, Constable Low from the Manurewa Enquiry Section, proceeded to charge me with threatening to Injure.

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There is bullying in schools now, there was when we I was a child too, that hasn’t changed. What I have learnt in life though, is that there are bully’s in the workplace, in business, in government departments, in politics, and even in the justice system. If I have seen a fundamental change in the last 30 years, it is that the bully used to lose, but now the bully wins.

It is not the bully that has changed it is us!

Stuff Article by By MICHAEL LAWS

Link:http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3645978a1861,00.html

Boys are the new girls

extract: Now we are the spent gender. Reduced to recycling Russian brides, watching sport and wondering where it all went wrong. Eschewed by a smarter, sassier sister who proves that she can do anything, including us. For a male these are indeed desperate and dangerous times.

I found this on Teletex.

A real slap in the face for the New Zealand Justice system has been dished out by the Australian Federal court when it overturned extradition warrants for two ex pats who had been sought on charges of historic sexual allegations.

The reasons for the decision — there are fundamental differences in the New Zealand justice system which meant these men wouldn’t get a fair trial.

So the world is watching after all!

While new to this site, after entering the world as a newly separated Dad or 2, the impression I have gained from my brief reading suggests that various processes and systems allow women (at times seemingly wrongly and perhaps manipulatively) to remove children from the grasp of their father. While I am currently in current good standing, after years of hands on fathering, I am fearful for being gripped and pulled from my informal 50:50 child sharing arrangement by the “DV” opportunities, which seeminly could be invoked after unsupportive DV evidence is presented.

While every situation is different, I am wondering if there are recomendations for:
1. Best formalising 50:50 access and/or
2. De risking the chances of a loose DV case being thrown at oneself.

Anybody will to take me up on a bet that Dr Joan has no children and has never been separated?

“Leading US clinical psychologist Dr Joan Kelly, who is a world expert in children’s adjustment to separation, told the conference………….”

Cheers
David

It is time for New Zealand Society to make a critical decision.

This is a decision that will save both our adults and our children so much of the current heartache and abuse we are dealing with.

The best way to describe this situation is to understand the final destination of those who make a great contribution to the leadership and direction of our society.

Let’s look at a society as they see it with almost totally female makeup, with a few gay guys contributing to a sperm bank. In order to maintain a population it requires 50% of the females to have two children,(the child bearers), and that leaves the other 50% of the females free to do work, (the workers). Being a gay man is a privileged and respected position.

This society has a complete separation between human reproduction and sexual gratification.

In terms of reproduction a female obtains a pregnancy by sperm donation, with no physical interaction with a male. Technical manipulation allows for the guaranteed female male ratio.

In terms of sexual gratification, which is as much a state of mind as a natural biological inclination, females are raised to expect to get their jolly’s from other females, and gay men likewise from other men.

Gender interaction is a frowned upon, an unacceptable aberration.

What we have here is a gynaecocracy in the making, with heterosexual people desperately fighting for their families.

I think it is important to understand not only what we are fighting against, but how many people are actually involved in the creation of this society. Unfortunately there is no compatible outcome here; it is two extremes with some people in the middle fighting for this mythical equality.

Child abuse as we see it is a consequence of a much more diverse political atmosphere than we take into account. Because we don’t think like this we live in a vacuum of our own values, socialisation and experiences.

If you understand this you will look at social policy, law making, and behaviour in a totally different way.

Now there’s something for you to think about. Do I stay or do I go?

CHICAGO (AP) – An appeals court said a man can press a claim for emotional distress after learning a former lover had used his sperm to have a baby. But he can’t claim theft, the ruling said, because the sperm were hers to keep.

The ruling Wednesday by the Illinois Appellate Court sends Dr. Richard O. Phillips’ distress case back to trial court.

Phillips accuses Dr. Sharon Irons of a “calculated, profound personal betrayal” after their affair six years ago, saying she secretly kept semen after they had oral sex, then used it to get pregnant.

He said he didn’t find out about the child for nearly two years, when Irons filed a paternity lawsuit. DNA tests confirmed Phillips was the father, the court papers state.

Phillips was ordered to pay about $800 a month in child support, said Irons’ attorney, Enrico Mirabelli.

Phillips sued Irons, claiming he has had trouble sleeping and eating and has been haunted by “feelings of being trapped in a nightmare,” court papers state.

Irons responded that her alleged actions weren’t “truly extreme and outrageous” and that Phillips’ pain wasn’t bad enough to merit a lawsuit. The circuit court agreed and dismissed Phillips’ lawsuit in 2003.

But the higher court ruled that, if Phillips’ story is true, Irons “deceitfully engaged in sexual acts, which no reasonable person would expect could result in pregnancy, to use plaintiff’s sperm in an unorthodox, unanticipated manner yielding extreme consequences.”

The judges backed the lower court decision to dismiss the fraud and theft claims, agreeing with Irons that she didn’t steal the sperm.

“She asserts that when plaintiff ‘delivered’ his sperm, it was a gift — an absolute and irrevocable transfer of title to property from a donor to a donee,” the decision said. “There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request.”

Phillips is representing himself in the case. He could not be reached for comment Thursday.

“There’s a 5-year-old child here,” Mirabelli said. “Imagine how a child feels when your father says he feels emotionally damaged by your birth.”

If you have just read Peters Comment, in the previous post “Signs of Change”

1. Feminazis are responsible for this tragedy and Miss Clark should be hung for endorsing child abuse. My advice to men get the hell out of this cess pit country as the childless bitch PM and her dumb arse cronies have destroyed this country and made it one of the most dangerous places in the world for vulnerable children and heartbroken Fathers. The silent media have blood on their vile hands too!!!
Comment by Peter Burns – Thu 20th April 2006 @ 8:56 am

You might be making judgements based simply on what he said, without asking yourself how he ended up in this space, who actually dealt with him along the way. It has been not only my experience but my observation that a single act of duplicity can leave Fathers feeling, isolated, betrayed by society, and trapped between loss and lack of accountability, unable to undo the damage that has been done, by other people who have the power to be as unprofessional as they choose to be on the day.

If the North and South article “Our Shame” reminds me of anything it is their previous attempt to undo the myth of failure, in their article “Family Court of Injustice” Reality is that the public just simply doesn’t believe that this is happening. It is just too absurd to be true. It can’t be true if you do not see anyone being held accountable for their behaviour.

I’ve have helped a few Fathers to climb over the wall of deceit and unprofessionalism.
(If that is a new concept them I would intend it to mean a group of people that never allow any of their number to be held to account, so their level of professionalism devolves to the lowest denominator.) In one particular case, where a counsel for child had misled the court, he wouldn’t even show up on the day of the hearing. In fact he had the mother’s solicitor lie to the court and state that he was in another part of Auckland. I knew damn well he would be in the Judges Chambers. I had been a McKenzie friend that day, and I got out of the court room just in time to see the coward, scurry off the bottom of the stairs and out the door of the Manukau Court House.

The Judge in this case Judge Adams, features as a speaker on issues for children in the NZ family Court, Novatel Saturday 22nd April. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a protest outside. This piece of dirty legal laundry was appointed a family court Judge in 1995, and has since been promoted to administrative Judge for the Northern Region.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the father was a protestor there, because Judge Adams made damn sure this case got buried, and banned the father from further proceedings. He still doesn’t see his children.

There is nothing that would bring you to tears quicker than a dead child, but reality is for every one of those dead children, there are a thousand abused by the State.

The following is an excerpt from this morning’s Herald.

Ms Wiseman-Dare, who was not part of that group, said she felt the not-guilty verdicts sent the wrong message to rape victims, and could discourage possible complainants from going to police in future.

And what is the wrong message? Obviously, Ms Wiseman-Dare believes that all alleged rapists must be guilty otherwise the complainant wouldn’t have complained!!!!

Jesus H Christ! The madness gets worse.

David.

Reading an article in the current (May) issue of North & South magazine I see some possible signs of change in the thinking that drives NZ social policy. The author of “Our Shame”, as many magazine writers have done before, has set out to (in her words) “traverse the grim statistics of child abuse, neglect, and killings” in this country.

What’s different about this article is that it also traverses a fundamental change that appears to be taking place in thinking at CYFS and amongst some other key players.

Some excerpts:

Dorothy Scott, Director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection says current state-run child-protection systems aren’t working and are:

“unsustainable and harmful to children and their families.” Scott says overloaded agencies such as CYFS, forced to resort to coercive heavy handedness, often further hurt the children they are trying to protect.

Ian Hassall, a former Childrens’s Commissioner and now a department head at Auckland University of Technology says:

“Two decades and a cascade of reviews have demonstrated that increasing coercion on the part of the state (in removing children from their families) has not worked.”

Sanely and refreshingly, Lesley Max a ‘social entrepreneur’ and founder of ‘HIPPY’ — Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters — dares to talk about sole parenthood as a “damaging pathway” and a major factor leading to child neglect and abuse.

“The current wisdom in New Zealand is, says Max, that it is how families relate to each other, not how they are structured that’s the problem. In other words it’s not politically correct to focus on sole parenthood.”

Lesley Max suggests:

“a public health promotion” along the lines of the seatbelts, anti-smoking, anti-junk food, anti drink-drive campaigns.”

Unfortunately the article is overall rather incoherent in the range of ideas it puts forward as solutions. Although sole-parenting is named as a risk factor, the obvious need to restore the role of fathers in parenting and in preventing child abuse gets no direct mention. Much of the article reads like a press release from a couple of organizations seeking to expand their empires and gain a bigger slice of government funding.

However it’s clear from what some of the movers and shakers are quoted as saying, that there is an increasing acknowledgement that whatever the state has supposedly been doing to protect children has not been working.

Having been involved in what is invariably labelled the men’s movement or the Fathers rights movement since 1999, I have reached some conclusions which without this forum, (thanks JohnP), I would have difficulty sharing. These titles are a political convenience for the purpose of accusations and attacks, to antagonise political dissidence. In most cases the men I have encountered walking these corridors have done so for no reason other than the love of their children. The occasional small and allegedly potent force which rises amongst us is humoured with small successes, which serve as a self perpetuating form of propaganda.

Along the way I acquired the label “the moderate face of the men’s movement”. It is not one I either pursued of cherish, simply a consequence of my inclination to want to know why. (So Mr Zorab, spare me the indignity.) I hope of recent I have dispelled that myth – it is not a bed I wish to die in.

While in some minds it may have been a futile exercise, my participation has at least been an act of integrity, something which those who have opposed both our participation and our contribution, have no claim to, and are happy to live without.

For all the energy, behind our contributions, whether it has been protestations of various forms, submissions to government, pleas to MP’s or applications to courts, some may be content with their individual outcome, but collectively we have no claim to any progress or to having improved the welfare of children or the standard of law in our country.
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As mentioned in my reply to Bevan’s post. When I was a kid I was free to break any bone in my body, lacerate any skin or muscle, and largely free to report any such damage to my parents….only if we ‘really’ needed to. But the damage had to be pretty bad before we brought the ‘oldies’ into it.

We were even kind’ve boy-racers in those days. The cars we had suffered serious mechanical problems which we would fix till the next occurred. We were driving at age 13 years!!! Where did we get the cars? Easy, they were cars our parents couldn’t fix, so we did.

We all did Sea Cadets and got whacked around the ears when we got stroppy. Went to school and got caned when we got stroppy.

I was the Takapuna Grammar School caning champion by the end of 1964. :–)) Man but I had a sore arse, but man, was I a hero or what?

Some of us got beaten by our parents, others got screwed by one or other of them. But we survived all this and have left it all where it properly belongs…in our yesterdays.

But we kids rarely stepped across the line of law….Yeah, yeah, I know, driving at 13 was illegal…..But in those days nobody really cared that much, so long as we weren’t creating mayhem.
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Auckland needs an overseas panel of experts to boost Auckland’s economy. It is feared that Auckland’s economy is fuelled only by the growth of the city. I found this on teletex. When New Zealanders stop thinking for themselves you get second best. Like Botany Downs Shopping Centre. The spread out design for this came from an American company who designed a suitable shopping centre for the weather conditions in sunny California. Go figure what it is doing the other side of East Tamaki.

If there is one reason this cities economy will fail it is because we are breeding a generation of state dependant meanderthals. Straight from their mothers apron strings and the play station to the State Tit.

Having been an employer I have seen the standard of our youth deteriorate rapidly over the last few years. The younger they were the worse it got. They would walk in for an interview and within 30 seconds of observing the way a young man walked and talked I could tell if he had been raised by his mother alone. Just to confirm it I would throw something casual into the conversation like — following in your parents footsteps, what do they do. These young men we called 13 week wonders, that was about the limit of their capacity to hold down a job.
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I spent an unusual day yesterday with a friend having access to his little girl. His little girl has been in CYFS cusotdy for about 4 years. At the last Family Group Conference it was decided the care givers would become the custodians of this child and her sister. This was granted through the FC very recently.

Some of the day was spent talking over coffee with the caregivers. And their view is that now both the girls are out of CYFS control shared parenting can occur. They are eager to allow Dad unlimited access and even take the sister away for holidays (as he had been the father figure prior). This is something he could not do while CYFS was involved.

They are not even denying him full-time caregiving himself once he sets himself up. In fact, they will help another family in need. For them thier income has dropped $100 weekly and they will not receive clothing grants as they previously had from CYFS. But don’t get me wrong; they care deeply for these girls and would insist on a good upbringing. They, like many caregivers are now a part of this family.

I have met other caregivers who would like to give parents more access and they are aware they are caring for someone else’s child.

Caregivers do not have the same pressure as CYFS to control situations. They do not lose their jobs, they do not become front page news and you are not under a microscope with them. So what if you are 5 minutes late, you don’t really consider that emotional abuse and neither do caregivers. Caregivers are parents themselves in most cases.

However, the downfall is that they have custody and that brings forth trust issues.

Anyhow, just a thought for those of you in this situation.

I had to search for information because I needed to know and understand for myself whether I was being right with my judgement on you and feminism. These are just 3 things I have considered.

Being a man and talking to feminists is a lot like what I imagine it’s like to be Jewish and talk to God

www.salient.org.nz/index.php?i=47&c=48

I have encountered something I never thought I would at university: Women who think that their own point of view is the only correct one and anybody who disagrees with them is wrong and they should bow down to what they think is right. I have never met so many closed-minded people in my life. University is a time for realising other people have individual views and while you may not agree, you absolutely have a right to say what you believe and think, but so do they. However, that gives you no right to tell people how to live their lives, what they should say and how they should act.

As Women’s Rights Officer, I met some of these people yesterday and they were women! One stated that there wasn’t enough feminist content in Women’s Fest. However, this person failed to understand that some women don’t want feminist content in Women’s Fest and some people want Anti-Feminist content in Women’s Fest. This person couldn’t actually believe that a WOMAN could have a different view from her own. Well, shock horror!!! Women are individuals and we all don’t think alike.

BY KERRY O’CONNOR
www.salient.org.nz/index.php?a=1681&c=22

And while feminists such as [Germaine] Greer are harping about the irrelevant, a new wave of real feminists is emerging where it counts. In places where it is most dangerous to speak out. Such as Pakistan. Elsewhere, Islamic feminists from countries such as Malaysia, Mali, Egypt and Iran are marching to launch a “gender jihad” in support of women’s rights. This is real-life feminism at work.
If we think Western feminists had it tough, being shut out of the workplace in the 1950s, spare a thought for those women in Islamic countries who are victims of “honour killings” for bringing shame on their families, or the millions of women across western and southern Asia, the Middle East and large swaths of Africa who are mutilated by female circumcision. These women need our support, not our silence.

www.investigatemagazine.com/archives/2005/11/feminists_awol.html

My conclusion is that it may seem impossible to bring feminists and masculinists together without one side having to bow down to the other. That would be the most ridiculous thing I could think of.
However, women do have their own opinions as men do and we can change individuals.

It’s felt like a hopeful week for dads and for the stolen generation of children.

Dpex has been hard at work generating a campaign. And for the first time, I noticed the notion of equal parenting rights gaining a mention in the mainstream media, which made me feel good. This has been thanks to the work of Jim Bailey and all those who have not only been bothering some lawyers personally in their homes, but been prepared to get onto the media and talk about why.

Jim was on TV3 nightline news on Tuesday night and I heard him again on National Radio today, and thought he did a fine job of calmly and rationally presenting his case to people who seemed determined not to listen. In both cases the main thrust of argument seemed to be the lawyers telling Jim, ‘You’re disturbing our kids’, and Jim replying ‘Yes well you’ve disturbed ours’.

I emailed national radio straight after Jim’s interview with the following:

Hi National radio ‘nine – to- noon’

Re; your interview with Gary Gottlieb and Jim Bailey today on the subject of ‘father’s picketing family lawyers’ homes’;
The real story the media should be pursuing is the desperate need for reform of New Zealand family law. It’s been tinkered with in last years ‘Care of Children Act’, but real reform has not arrived.

Eva chimed in with Gary to say she was ‘open mouthed’ at Jim’s description of what goes on in the family court. Well, the media should have informed itself and been informing us about this issue. Does Eva not know of how routinely children are denied equal access with their fathers by our family law system. That so many kids are unreasonably denied contact with their fathers amounts to state sanctioned child abuse, and there needs to be accountability for this.

This week is the first time I have heard the words ‘equal parenting rights for fathers’ spoken in the mainstream media, and good on Jim’s group for achieving that.

Thanks for your efforts Jim and co. ‘Nine to noon’ ignored my email but the point is being made in many different ways and will eventually be got across. In the meantime, if any outraged lawyer wants to come around and bother me personally in my home they are quite welcome. I’d be happy to talk with them and they won’t disturb any kids here because my child doesn’t get to live with me.