Shame on Air NZ

Air NZ have shamed themselves with to days revelation in the NZ Herald that they have a policy of insisting that only a female may sit next to a unaccompanied child in flight.

This is outrageous, not only because it reinforces one gender as “bad” or “not to be trusted” but it goes against the facts themselves as reported by CYFS. Women abuse children at twice the rate of men (CYFS statistics).

Children’s Commissioner Cindy Kiro has stated “children’s safety is paramount and she commends the airline for putting thought into how it can keep children safe.”

Cindy’s ideology would have all Polynesians under a curfew after dark. All Muslims would not be able to travel in public unless they were in swim suits, every teenager could only drive a moped, and every politician would be required to be permanently wired to a polygraph.

A company concerned with the welfare of all its clients would have delivered a policy whereby people sitting next to the child were told that if there is a need for the child to go to the toilet then only the air hostess can take them. When this is to be directed at both genders it is not discriminatory.
But why think about upsetting males when they are such easy targets. Do you think this would have been permitted had the gender concerned been female?

My suggestion is to ring the EPMU on 04 576-1181 Speak to national secretary Andrew Little and insist that action is taken by the union to force a change in this policy and to ensure that no other policies are in place that slur a gender without just cause.

Cow Pat was a more polite rendition of my first thought after reading Pat Booths column — The Runaway Dads.

I know this column will have irritated and angered many in the community. To be frank it is inaccurate, poorly researched, one sided, and grossly misleading rhetoric. Its inclusion in suburban newspapers is neither a credit to the writer nor the publisher. The unnecessary and unacceptable treatment of men in New Zealand over the last 20 — 30 years is an indignity that the older generation is generally unfamiliar with, and perhaps the source of ignorance that inspired this article.

Initially I would like to outline two reasons while I reply so strongly.

Firstly the indignities to which I refer often happen to men, while they are isolated and out of sight, in the presence of the police, judges, lawyers, people whom we expect to have integrity, wisdom, impartiality, patience, understanding, consideration and a genuine concern for society. In so many cases I have seen exactly the opposite and the severe consequences of loss of identity and self esteem have raised the male suicide rate to the second leading cause of death for men in NZ, ahead of car accidents, but behind cancer.

Secondly a subsequent consequence of the issues I make reference to above can be clearly seen in our population statistics. Analysis of the most recent statistics contains many interesting anomalies; one of the most interesting is the growing imbalance over the last 20 years between the numbers of males and females between 20 and 50, which currently stands at minus 40,000 men.
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Ex-children’s commissioner Dr Ian Hassall claims he was bullied and insulted by protesters outside the Auckland Marine Rescue Centre last Tuesday. Mereana Ruri, from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner was speaking to a forum held to prepare for the debate on Green MP Sue Bradford’s private members bill to repeal section 59 of the Crimes Act (which allows parents to use reasonable force to discipline their children), when a “racket” interrupted her presentation.

Union of Fathers members on the sea wall held signs such as “drink and pregnant legal, smacking illegal” and “no smacking = UN job for Helen”, and used a loud hailer to make their objections known.

The NZ Herald reported: Fathers shout for attention:

But the nuisance factor finally wore down Dr Ian Hassall, the first children’s commissioner, who ran out of patience and went outside threatening to call the police. He returned to tell the forum he had asked the protesters to “cease and desist” which they did, shortly after.

Dr Hassall later told the Herald the men had made “various insulting and rude remarks” to him.

“Essentially they are bullies. They want to bully their children and want to bully us, and probably got kicked out of home because they bullied their wives.”

Fortunately, the entire event was captured on video by cameraman Murray Bacon, so you can watch Dr Hassall undergoing his distressing experience: Download antianti-smacking video [1.24MB .wmv]. I trust suitable post traumatic stress counselling will be made available.

Later in the Herald report, Sue Bradford said that she was pleased to see the back of MP John Tamihere because he “supported violence against children”.

The systematic use of personal attacks on people with opposing points of view is a common occurrence when an ideological program is being foisted on a community which does not share the embedded values. It’s effective – when people are made to perceive there is a danger in deviating from the politically correct line, most of them can be expected to bury their heads in the sand.

The casualness with which Hassall, Bradford et al are prepared to throw around serious accusations should raise serious concerns about their motives in removing the current protection for parents afforded by section 59.

Media Release

United Future Labelled Anti-Family by Child Support Reformers

“Peter Dunne’s dickensian approach to child support reform will be remembered by parents as Dunne’s disaster, and clearly shows that United Future is a family-unfriendly political party,” observed Mark Shipman, national president of Parents for Children. He was commenting on the first reading of the Child Support Amendment Bill.

“Dunne’s diatribe on Morning Report today shows that he fails to understand that the current Child Support Act is fundamentally flawed and has nothing to do with the costs of raising children. Parents are fed up with politicians who continue to ignore the injustices created by Act. It is just another tax grab at the expense of New Zealand children and their separated parents.”

“Parents for Children members oppose this legislation and demand a complete review of the current child support legislative mess. They have no faith in the rubber-stamping select committee process, so it is likely that members will move to civil disobedience to highlight the injustice of the current flawed child support regime,” concluded Mark.

ends

Parents for Children is a national organisation seeking legislative change to enable parents who have separated to continue parenting and supporting their children.

This requires:

1. Presumptive shared parenting

2. A fair and reasonable child support system

For Further Information Contact:

Mark Shipman 021-982222

Jim Nicolle 021-800586

Save the males promo

I managed to stay awake long enough to watch “Save the Males” last night on TV2, and I must say I was very impressed with Greg Stubbings’ production. What a shame it was screened so late, at a time when the majority of working men would be tucked up in bed asleep.

I may have been influenced by the shot of a Web browser accessing www.menz.org.nz near the beginning of the documentary, but I thought all the spokesmen came across very well, presumably helped by sympathetic editing. Mark Bradman from Mensline and Peter Zohrab from the NZ Equality Education Foundation were both impressive, but I have to nominate Kerry Bevin from the Men’s Affairs Group as one of the most effective media spokesmen for men issues to appear so far. With a bit of assistance from a wardrobe consultant this man could go far!

The opening segment on the law was the most disappointing in my view. It discussed male-only crimes such as ‘male assaults female’ and rape and pointed out that men usually receive longer sentences than woman, but it didn’t really touch on the two most important legal issues for men – the biased application of the Domestic Violence Act, and the huge number of false abuse accusations made against men.

Men’s health received a fairly comprehensive overview, with Dr Rob Williams doing a good job of highlighting the disparities in health statistics and funding. He says: “If a group is disadvantaged for some reason the government should put money into finding out why. They are doing it for Maori, Pacific Islanders and woman but not for men.”

The section on fatherhood focused on father’s rights (or lack thereof), but didn’t really get to grips with the fact that children lose entire extended families as a result of this feminist project to destroy the patriarchy, and that it’s really children’s rights we should be most concerned about. Union of Fathers’ Jim Bagnall explained how ‘the shadow of the law’ works – 92% of applicants at the Family Court are woman because they believe they will get everything they ask for, men know there is only a 10 to 15% chance that they will be awarded custody. A number of my photographs of Family Court protests from the www.menz.org.nz website were used in the film, with appropriate attribution.

Nelson College headmaster Selvi Gargiulo discussed his opposition to the sale of “boys are stupid — throw rocks at them” T-shirts, and demonstrated how you can easily spot media and cultural denigration by simply changing the target ‘boys’ or ‘men’ to other groups such as ”girls’ or ‘Maori’. I think there is a danger here however, I don’t see any gains for men if we start becoming precious about showing a bit of male buttock on TV or at a strip show — restricting what we can see, hear and read about is more likely to work against us in the long run, I reckon.

The feminisation of the education system and the consequent negative impact on boys was covered pretty well by Cal Greer from Oratia District High School who made it clear: “the previous disadvantage experienced by girls has disappeared and it’s been replaced by a growing disadvantage for boys”. According to the two headmasters, little is currently being done to look at what works best for boys.

The film ended with a discussion about the Ministry of Woman’s Affairs, and made a good argument for having a men’s Ministry to balance the advice given to government. It didn’t explore the possibility that the whole concept of creating public policy with deliberate gender bias is fundamentally wrong and needs to be ceased rather than balanced.

Where did the funding for the anti smacking conference come from? From the families commission no doubt! Sue Bradford with monotonous regularity crusades against what the NZ public has already made a firm decision on. Leave section 59 alone. We should be encouraged by the presence of the children’s commission as guest speaker, when they have already publicly stated that they have no idea what the problem is. We are all past being fooled into believing this is concern for our children, when the real motivation is changing the law to create the state parent. This is not a new idea, it is a failed idea. The same law changes were made in Sweden in 1979, and contrary to claims by some groups that the legislation is worthy of emulation the evidence and conclusion drawn by independent studies in other countries says exactly the opposite. This opens the door to parents having no rights to their children and only responsibilities determined by the state and courts. That leaves me to conclude, Ms Bradford, that the only reason for your persistence is the ulterior motive. I would again encourage reasonable New Zealanders to rally against the stupidity of state disestablishment of the family. There are children at risk in this country, but their plight has nothing to do with section 59 of the crimes act.

Parents for Children
Media release

Will Cunliffe’s Catastrophe become Dunne’s Disaster?

“Peter Dunne really has been given a hospital pass from the Labour Government with the revival of the proposed changes to the Child Support Act 1991. Mums, dads, lawyers, economists, social commentators, child advocates… are all saying a real review of the current approach to Child Support is required, but politicians continue to ignore pleas for a fair and reasonable child support system that works for our kids,” responded Mark Shipman, National President of Parents for Children, to comments attributed to Peter Dunne in The Press (17 November 2005)

“The proposed tinkering with the Child Support Act will worsen the real problems faced by parents forced to deal with a system that focuses on benefit recovery for the State at the expense of the best interests of Kiwi Kids. The current Dickensian approach to Child Support is driving more and more parents to the poor house while damaging our children’s future thanks to a Government that is obsessed with revenue collection, not the best interest of Kiwi Kids,” observed Mark when asked to comment upon the proposed tinkering to the Child Support Act 1991.

“Australian politicians have initiated major changes following serious issues identified when reviewing their Child Support System. Given that the Child Support system we have was based on the Australian legislation parents are asking: Why are politicians ignoring the real issues that have been shown to exist with the New Zealand legislation? Parents for Children hope that Peter Dunne will have the courage and vision to initiate a real review of the current Child Support Act,” concluded Mark.

For further comment contact:

Mark Shipman (021) 982-222
Jim Nicolle (021) 800-586

Child Support Bill in the House before Xmas. Link to Stuff News with Comment from Peter Dunn and Katherine Rich.

They clearly still miss the point – Its all about money and not about fathers. What do you think ?

The “Viewpoint” section of the November 2005 New Zealand Medical Journal has an article by Janice Giles: ‘Woman bites dog – making sense of media and research reports that claim women and men are equally violent’.

The title of this article makes clear that the writer considers abuse of men by women to be so rare and insignificant as to be considered humorous. She denies the reality that there are thousands of New Zealand men who find this attitude deeply offensive – for them female violence is no laughing matter!

Giles is concerned about the few rare occasions in recent times in the media has a dared to discuss the issue of violence by women – exposing the fact that medical workers, police, court personnel, and Woman’s Refuge workers are not seeing or addressing the needs of male victims. These reports, she claims, “may undermine policies designed to prevent and reduced male partner violence against woman”. She promises to explain “why study outcomes claiming equal violence must not be accepted at face value.”
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08 November 2005
Parliament reinstates bills

The new Parliament today reinstated 57 bills, including the Taxation (Depreciation, Payment Dates Alignment, FBT and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, introduced in May, and the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4), introduced in August. All bills before the previous Parliament lapsed following its dissolution in the lead-up to the recent general election. At the time, the taxation bill was awaiting consideration by the Finance and Expenditure Committee, and the child support bill was awaiting its first reading and referral to a select committee.

www.taxpolicy.ird.govt.nz .

SAVE THE MALES
TV2 – Wed Nov 23- 11:25pm

A local documentary exploring the claims of men’s rights groups that the feminist movement has gone too far. Save The Males is a documentary following men’s rights groups (masculists) who claim New Zealand has become an insidiously anti-male state, and suggesting we need a men’s movement to stand up for the rights of the Kiwi bloke.

The Status of Men in New Hampshire is under investigation, as at the 1st November 2005. The General Court recognises that men are an important resource for families and children, and wishes to explore the causes and consequences of a variety of social, economic and health problems facing men.

Read More….
http://www.nh.gov/csm/downloads/nh_status_of_men_2005.pdf

A 14 year old Masterton Girl is in Custody today and will be appearing in the youth court after a vicious attack on a classmate with a scapple.

Police were called to the lunchtime incident at Chanel College in Masterton today when the girl slashed a classmates leg open after being accidentally hit on the head with a ball.

Her victim a 14 year old boy was rushed to Hospital and is recovering after having his wound treated.

The recent national recruitment campaign to find more CYF caregivers has not succeeded. With children being removed from parents in record numbers, many are being placed with foster parents who are not properly trained, where they get brutally bashed or sexually abused.

It’s a pretty dangerous job in an environment where street-smart kids exploit the fact that there are social workers who think they should “always believe the children”, and that “women and children never lie about abuse”.

Christchurch Family and Foster Care Association chairwoman Pamela Turner said being a foster parent was a “very challenging and stressful job which people needed to think carefully about before becoming involved”.

Turner said caregivers frequently faced allegations from children and young people in their care, which put a lot of stress on the family environment, in addition to dealing with children’s often difficult behaviour.

Even in the Waikato, considered by many to be the spiritual home of radical feminism in NZ, the campaign to find yet more caregivers has been a failure.
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The McMartin pre-school molestation case in California proved to be the blueprint for dozens of other ‘satanic panics’ around the world. Interviewers at the now notorious Children’s Institute International developed considerable expertise at brainwashing small children into making bizarre accusations of ritual sex abuse.

These same techniques were used in NZ to successfully convict Peter Ellis, plus a number of other male pre-school workers around the country who did not attract the same media attention. Children’s Institute International techniques have been promoted in NZ by DSAC Doctors for Sexual Abuse Care, and other feminist groups which work to remove men from contact with children.

In a Los Angeles Times story by Debbie Nathan: McMartin Pre-Schooler: ‘I Lied’ , Kyle Zirpolo, one of the accusing children in the McMartin case apologises and describes how he was coerced into fabricating the evidence used to prosecute the teachers.

We were examined by a doctor. I took my clothes off and lay down on the table. They checked my butt, my penis. There was a room with a lot of toys and stuffed animals and dolls. The dolls were pasty white and had hair where the private parts were. They wanted us to take off their clothes. It was just really weird.

I remember them asking extremely uncomfortable questions about whether Ray touched me and about all the teachers and what they did–and I remember telling them nothing happened to me. I remember them almost giggling and laughing, saying, “Oh, we know these things happened to you. Why don’t you just go ahead and tell us? Use these dolls if you’re scared.”

Anytime I would give them an answer that they didn’t like, they would ask again and encourage me to give them the answer they were looking for. It was really obvious what they wanted. I know the types of language they used on me: things like I was smart, or I could help the other kids who were scared.

Researchers have since shown that when children are subjected to the interviewing techniques used by Children’s Institute International, most start to make up bizarre stories within a few minutes. A few excerpts from the transcript of Kyle’s interview by two CII staff members show how blatantly they go about framing-up the teacher Ray:

Interviewer 1: We got a mountain of dolls here. Here’s a little girl. Easy to tell she’s a girl. She has a bow, and her vagina’s underneath…. Kids throw ’em, beat ’em up, and everything. You should’ve seen [another child] beating ’em up. Boy we had a good time–

Interviewer 2: Beating up Mr. Ray doll.

Although these psychologically abusive techniques were used on many thousands of children around the world, few interviewers have ever been held to account, and nothing has been done to address the damage done to children used as cannon-fodder in the gender wars. Most agencies will claim: ‘we don’t do it like that any more’, but while they remain in steadfast denial about the extent of their past abuse, we should be very afraid of allowing our children to fall into their clutches.

Likewise, potential jury members should always be extremely sceptical of a prosecution based on solely ‘disclosures’ to interviewers, or where ‘experts’ like Doctors for Sexual Abuse Care have been involved.

Christchurch Women’s Refuge says employment contracts should have a clause requiring people convicted of domestic violence to be fired from their jobs.

Refuge manager Annette Gillespie said employers needed to get tougher on domestic abusers and send a message that family violence was not acceptable.

“We (Christchurch Women’s Refuge) definitely support employers threatening staff who are convicted of family violence with dismissal,” Gillespie said.

But the national office has a different view, preferring that the men are able to stay employed so they can continue to pay the maximum child support. Their statement suggests that they do not envisage women being the ones fired, and makes it clear that they are not concerned about the welfare of men.

Women’s Refuge chief executive Heather Henare said while her organisation did not yet have a firm position on the issue of whether someone should be fired for family violence-related convictions, such a policy could potentially be harmful to women and children.

“There could be long-term implications for women and children if one of the bread winners lost their job,” she said.

A more positive response to family violence would be for employers to fund courses on how to deal with the issue, she said.

As usual, the answer is increased funding for feminist organisations!

There are some great things happening in the Bay of Plenty around teaching boys to be good men, according to the Bay of Plenty Times top story Bay leads country in making good men, by Anna Bowden.

Western Bay schools are leading the country with innovative strategies to better the education and attitude of our growing boys.

That’s the view of researcher and social commentator Celia Lashlie, who says Bay schools are strong contributors to a generation being taught the value of being good men.

Tauranga schools are uniting in their holistic approach to give boys access to inter-school mentors, tailored classrooms for boys only, help to foster better relationships with parents and ultimately encourage a better future.

Gate Pa School and Tauranga Intermediate have established specialised teaching for ongoing boys-only classrooms – and this week Te Puke High School revealed it was investigating single-sex classes from as early as next year.

Lashlie was in Tauranga launching her book ‘He’ll be Ok – Growing Gorgeous Boys into Good Men‘, which has sold the first print run of 7000 copies in under a week.

Muriel Newman has just posted an article about ‘the fatherless generation‘ on her new NZ Centre for Political Debate website. She notes that despite recent concern over gangs and youth violence, little has been said about the underlying causes of the problem.

Any discussion with police or those who work with troubled youth will quickly identify that the largest proportion of them come from homes where their biological father is absent: children raised in families without a father, where there is inadequate supervision and a lack of socialisation, are far more likely to become involved in anti-social behaviour and crime, than those raised with a dad.

Unfortunately, feminist anti-father policies are something that most politicians are terrified to mention. Even National’s new ‘political-correctness eradicator’ has not yet mentioned anything about the fact that our courts are being misused for this misguided social engineering programme. Muriel has been one of the few consistent voices in Parliament advocating Shared Parenting and the removal of discrimination against fathers.

This is why I am so passionately opposed to public policy and practice that encourages family breakdown and excludes biological fathers. A biological father is a child’s traditional protector. Removing him from the lives of his children leaves them extremely vulnerable to abuse, neglect and failure.

That is not to say that every child being raised without a dad that ends up in trouble, or for that matter that every child raised in a loving two parent household by their biological parents, turn out to be little angels. But, on the balance of probability, children raised without their natural father, will face greater difficulties in life, than children brought up with their dad to love, guide and protect them.

The feminist theory that violence is the product of patriarchy couldn’t be more wrong, and we need women like Muriel to keep pointing this out. It is now clear that most dysfunctional and anti-social youths come from female headed families, and if current policies continue we should expect social breakdown to keep increasing.

Here in New Zealand… driven by a feminist agenda, which seeks to create equality for women by undermining men, society has now reached a sorry state: taxpayers are funding a hundred thousand women and girls to struggle to raise their children on their own, there is an epidemic of tens of thousands of abused children, and there is now an escalation in youth gangs and violence.

A leading Maori health provider has called for tougher penalties for men who beat their wives and children.

Darrin Haimona, chief executive of Waikato-based Ngati Haua Healthcare, told a domestic violence conference in Auckland yesterday that traditional Maori culture was no excuse for Maori men who were violent.

He attacked comments last week by Waitakere Judge Philip Recordon, who said men charged for the first time with domestic violence offences should be encouraged to plead guilty and go on non-violence courses, rather than being jailed.

“We need to be consistent in messages saying that violence is taken seriously,” Mr Haimona said.

“I’m saying use jail more as a deterrent, while at the same time that is a difficult statement for me to say when I understand that there are more Maori people within prisons.

“I’m supporting much stronger penalties. The penalties need to fit the crime.”

Under current law, assaults bring heavy penalties of up to 14 years in jail, but men who breach protection orders by visiting estranged partners or failing to attend non-violence courses face only fines of up to $5000 or six months in jail – or two years if they have already offended at least twice in the previous three years.

Surveys suggest that domestic violence is prevalent among Maori. In 2001, 49 per cent of Maori women, but only between 23 and 25 per cent of European, Pacific and other women, said they had been hit, threatened or frightened by a partner some time.

Mr Haimona said this was the reverse of pre-European Maori society, where the role of women and children was one of “divinity and sanctity”.

When European missionaries opened schools in the Waikato, many Maori families boycotted them because they punished children with violence.

“However, when we look at the statistics today, not only is it in the schools where violence is being perpetrated against our children, but we as Maori men and women are doing the violence towards our own children.

“That is absolutely contrary to our traditional values.”

Menstruating women were seen as tapu (sacred) and were not allowed in the garden because dealing with food would have lowered their status.

Today that status had degenerated to the point where a menstruating woman was often seen as paru (dirty).

“That is not a traditional value base,” he said. “Male violence against women and children is not a traditional aspect. This is something we learned in the schools.”

He acknowledged that warfare was also a feature of traditional Maori society, but he said people who infringed the sanctity of women and children, even in war, were regulated by utu. Utu meant revenge, but it also meant “restoring balance”.

Mr Haimona said the only system that existed to restore “balance” after a transgression today was the justice system.

“I don’t want to see more Maori people going through the police and justice system.

“However, that is the only tool that we can legally use, because our traditional ways of dealing with it might have been a bit too harsh.”

At a meeting between men’s groups and United Future leader Peter Dunne in Birkenhead last year, I listened to him talk about the Families Commission, which he hoped would address some of the concerns we raised about the state-mandated removal of fathers from children’s lives, and the anti-male bias within the courts and the social services.

I asked him what steps United Future had taken to counter the possibility of the commission being subverted by feminist activists, eager to get their hands on new sources of funding.

He replied that they were well aware of this danger, but put their faith in the high calibre and integrity of the people employed to staff the commission.

I know Mr Dunne has a good understanding of how the feminists work, as demonstrated in a March 2004 speech:

“political correctness… is dressed up as a form of tolerance of diversity, but in reality is anything but. It is an ill-disguised, highly intolerant attempt to subvert the way we think, the questions we ask and the positions we hold, in order to change the very nature of our society to fall in line with an agenda of a truly undemocratic elite.
…

It wages war on the family, as the base unit of our or any society; undermining its parameters and chipping away at its building blocks, for no more profound reason than the fact that traditional concepts of family do not fit the perceptions of some of its advocates.”

It should be noted that other politicians did not share Dunne’s optimism about the new Commission. For example, in June 2004 ACT’s Heather Roy said:

“But I predict that the Families Commission will prove to be nothing more than a politically correct talkfest that will help not one single at-risk child or struggling family.”

The news yesterday that the Families Commission was sponsor of the country’s biggest-ever domestic violence conference at Waipuna Lodge over the weekend, shows that Heather Roy’s prediction and my fears have turned out to be correct.
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About 20 people turned out at Waipuna Lodge in Auckland to protest at the Stopping Violence Services 2005 Annual Conference. In an effort to draw attention to the use of Protection Orders as a weapon by some women, the theme of the protest was ‘Revenge is just an allegation away‘.

Several of the fathers I talked to told me their stories of suddenly loosing all contact with their children, even though there was no evidence of abuse presented. Most of them were forced to attend “Living Without Violence” courses, many of which are run by the conference attendees.

As the Union of Fathers bus drove by, one father shouted over the public address system: “If you take our kids away of course we get bloody angry!”

Ben Easton was interviewed at length by a Radio NZ reporter, and the protest was given good coverage on the one o’clock news at least.

Newsreader: In situations of Domestic Violence, blame is too often attached to the man he believes that more complete evidence needs to be collected and presented to the courts about why a violent situation in the home has taken place.

Ben Easton: “This is not to say in any way that any act of domestic violence is promoted by the men out here at all – it’s not. What were saying is that the cause isn’t being looked at and we’re not providing for the damage which is occuring from domestic violence.”

Newsreader: Ben Easton says the damage is done when fathers are unfairly separated from their children.

An unidentified ‘worker’ in family violence was given the last word: “the vast majority of victims are female.”

Listen to streaming audio of the 1.00pm RNZ news here.

For the first time, news of a father’s protest has made it into the (NZ Herald ) – before it has even happened!

Headlined Fathers in kayaks protest at family violence event Simon Collins writes:

Fathers plan to protest in kayaks on Auckland’s Panmure Basin on Saturday to protest against a judge who will be speaking at New Zealand’s biggest-ever conference on family violence.

Waitakere Family Court Judge David Mather is due to speak at the conference at the nearby Waipuna Hotel on that day about Waitakere’s experiment with encouraging men charged with family violence to plead guilty and attend anger management courses.

South Auckland father Paul Catton, 43, said he would be there in his kayak to protest against being convicted of assault and breach of a protection order when his ex-wife and son came to his house a year ago.

With the National Network of Stopping Violence Services Annual Conference under way at Auckland’s Waipuna Lodge, the feminist propaganda machine has kicked into high gear.

The Herald warns that: ‘Faith in protection orders wanes‘. The story by Simon Collins begins with an impressive graph with prominent red arrows pointing upwards under the heading “Male Assaults Female”. There are no reported figures for violence by females to balance this picture.

The second section: “Protection Orders” is not separated by gender, but it shows a dramatic drop in the numbers of Protection Orders both sought and granted since 1999.

The article says that the drop in applications for orders, despite Women’s Refuge efforts to encourage women to seek them, is because they are loosing faith with the justice system:

The services manager of Auckland agency Preventing Violence in the Home, Holly Carrington, said the courts were failing to enforce protection orders when men breached them by contacting their former partners or failing to attend anti-violence programmes.

“Here in Auckland the courts are a major problem in the response to family violence; a major barrier to the safety of victims,” she said.

“Sentencing for family violence offenders is so inconsistent, and much more often than not they are way too lenient. They [offenders] have to practically kill someone to get a prison sentence.”

This is a rather extraordinary claim, and it is given a prominent position in the article. Many reasonable people would be rightly alarmed if this were the case. Unfortunately there is no attempt to check out the facts, or present an alternative viewpoint.

It is indisputable that men’s groups are having an impact, and the domestic violence industry is in damage-control mode, pushing their dishonest spin that it is all about “mens rights”:

A joint submission to MPs by refuges and nine other agencies, quoted in a report last week by the Parliamentarians’ Group on Population and Development, said the Family Court was “increasingly seen to be overriding the safety of women and children in favour of ‘men’s rights’.”

Women’s Refuge chief executive Heather Henare said there had been enormous pressure on judges from the fathers’ rights movement, reflected in comments by Waitakere Judge Philip Recordon last week that men up for their first offence “at the lower end of the scale” should sometimes be discharged without conviction.

Justice Ministry analyst Elizabeth Bartlett suggests that the “underlying incidence of family violence has remained unchanged” which would surely suggest that all the money being poured into Feminist social-engineering schemes is a total waste. But when you are a government and one of your pet projects, run by your sisters, isn’t working what do you do? Yep, you do it more, with increased resources and funding!

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs has commissioned two Waikato University academics, lawyer Ruth Busch and psychologist Neville Robertson, to conduct a year-long study of protection orders, including the barriers preventing women from seeking them.

Us Senate Reauthorizes Feminist Man Hating Bill NewsWithViews.com
by David R. Usher

Last week, the U.S. Senate approved reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (led by Senator Joe Biden of Delaware), amidst a hail of public criticism of the program. A substantial collection of mainstream organizations and scientists oppose VAWA for one basic reason: it funds sexism, not prevention of domestic violence.

VAWA is at best an extremely dubious program. Certainly, we all agree it does help women living in abuse. But we also know that it fails to help or protect men living in abuse. In fact, the program holds male victims of domestic violence responsible for women’s violence, even where the man is a saint.

VAWA: The WMD of divorce

The problems do not stop there. VAWA is the preferred “weapon of mass destruction” used by women’s attorneys in planning and execution of divorces. VAWA is written such that one fax containing a mere statement of fear is all that is necessary to seize full control of family, home, assets, and bank accounts.

Advocates of VAWA point out that courts are overwhelmed and need laws such as VAWA to protect women.

This is the self-fulfilling prophesy of VAWA — judges only have time to hear about 5% of divorce cases. But courts are overwhelmed particularly because spouse abuse allegations are filed in the majority of divorce cases — and judges simply do not have the docket time to hear them. A short hearing, absent of all due process standards required for stripping a citizen of home, property, and family are discarded.

The standard of proof is, in essence, “free-floating fear”. Dr. Stephen Baskerville describes the abject constitutional error of VAWA, in his latest article, “Violence Against the Constitution”, We can no longer allow feminists to steal by overwhelming the court system. Half the husbands in America have been thrown out of their families. No one can possibly believe that most of these guys are violent wife abusers.

From false child abuse, to false spouse abuse allegations.

For the truth, read the full article:
Us Senate Reauthorizes Feminist Man Hating Bill

A paper published earlier this year in a peer-reviewed scientific journal explores the negative impact radical feminist ideology has had on the treatment of Domestic Violence. The paper details are:

The gender paradigm in domestic violence research and theory: Part 1–The conflict of theory and data. Donald G. Dutton, Tonia L. Nicholls Aggression and Violent Behavior 10 (2005) 680—714
Download ‘Part 1–The conflict of theory and data’ [278KB PDF]

The authors begin by noting the heightened official response to Domestic Violence in the early 70s, which resulted in refuges being opened for women victims and court-ordered treatment groups developed for men, a model which has persisted until the present. [References have been removed from the excerpts below, but are available in original paper.]

As a result of this sample selection and of the prevailing ideology of feminism, the notion evolved that spouse assault was exclusively male perpetrated or that female intimate violence, to the extent that it existed at all, was defensive or inconsequential. Subsequent research showing equivalent rates of serious female violence has been greeted with scepticism, especially by the activist-research community. Data surveys similarly met with criticism, especially by feminist researchers who were committed to the view that intimate violence was the by-product of patriarchy and hence, an exclusively male activity. This initial dogma has persevered despite data to the contrary, to be presented below.

This type of error in social judgment is demonstrated in research studies by social psychologists which show “confirmatory bias” (also called “biased assimilation”) and “belief perseverance” occurring when research subjects have a strongly held belief and are exposed to research findings inconsistent with the belief. The subjects reconcile the contradiction and maintain the prior belief by discounting the research methodology. They do not apply the same rigorous standards to research findings, which confirm their beliefs.

After a comprehensive review of the literature and the debates which have raged between the activist and research communities, the paper points out some of the downside of this ideologically-driven approach:
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