In what seems to be a recent development to increase the rate of conviction for men accused of sexual crimes, prosecutions are allowed to use innovative forms of ‘propensity evidence’. A couple of recent cases, ‘Auckland builder jailed for rape…’ and ‘West Auckland man jailed for sexual assault…’ have allowed complainants from previous acquittals to tell their unproven allegations again to the current jury, and unsurprisingly this resulted in convictions for currently alleged offending even though the evidence for that particular current offending may have been inadequate. (more…)

You are warmly invited to join us at Kidz Need Dadz Conference 2018.

We are discussing a subject that touches many in our community – Men and Relationships in 2018 – Te tangata me te whanaungatanga i roto i te 2018.

Key Note Speakers:

Chris Bowden Victoria University; Male Suicide, Risk, Relationships and Responses

Children’s Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft; Men, their children and the importance of this relationship

Minister of Children The Honourable Tracey Martin; Governments policy approach to the interconnectivity between children and their fathers

Oranga Tamariki/Ministry for Children Deputy Chief Executive Hoani Lambert; Ministry’s approach to the environment that exists between children and their fathers.

Philip Chapman Male Survivors Aotearoa ; How Men Survive Sexual Abuse

We look forward to you joining us at this critical event – Titiro matou atu ki a koutou hono tatou i tenei hui tino.

After you have registered we will be in touch via email to capture dietary requirements and any other additional information.

Foetal Alcohol Syndrome became a recognisable problem and while this remains an issue for pregnant women we may be on the cusp of a much larger problem.

These are issues that I don’t have any great understanding of so I’m writing generally about recently expressed concerns that prompt this post as I can see the need to be concerned.

Meths may be the first drug to significantly impact our education system by complicating learning difficulties and even creating new ones.

I understand that the relationship between meths (more…)

Is that possible?

Could we reach a point where the anti-male hysteria drives a society, a whole country, especially a small country like New Zealand into the crisis zone?

How many years ago did we start to raise issues like,

Fatherlessness
The possible effects on children

How many issues saw no acknowledgement because (more…)

Dad does a runner

This is a far more complicated story than what first appeared.

I thought it was worth posting as it appears to include a blended family situation, parental leave issues, but also support issues for fathers.

How would you have coped in this situation?

Depressed women in my experience do the same thing – abandon the baby when they can’t cope.

Dad does a runner? Emotive head line?

Another male in difficult circumstances but the media story is straight for the jugular?

Should men now be considered being at risk of post natal depression?

New Bill put forward by the Greens (Jan Logie MP), and it’s passing appears to be imminent:
Jan Logie states “The bill would extend leave provisions to include domestic violence leave as when women leave a violent situation it can be very hard for them to juggle court, counselling, housing and the needs of their children without extra leave. “, which isn’t too encouraging. However, on perusal of the draft it does appear to be inclusive of male victims also, as it refers to “his or her employers” when referring to victims.
Draft can be found at https://www.greens.org.nz/policy/fairer-society/domestic-violence-victims-protection-bill

Hard to tell if she is acting or not.

Anyway. Just wondered how on earth can Harvey get a fair trial with all shows and media interviews before a trial even begins.

Rose Weinstein said at the end of the view. “We Win”. That part I agree she has won already. No need for a proper trial. No need to listen to facts or anything else. No need to look at the photos and video of Rose with Harvey after the alleged offences. No need to take into account the understood casting couch swap for fame. No need to take into account Rose McGowan arrest drug possession.

Correct me if I’m wrong but I think it was JP who announced late last year that,

“Some of us are getting a bit long in the tooth.”

And there’re veterans here, 20-25 years that I can see – any 30 year voices still out there?

Yesterday, somehow I found myself in the MENZ archives back in 1998 looking at a commentary which mentioned (more…)

I’m seeing the odd news flash on this but nothing substantial.

It appears to be only in the trial stage but hey, having a spit in a jar has got to be less stressful than the fear of a hand on each shoulder … let’s pray for sucess on this one.

Jokes aside, if you see any developments on this thread, help keep us up to date in the comments.

Kirsty Johnston’s article directed at ‘toxic men’ was published by the NZ Herald but they’re unlikely to publish even a letter to the editor with a similar reference to women or any other group. Only for men is it considered acceptable to publish such hate speech against them.

Ms Johnston’s vicious diatribe commenced with outlining her demeaning view of a man who offered to buy her and her female friend a drink in a bar. She saw his generous attempt to befriend them as somehow unacceptable. One cannot rely on her honesty concerning the alleged verbatim comments she attributed to the man. The way he made his offer may well have been more tentative and respectful than how she recounts it. Regardless, it was nothing more or less than a friendly offer to buy them a drink. (more…)

“The dirty ole bastard next door has got a young floozie living with him.”

I just bit my tongue. Nice lady, older conservative, perhaps even a little embittered, and felt the need to express her moral outrage.

That was a few years back now, when another friend starting his second family was getting married to a younger woman.

“Mate, you’ll be 60 when it’s 21.”

The look on her face was (more…)

The young lady (Not her real name) was very up front about her history but proud of the length of time she had being (had been) drug free.

“I’ve even had hair follicle tests to prove it, and I passed those too.”

Telling me she really wanted to get her kids back, I asked (more…)

Professor Janice Fiamengo’s latest video exposes in her part of the world what we have frequently exposed in our part of the world: the devaluation of men and the favourable treatment of women including in the justice system. Evidence abounds, and on the very day Prof Fiamengo’s video was published there was an article in the NZ Herald (written in Australia) demonstrating the issue. (more…)

We note that the Ministry for Women received an increase of 1.9% in this year’s budget. (more…)

Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet was given her title last year for ‘services to fashion’. It has since been discovered that her clothing company has been putting ‘Fabrique en Nouvelle-Zelande’ (‘Made in NZ’) tags on clothes that were made in Bangladesh. According to her reasoning, that should be all ok because the tags themselves were made in NZ! Oh, and also ‘99%’ of her products are made in NZ so that somehow makes it ok to claim the rest that weren’t made in NZ actually were. The clothing items in question were said to have another tag at the collar saying they were made in Bangladesh, but those tags were not the ones prominently displayed on the clothes. Instead of acknowledging her wrongdoing in misleading customers and misrepresenting NZ around the world, Dame Denise was incensed and she implied a threat to discontinue her ‘commitment to New Zealand’ because someone had dared to call her out. (more…)

This appears to currently be topical.

Is it amongst the banter in the smoko rooms of our workplaces?

Will Clarke rise above the Feminist soap opera – you know, the how we think it should be done?

Have you been a stay-at-home Dad?

“Mate, there’s nothing to it, you can work and look after the kids at the same time, without falling asleep at the wheel,” said the blind man.

Let’s hear the breadth and depth of the MENZ experience.

Protest, suicide, despair, a message yet to be heard.

I have no idea but if you know anything about this gruesome death please comment.

It’s an essential element in humanity, isn’t it?

Most recognizable in New Zealand by … what’s your uh ha moment there?

Perhaps the immortal words of, you know, that fellow that climbed Mt Everest.

“We knocked the bugger off.”

More recently this has been suceeded by a procession of … (more…)

Some of the old timers will be more familiar with the acronym COSA (casualties of sexual allegations) associated with the MENZ site.

CASA (Clinical Advisory Service Aoteoroa) chief executive Dr Maree Inder;
(more…)

I have not seen any comments about bias in this census on this site.

Having seen this in the past I’m wondering if it is only because of the absence of a post.

Here it is.

Many submissions to Governments are based along the lines of “I Want”. These submissions often fail to respect the reasonable interests of other affected parties. As a result, they tend to be less persuasive to politicians, when the consider making changes to Government policies.

More persuasive submissions will be based on offering the politician a workable policy option. To be workable, it must respect all affected parties.
(more…)

Universal Periodic Review from NZ Human Rights Commission website
This process allows NZ citizens and residents to make a complaint directly to UN. In other words, the NZ Government cannot suppress the complaint.
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights provides a more detailed summary about the UPR here.
(more…)

TV3 The Project yesterday had a sympathy based item about how men have it so easy after separation and women need more Government supports with no strings attached.
(more…)

I had a look at the Feminist Art Exhibition, on at the Auckland Art Gallery. It is showing until Sunday 16th June 2018.
I was quite surprised that the painting that I thought had the most “feminist” punch, was not in the Feminist Collection. It is in the Main Collection, nearer to the entrance.
(more…)

Jacinda Adern is our 3rd female Prime Minister, however what is substantially different is the public inclusion of her partner (Clarke Gayford) by comparison to the husbands of her predecessors Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark.

With the presence of social media it has been much easier for Gayford to put his political oar to the airwaves and this may be taken by the media as an invitation to publicly dissect him.

While Gayford had his own visible career prior to the 2017 election campaign and subsequent political pregnancy the couple may now be exposed to Gayford’s maleness according to Feminist media.

Would you like to be in his shoes?

Might he have been better to stay quietly in the background?

Has he been forced into the politicaly charged life of their expected child regardless?

I expect there will be some interesting news around this.

Picture: Courtesy of Twitter 24th April 2018