ARTICLES & COMMENTARY
Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship
By Christina Hoff Sommers
Monday, June 29, 2009
http://www.aei.org/article/100695
"Harder to kill than a vampire." That is what the sociologist Joel Best calls a bad statistic. But, as I have discovered over the years, among false statistics the hardest of all to slay are those promoted by feminist professors. Consider what happened recently when I sent an e-mail message to the Berkeley law professor Nancy K. D. Lemon pointing out that the highly praised textbook that she edited, Domestic Violence Law (second edition, Thomson/West, 2005), contained errors.
Her reply began: "I appreciate and share your concern for veracity in all of our scholarship. However, I would expect a colleague who is genuinely concerned about such matters to contact me directly and give me a chance to respond before launching a public attack on me and my work, and then contacting me after the fact."
The critical work of 21st-century feminism will be to help women in the developing world, especially in Muslim societies, in their struggle for basic rights.
I confess: I had indeed publicly criticized Lemon's book, in campus lectures and in a post on FeministLawProfessors.com. I had always thought that that was the usual practice of intellectual argument. Disagreement is aired, error corrected, truth affirmed. Indeed, I was moved to write to her because of the deep consternation of law students who had attended my lectures: If authoritative textbooks contain errors, how are students to know whether they are being educated or indoctrinated? Lemon's book has been in law-school classrooms for years.
One reason that feminist scholarship contains hard-to-kill falsehoods is that reasonable, evidence-backed criticism is regarded as a personal attack. Lemon's Domestic Violence Law is organized as a conventional law-school casebook--a collection of judicial opinions, statutes, and articles selected, edited, and commented upon by the author. The first selection, written by Cheryl Ward Smith (no institutional affiliation is given), offers students a historical perspective on domestic-violence law. According to Ward: "The history of women's abuse began over 2,700 years ago in the year 753 BC. It was during the reign of Romulus of Rome that wife abuse was accepted and condoned under the Laws of Chastisement. . . . The laws permitted a man to beat his wife with a rod or switch so long as its circumference was no greater than the girth of the base of the man's right thumb. The law became commonly know as 'The Rule of Thumb.' These laws established a tradition which was perpetuated in English Common Law in most of Europe."
Where to begin? How about with the fact that Romulus of Rome never existed. He is a figure in Roman mythology--the son of Mars, nursed by a wolf. Problem 2: The phrase "rule of thumb" did not originate with any law about wife beating, nor has anyone ever been able to locate any such law. It is now widely regarded as a myth, even among feminist professors.
A few pages later, in a selection by Joan Zorza, a domestic-violence expert, students read, "The March of Dimes found that women battered during pregnancy have more than twice the rate of miscarriages and give birth to more babies with more defects than women who may suffer from any immunizable illness or disease." Not true. When I recently read Zorza's assertion to Richard P. Leavitt, director of science information at the March of Dimes, he replied, "That is a total error on the part of the author. There was no such study." The myth started in the early 1990s, he explained, and resurfaces every few years.
Zorza also informs readers that "between 20 and 35 percent of women seeking medical care in emergency rooms in America are there because of domestic violence." Studies by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, indicate that the figure is closer to 1 percent.
Few students would guess that the Lemon book is anything less than reliable. The University of California at Berkeley's online faculty profile of Lemon hails it as the "premiere" text of the genre. It is part of a leading casebook series, published by Thomson/West, whose board of academic advisers, prominently listed next to the title page, includes many eminent law professors.
I mentioned these problems in my message to Lemon. She replied: "I have looked into your assertions and requested documentation from Joan Zorza regarding the March of Dimes study and the statistics on battered women in emergency rooms. She provided both of these promptly."
If that's the case, Zorza and Lemon might share their documentation with Leavitt, of the March of Dimes, who is emphatic that it does not exist. They might also contact the Centers for Disease Control statistician Janey Hsiao, who wrote to me that "among ED [Emergency Department] visits made by females, the percent of having physical abuse by spouse or partner is 0.02 percent in 2003 and 0.01 percent in 2005."
Here is what Lemon says about Cheryl Ward Smith's essay on Romulus and the rule of thumb: "I made a few minor editorial changes in the Smith piece so that it is more accurate. However, overall it appeared to be correct."
A few minor editorial changes? Students deserve better. So do women victimized by violence.
Feminist misinformation is pervasive. In their eye-opening book, Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women's Studies (Lexington Books, 2003), the professors Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge describe the "sea of propaganda" that overwhelms the contemporary feminist classroom. The formidable Christine Rosen (formerly Stolba), in her 2002 report on the five leading women's-studies textbooks, found them rife with falsehoods, half-truths, and "deliberately misleading sisterly sophistries." Are there serious scholars in women's studies? Yes, of course. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, an anthropologist at the University of California at Davis; Janet Zollinger Giele, a sociologist at Brandeis; and Anne Mellor, a literary scholar at UCLA, to name just three, are models of academic excellence and integrity. But they are the exception. Lemon's book typifies the departmental mind-set.
Consider The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World (2008), by the feminist scholar Joni Seager, chair of the Hunter College geography department. Now in its fourth edition, Seager's atlas was named "reference book of the year" by the American Library Association when it was published. "Nobody should be without this book," says the feminist icon Gloria Steinem. "A wealth of fascinating information," enthuses The Washington Post. Fascinating, maybe. But the information is misleading and, at least in one instance, flat-out false.
One color-coded map illustrates how women are kept "in their place" by restrictions on their mobility, dress, and behavior. Somehow the United States comes out looking as bad in this respect as Somalia, Uganda, Yemen, Niger, and Libya. All are coded with the same shade of green to indicate places where "patriarchal assumptions" operate in "potent combination with fundamentalist religious interpretations." Seager's logic? She notes that in parts of Uganda, a man can claim an unmarried woman as his wife by raping her. The United States gets the same low rating on Seager's charts because, she notes, "State legislators enacted 301 anti-abortion measures between 1995 and 2001." Never mind that the Ugandan practice is barbaric, that U.S. abortion law is exceptionally liberal among the nations of the world, and that the activism and controversy surrounding the issue of abortion in the United States is a sign of a vigorous free democracy working out its disagreements.
On another map, the United States gets the same rating for domestic violence as Uganda and Haiti. Seager backs up that verdict with that erroneous and ubiquitous emergency-room factoid: "22 percent-35 percent of women who visit a hospital emergency room do so because of domestic violence."
The critical work of 21st-century feminism will be to help women in the developing world, especially in Muslim societies, in their struggle for basic rights. False depictions of the United States as an oppressive "patriarchy" are a ludicrous distraction. If American women are as oppressed as Ugandan women, then American feminists would be right to focus on their domestic travails and let the Ugandan women fend for themselves.
All books have mistakes, so why pick on the feminists? My complaint with feminist research is not so much that the authors make mistakes; it is that the mistakes are impervious to reasoned criticism. They do not get corrected. The authors are passionately committed to the proposition that American women are oppressed and under siege. The scholars seize and hold on for dear life to any piece of data that appears to corroborate their dire worldview. At the same time, any critic who attempts to correct the false assumptions is dismissed as a backlasher and an anti-feminist crank.
Why should it matter if a large number of professors think and say a lot of foolish and intemperate things? Here are three reasons to be concerned:
1) False assertions, hyperbole, and crying wolf undermine the credibility and effectiveness of feminism. The United States, and the world, would greatly benefit from an intellectually responsible, reality-based women's movement.
2) Over the years, the feminist fictions have made their way into public policy. They travel from the women's-studies textbooks to women's advocacy groups and then into news stories. Soon after, they are cited by concerned political leaders. President Obama recently issued an executive order establishing a White House Council on Women and Girls. As he explained, "The purpose of this council is to ensure that American women and girls are treated fairly in all matters of public policy." He and Congress are also poised to use the celebrated Title IX gender-equity law to counter discrimination not only in college athletics but also in college math and science programs, where, it is alleged, women face a "chilly climate." The president and members of Congress can cite decades of women's-studies scholarship that presents women as the have-nots of our society. Never mind that this is largely no longer true. Nearly every fact that could be marshaled to justify the formation of the White House Council on Women and Girls or the new focus of Title IX application was shaped by scholarly merchants of hype like Professors Lemon and Seager.
3) Finally, as a philosophy professor of almost 20 years, and as someone who respects rationality, objective scholarship, and intellectual integrity, I find it altogether unacceptable for distinguished university professors and prestigious publishers to disseminate falsehoods. It is offensive in itself, even without considering the harmful consequences. Obduracy in the face of reasonable criticism may be inevitable in some realms, such as partisan politics, but in academe it is an abuse of the privileges of professorship.
"Thug," "parasite," "dangerous," a "female impersonator"--those are some of the labels applied to me when I exposed specious feminist statistics in my 1994 book Who Stole Feminism? (Come to think of it, none of my critics contacted me directly with their concerns before launching their public attacks.) According to Susan Friedman, of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, "Sommers' diachronic discourse is easily unveiled as synchronic discourse in drag. . . . She practices . . . metonymic historiography." That one hurt! But my views, as well as my metonymic historiography, are always open to correction. So I'll continue to follow the work of the academic feminists--to criticize it when it is wrong, and to learn from it when it is right.
Christina Hoff Sommers is a resident scholar at AEI.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
More bullshit from Boshier on TVNZ
Boshier dribbles more utter crap ; “No, when I was appointed in 2004 I just felt that it was wrong, that you had a court operating that wasn’t transparent and accountable”
But Judge Boshier, you fobbed me off in 2004 when I repeatedly tried to highlight a travesty of justice that is ongoing in the secretive and sinister world of the family court. You wouldn't know the meaning of the words accountability and transparenctly.How does a lying corrupt creep like you sleep at night? Remember you wrote in 2004;
“Dear Mr Burns
Thank you for your further letter of 12 October 2004. I will not be responding any further on this issue.”
I wrote to Boshier requesting that a bias and unscrupulous family court psychologist John Watson be withdrawn from my family court proceedings because he was causing great stress to my mother, who was suffering bad health. Boshier fobbed me off and John Watson hounded my mother to death a year later. RIP mum. I will get even with your corrupt court Boshier. Believe me I will.My case started in 2001.It was built on false allegations of child abuse and domestic violence. This case is far from finished.
The interview has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can be seen on tvnz.co.nz at,
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news
JUDGE PETER BOSHIER interviewed by PAUL HOLMES
PAUL The Family Court was established back in the early 80s, it's become a very controversial court. The Family Court deals with some of the most sensitive most difficult matters in our community life. It handles the painful disputes within families, within marriages. It has a huge effect on the lives of children. The Court deals with protection orders after there's been domestic violence say and decides custody matters, but the Court has been criticised over the years vehemently for the length of time it takes to make decisions, and it is especially criticised by men's groups who say the Court fails fathers, and is mother biased. Well the Principal Judge of the Family Court since 2004 is Principal Judge Peter Boshier. Thank you very much for joining us.
PETER Good morning.
PAUL How bad are the delays in say your custody issues?
PETER BOSHIER – Principal Family Court Judge
We have delays that we've got to improve on. When people have go their children's issues to resolve they’ve got to have them done speedily, so we've got a long way to go yet to make access of justice where I want it to be.
PAUL What causes the delays?
PETER Sheer volume of work Paul, we are the second busiest court now in New Zealand, 87,000 applications are filed in our court each year, and 27,000 of those deal with care of children, so it's sheer volume.
PAUL Sheer volume, and I spose you're dealing in shades of grey aren’t you?
PETER We are, and we're dealing with people, who feel that they know what's best for their children when they don’t always. They're often their own issues.
PAUL Exactly, both parents know what is best. Dr Muriel Newman however, the former ACT MP says the delays are horrendous Peter, she says sometimes custody cases are taking up to a year. Now that’s a long period, I mean even before it gets to the Family Court this is a long period of uncertainty for kids isn't it?
PETER Yes, and that’s why I've been very keen to do reforms in the Family Court, I think we've needed to.
PAUL But what are you doing about getting them down beneath a year?
PETER Well we have now a programme called Less Adversarial Trials. That’s turning the way we do court work on our head, because we're now limiting the sort of issues that people have bring. So traditionally people have flown with whatever they’ve wanted to, we've now been much tighter and we're reducing the time that we're prepared to give them for their cases.
PAUL You’ve also added another stratum haven't you, you’ve got mediation now.
PETER Yes.
PAUL Which keeps things away from the judges, takes some of the volume of work off judges?
PAUL So what kind of cases would go this mediation stratum?
PAUL Well the Family Court matters legislation passed last year sets up mediation for non judges, but it's yet to be funded and introduced. So I unapologetically want to say to you I will look forward to the day when we have funded and we have non judge led mediation.
PAUL Right, so it's been set up, non judge led mediation, but no funding for it?
PETER Mm.
PAUL Now your attitude to fathers, Judge. Bob McCoskrie of Family First, a thorn in your side I guess, he quotes – well he got this through the Official Information Act, he says the Court remains unfair to fathers. He says 50/50 custody is granted in only 13% of cases, and women get sole custody in two thirds of cases, that hardly seems to be balanced equally between mothers and fathers.
PETER Mm, well one of the good things about the openness of the Court which I've been very very comfortable with, is the that we now publish our statistics, and they demonstrate that the times that men get care of their children, pretty much correspond with the times when they apply for them. So to the extent that mothers get care more than fathers, it's almost exactly proportionate to the number of times that men and women apply. It's uncanny.
PAUL Explain that to me.
PETER Right, well if you’ve got a mother applying for sole care, it's logical she's probably going to get sole care. If a father applies for sole care he might, and so the number of applications that mothers file are many many more than fathers.
PAUL Right, so when Bob McCoskrie says 50/50 custody is granted in only 13% of cases that does not necessarily imply a bias against fathers?
PETER No no, exactly, and you can't force fathers to have equal care if they don’t want it, many fathers don’t, and Family Court Judges are forever exhorting reluctant fathers to have more care time, but I think that we're getting there on changes to attitudes, and I'm pleased that men are willing and wanting to be more fatherly.
PAUL Because there is a danger in their not being fatherly isn't there, fathers get alienated from their kids of course the less they have to do with them. Are these figures roughly right. According to some research I discovered there is a great danger in children having no fathers. A child that has no father is 14 times more likely to rape, 20 more times likely to go to prison, would those numbers surprise you?
PETER They wouldn’t surprise me, and if you looked probably at the figures in the Youth Court of the profile of young people offending, a lot of them Paul will unfortunately come from dysfunctional families, and probably even not know their fathers.
PAUL Of course on this business and before we go, was it because of the Men's Groups and the aggravation they gave you, and the what you perceived to be misunderstandings that you opened the Family Court to the news media, or to the public via the news media?
PETER No, when I was appointed in 2004 I just felt that it was wrong, that you had a court operating that wasn’t transparent and accountable, so you do need to protect privacy, but it's wrong frankly to have a court that the public doesn’t know what goes on inside, so it was always the right thing to do.
PAUL Does the Family Court have the view that mothers are more important?
PETER No. No, in fact what I'd want to stress is that what I'm most wanting in my time is to have families that even when they separate they have both parents. If we can achieve both parents looking after their children, even though they're separated, we're gonna have a much better society.
PAUL Domestic violence, Judge Boshier, you’ve called it one of the most pernicious problems facing this country. How bad is it, what do you see?
PETER We're a very violent society in New Zealand, and I don’t know why. Some of the violence that I see when I'm doing defended cases, frankly Paul it moves me sometimes nearly to tears. I don’t know why the violence is just so awful and we see domestic violence cases played out in the media, the beatings of the most awful sort, it is a problem that cannot possibly be exaggerated, it is there.
PAUL You’ve questioned some of the domestic violence programmes, you wonder if they work?
PETER Yes, yes.
PAUL In what ways do you think they don’t, what tells you that they might not be working, the numbers? 75,000 cases reported of domestic violence in 2006 alone. Anyway what tells you?
PETER Well I don’t think that we can just send every person who's a perpetrator of violence to the same programme and expect that it's going to be good for them. I think what we need to do is look at what each individual perpetrator is doing, why, their ethnicity, their culture, whether they're affected by drugs, if they're on methamphetamine you can't treat them the same as just some other perpetrators of violence that aren’t on P, so it depends.
PAUL You went on to the Stellar Trust recently which is a trust aimed at creating awareness of P, and the scourge of P and the dangers of P, are you starting to see more and more P related domestic violence, family breakdown?
PETER Yes, and you know the thing that really worries me about P is that in the care and protection work we do, that is to say where the State intervenes, it's so hard to rehabilitate young parents who are on P, and you can rehabilitate young parents on some other drugs, they can go to Odyssey House, but to try and rehabilitate young parents on P, we're really looking at the State often taking the children off them, it's so hard to get a positive turn around, that’s my difficulty.
PAUL That’s your worry about that particular drug?
PETER Yes it is, and it seems that once people are addicted to P, the violence that often I can't even recall afterwards is just massive, more than I would normally expect to see.
PAUL Quick word on the proposed On the Spot Protection Orders which the government is proposing. The Bill is in parliament now. Basically what this will do is if there's a domestic violence incident the Police are called, the Police will come round to the house, if they think they know what's gone on, they can remove a party from the house for five days, in other words on a hunch a 22 year old constable can throw 57 year old Jo Blogs out of the house he's paid the mortgage on for 30 years, what do you think of this particular proposal?
PETER Well it has my support, I think that when the Police go in there is demonstrable violence they can arrest, if they arrest they can't issue an On the Spot Protection Order, so it's a lesser being and I think it will be good in cases where one party is just out of control, there is obviously going to be violence and there has been, but the Police just can't work out who's occasioned it. So I think that there are times when it's going to provide security to that family that’s just under siege.
PAUL I thank you so much for your work, and for coming on the programme.
PETER Thank you it's nice to be here.
PAUL Principal Judge of the Family Court, Peter Boshier.
ENDS
But Judge Boshier, you fobbed me off in 2004 when I repeatedly tried to highlight a travesty of justice that is ongoing in the secretive and sinister world of the family court. You wouldn't know the meaning of the words accountability and transparenctly.How does a lying corrupt creep like you sleep at night? Remember you wrote in 2004;
“Dear Mr Burns
Thank you for your further letter of 12 October 2004. I will not be responding any further on this issue.”
I wrote to Boshier requesting that a bias and unscrupulous family court psychologist John Watson be withdrawn from my family court proceedings because he was causing great stress to my mother, who was suffering bad health. Boshier fobbed me off and John Watson hounded my mother to death a year later. RIP mum. I will get even with your corrupt court Boshier. Believe me I will.My case started in 2001.It was built on false allegations of child abuse and domestic violence. This case is far from finished.
The interview has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can be seen on tvnz.co.nz at,
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news
JUDGE PETER BOSHIER interviewed by PAUL HOLMES
PAUL The Family Court was established back in the early 80s, it's become a very controversial court. The Family Court deals with some of the most sensitive most difficult matters in our community life. It handles the painful disputes within families, within marriages. It has a huge effect on the lives of children. The Court deals with protection orders after there's been domestic violence say and decides custody matters, but the Court has been criticised over the years vehemently for the length of time it takes to make decisions, and it is especially criticised by men's groups who say the Court fails fathers, and is mother biased. Well the Principal Judge of the Family Court since 2004 is Principal Judge Peter Boshier. Thank you very much for joining us.
PETER Good morning.
PAUL How bad are the delays in say your custody issues?
PETER BOSHIER – Principal Family Court Judge
We have delays that we've got to improve on. When people have go their children's issues to resolve they’ve got to have them done speedily, so we've got a long way to go yet to make access of justice where I want it to be.
PAUL What causes the delays?
PETER Sheer volume of work Paul, we are the second busiest court now in New Zealand, 87,000 applications are filed in our court each year, and 27,000 of those deal with care of children, so it's sheer volume.
PAUL Sheer volume, and I spose you're dealing in shades of grey aren’t you?
PETER We are, and we're dealing with people, who feel that they know what's best for their children when they don’t always. They're often their own issues.
PAUL Exactly, both parents know what is best. Dr Muriel Newman however, the former ACT MP says the delays are horrendous Peter, she says sometimes custody cases are taking up to a year. Now that’s a long period, I mean even before it gets to the Family Court this is a long period of uncertainty for kids isn't it?
PETER Yes, and that’s why I've been very keen to do reforms in the Family Court, I think we've needed to.
PAUL But what are you doing about getting them down beneath a year?
PETER Well we have now a programme called Less Adversarial Trials. That’s turning the way we do court work on our head, because we're now limiting the sort of issues that people have bring. So traditionally people have flown with whatever they’ve wanted to, we've now been much tighter and we're reducing the time that we're prepared to give them for their cases.
PAUL You’ve also added another stratum haven't you, you’ve got mediation now.
PETER Yes.
PAUL Which keeps things away from the judges, takes some of the volume of work off judges?
PAUL So what kind of cases would go this mediation stratum?
PAUL Well the Family Court matters legislation passed last year sets up mediation for non judges, but it's yet to be funded and introduced. So I unapologetically want to say to you I will look forward to the day when we have funded and we have non judge led mediation.
PAUL Right, so it's been set up, non judge led mediation, but no funding for it?
PETER Mm.
PAUL Now your attitude to fathers, Judge. Bob McCoskrie of Family First, a thorn in your side I guess, he quotes – well he got this through the Official Information Act, he says the Court remains unfair to fathers. He says 50/50 custody is granted in only 13% of cases, and women get sole custody in two thirds of cases, that hardly seems to be balanced equally between mothers and fathers.
PETER Mm, well one of the good things about the openness of the Court which I've been very very comfortable with, is the that we now publish our statistics, and they demonstrate that the times that men get care of their children, pretty much correspond with the times when they apply for them. So to the extent that mothers get care more than fathers, it's almost exactly proportionate to the number of times that men and women apply. It's uncanny.
PAUL Explain that to me.
PETER Right, well if you’ve got a mother applying for sole care, it's logical she's probably going to get sole care. If a father applies for sole care he might, and so the number of applications that mothers file are many many more than fathers.
PAUL Right, so when Bob McCoskrie says 50/50 custody is granted in only 13% of cases that does not necessarily imply a bias against fathers?
PETER No no, exactly, and you can't force fathers to have equal care if they don’t want it, many fathers don’t, and Family Court Judges are forever exhorting reluctant fathers to have more care time, but I think that we're getting there on changes to attitudes, and I'm pleased that men are willing and wanting to be more fatherly.
PAUL Because there is a danger in their not being fatherly isn't there, fathers get alienated from their kids of course the less they have to do with them. Are these figures roughly right. According to some research I discovered there is a great danger in children having no fathers. A child that has no father is 14 times more likely to rape, 20 more times likely to go to prison, would those numbers surprise you?
PETER They wouldn’t surprise me, and if you looked probably at the figures in the Youth Court of the profile of young people offending, a lot of them Paul will unfortunately come from dysfunctional families, and probably even not know their fathers.
PAUL Of course on this business and before we go, was it because of the Men's Groups and the aggravation they gave you, and the what you perceived to be misunderstandings that you opened the Family Court to the news media, or to the public via the news media?
PETER No, when I was appointed in 2004 I just felt that it was wrong, that you had a court operating that wasn’t transparent and accountable, so you do need to protect privacy, but it's wrong frankly to have a court that the public doesn’t know what goes on inside, so it was always the right thing to do.
PAUL Does the Family Court have the view that mothers are more important?
PETER No. No, in fact what I'd want to stress is that what I'm most wanting in my time is to have families that even when they separate they have both parents. If we can achieve both parents looking after their children, even though they're separated, we're gonna have a much better society.
PAUL Domestic violence, Judge Boshier, you’ve called it one of the most pernicious problems facing this country. How bad is it, what do you see?
PETER We're a very violent society in New Zealand, and I don’t know why. Some of the violence that I see when I'm doing defended cases, frankly Paul it moves me sometimes nearly to tears. I don’t know why the violence is just so awful and we see domestic violence cases played out in the media, the beatings of the most awful sort, it is a problem that cannot possibly be exaggerated, it is there.
PAUL You’ve questioned some of the domestic violence programmes, you wonder if they work?
PETER Yes, yes.
PAUL In what ways do you think they don’t, what tells you that they might not be working, the numbers? 75,000 cases reported of domestic violence in 2006 alone. Anyway what tells you?
PETER Well I don’t think that we can just send every person who's a perpetrator of violence to the same programme and expect that it's going to be good for them. I think what we need to do is look at what each individual perpetrator is doing, why, their ethnicity, their culture, whether they're affected by drugs, if they're on methamphetamine you can't treat them the same as just some other perpetrators of violence that aren’t on P, so it depends.
PAUL You went on to the Stellar Trust recently which is a trust aimed at creating awareness of P, and the scourge of P and the dangers of P, are you starting to see more and more P related domestic violence, family breakdown?
PETER Yes, and you know the thing that really worries me about P is that in the care and protection work we do, that is to say where the State intervenes, it's so hard to rehabilitate young parents who are on P, and you can rehabilitate young parents on some other drugs, they can go to Odyssey House, but to try and rehabilitate young parents on P, we're really looking at the State often taking the children off them, it's so hard to get a positive turn around, that’s my difficulty.
PAUL That’s your worry about that particular drug?
PETER Yes it is, and it seems that once people are addicted to P, the violence that often I can't even recall afterwards is just massive, more than I would normally expect to see.
PAUL Quick word on the proposed On the Spot Protection Orders which the government is proposing. The Bill is in parliament now. Basically what this will do is if there's a domestic violence incident the Police are called, the Police will come round to the house, if they think they know what's gone on, they can remove a party from the house for five days, in other words on a hunch a 22 year old constable can throw 57 year old Jo Blogs out of the house he's paid the mortgage on for 30 years, what do you think of this particular proposal?
PETER Well it has my support, I think that when the Police go in there is demonstrable violence they can arrest, if they arrest they can't issue an On the Spot Protection Order, so it's a lesser being and I think it will be good in cases where one party is just out of control, there is obviously going to be violence and there has been, but the Police just can't work out who's occasioned it. So I think that there are times when it's going to provide security to that family that’s just under siege.
PAUL I thank you so much for your work, and for coming on the programme.
PETER Thank you it's nice to be here.
PAUL Principal Judge of the Family Court, Peter Boshier.
ENDS
Saturday, June 27, 2009
NO Amnesty for Abused MEN!
NO Amnesty for Abused MEN!
I want to comment on your new anti-domestic-abuse ad fixture in Hamburg, Germany . If you want it to be realistic, you need to show it with the woman hitting the man as unbiased research shows women are as violent as men in domestic settings. In fact,
The American Psychiatric Association in Psychiatric News August 3, 2007 Volume 42, Number 15, page 31 has this to say:
Regarding perpetration of violence, more women than men (25 percent versus 11 percent) were responsible. In fact, 71 percent of the instigators in nonreciprocal partner violence were women. This finding surprised Whitaker and his colleagues, they admitted in their study report.
As for physical injury due to intimate partner violence, it was more likely to occur when the violence was reciprocal than nonreciprocal. And while injury was more likely when violence was perpetrated by men, in relationships with reciprocal violence it was the men who were injured more often (25 percent of the time) than were women (20 percent of the time). "This is important as violence perpetrated by women is often seen as not serious," Whitaker and his group stressed.
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/42/15/31-a
I ask why are we given false information on the real truth of domestic violence? The Violence Against Women Act has helped few women and has made it more dangerous for women. Meanwhile if offers NO protection for the men who are abused. This ad only enables women to be abusive while it insults the many men who have been and are being abused.
Pastor Kenneth Deemer
Director Shattered Men
P.O. BOX 166
MARION INDIANA 46952-0166
shatteredmen@earthlink.net
JUNE is Domestic Violence Against Men Awareness Month
Web site: http://www.shatterdmen.com
I want to comment on your new anti-domestic-abuse ad fixture in Hamburg, Germany . If you want it to be realistic, you need to show it with the woman hitting the man as unbiased research shows women are as violent as men in domestic settings. In fact,
The American Psychiatric Association in Psychiatric News August 3, 2007 Volume 42, Number 15, page 31 has this to say:
Regarding perpetration of violence, more women than men (25 percent versus 11 percent) were responsible. In fact, 71 percent of the instigators in nonreciprocal partner violence were women. This finding surprised Whitaker and his colleagues, they admitted in their study report.
As for physical injury due to intimate partner violence, it was more likely to occur when the violence was reciprocal than nonreciprocal. And while injury was more likely when violence was perpetrated by men, in relationships with reciprocal violence it was the men who were injured more often (25 percent of the time) than were women (20 percent of the time). "This is important as violence perpetrated by women is often seen as not serious," Whitaker and his group stressed.
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/42/15/31-a
I ask why are we given false information on the real truth of domestic violence? The Violence Against Women Act has helped few women and has made it more dangerous for women. Meanwhile if offers NO protection for the men who are abused. This ad only enables women to be abusive while it insults the many men who have been and are being abused.
Pastor Kenneth Deemer
Director Shattered Men
P.O. BOX 166
MARION INDIANA 46952-0166
shatteredmen@earthlink.net
JUNE is Domestic Violence Against Men Awareness Month
Web site: http://www.shatterdmen.com
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Good Dad - Bad Dad ; You be the judge
GOOD DAD - BAD DAD?
You be the judge
We've always argued that good parents are being criminalised and harmed by the anti-smacking law and we currently have a number of cases in front of both the Prime Minister and other Cabinet ministers for their consideration. These have been independently reviewed by a senior policeman.
In the latest case covered by the media we've been saying that this is a 'good dad'. And we stand by that.
We would never support a parent who 'repeatedly throws their child to the ground'. But in this case that NEVER happened!
How do we know? Because we had an observer in the court who heard ALL the facts (unlike the media who relied only on what the witness alleged in the police report!)
In the same way that the anti-correction lobby groups use words like 'beat' 'thrash' and 'violent' to describe a loving parent who may use a smack to correct a child, in this current case, words count.
Please take a moment to read what our observer wrote (our emphasis added):
Dejected and disorientated. That's how I feel after watching proceedings in the District Court today.
The police prosecuted him for pushing his son more than once, and the son either falling or stumbling more than once. It took place on the edge of a rugby field where the son was refusing to get on and join his team. A considerable battle of wills had escalated as the child protested his remiss father's omission to bring the proper shorts in which to play. There was also some problem with the boy digging in his studs in a manner which made him more prone to stumbling as well.
A passer-by intervened and was told to mind her own business. This resulted in a letter to the principal of the school the boy attended. The principal referred the letter to the police. CYF were only involved after the police decided to prosecute. CYF interviewed the family and were happy that the boy was at no further risk. The father's out of the blue arrest, fingerprinting, photographing and interview occurred 3 weeks after the incident took place.
In court today what I have described is what the police read out as their reason for charging the father with common assault. The principle of justice whereby an accused person has the right to face his or her accuser no longer applies. It is up to the police to not just use their discretion about whether to prosecute but also to decide if the testimony has veracity. It is not up to the court to establish such.
The father pleaded guilty primarily because he cannot afford to defend the charge. He doesn't qualify for legal aid and proceedings to date will cost him $1500 he doesn't have. It hurt him badly to make this concession. He hadn't known it was against the law to 'shove' his boy. He has no record of violence and has never been in the dock before. His lawyer made an application for a section 106 discharge without conviction and the police say that due to the level of violence alleged, they will not contest this. The father has agreed to an anti-violence course which helps.
The judge took many minutes to read the many testimonials submitted in support of the father who has raised his two boys single-handedly for most of their lives. During this time, we - myself, the grandparents and partner - all remained very quiet. Apart from the father sniffing and blowing into a tissue in an attempt to hold his composure the room was silent. The father was ashen.
Eventually the judge agrees to remand the father on bail to reappear in two months at which point he should have completed the course of anger management. We filed out with wet eyes and words failing. The lawyer tells the father that there is still no guarantee he will get a discharge without conviction in September. So the distress and uncertainty he was hoping to put behind him today will continue for weeks to come. He tells me he will never trust the police or justice system again.
This is, by their own description, a middle-class well-educated couple. A couple who both work and try to raise their blended family well. The grandparents are bewildered. Angry. Like me. Disorientated and dejected. But that is nothing compared to what the father is feeling.
The bar has been lowered. The police can and will prosecute any degree of force on hearsay. Be warned.
There are some important issues here:
1. Why didn't the woman witness report it immediately to the police rather than writing to the principal. Was she just annoyed at being told to mind her own business?
2. Why was the witness the only one concerned about the father's actions when there were many many other parents present at the sportsfield who weren't concerned?
3. Why did the police not interview other potential witnesses rather than rely on one passer-by?
4. The dad was trying to get the child on to the sports field to play. Why would he 'push the child to the ground' which would defeat that purpose?
5. Why prosecute if the police are willing to accept discharge without conviction? Do they have no other choice under this law?
5. By the police using the phrase 'repeatedly pushed to the ground' based on what only the witness said, they have portrayed a dad dealing with a strong-willed child as abusive
6. By the media using this terminology, they have done what the anti-smacking supporters have done. Words matter, and by changing 'attempting to push the child on to the field to play' to 'repeatedly pushed to the ground' they have changed the whole nature of the actions of the parent.
7. Does this mean that using force to remove a protesting child (who may also fall to the ground in protest - as they do!!) to 'time-out' is potentially an assault???
There is an updated report in the NZ Herald today which has brought some balance to the coverage.
One other note:
The 'perfect parent lobby' aka Barnados, Plunket, Families Commission and Deborah Morris believe that parents should NEVER get tired, frustrated, or angry and should ALWAYS correct bad behaviour with precision and perfection!
They are still looking for their 'poster parent'!!!
As stated at the beginning, good parents are being criminalised by a flawed law.
We will continue to fight against a law that does that. We'd be keen to hear your feedback on this issue.
Thanks for speaking up on this issue, and please encourage people to visit our website www.voteNO.org.nz
Got a comment on this issue? Email feedback@familyfirst.org.nz
Have a great week
Bob McCoskrie
National Director
You be the judge
We've always argued that good parents are being criminalised and harmed by the anti-smacking law and we currently have a number of cases in front of both the Prime Minister and other Cabinet ministers for their consideration. These have been independently reviewed by a senior policeman.
In the latest case covered by the media we've been saying that this is a 'good dad'. And we stand by that.
We would never support a parent who 'repeatedly throws their child to the ground'. But in this case that NEVER happened!
How do we know? Because we had an observer in the court who heard ALL the facts (unlike the media who relied only on what the witness alleged in the police report!)
In the same way that the anti-correction lobby groups use words like 'beat' 'thrash' and 'violent' to describe a loving parent who may use a smack to correct a child, in this current case, words count.
Please take a moment to read what our observer wrote (our emphasis added):
Dejected and disorientated. That's how I feel after watching proceedings in the District Court today.
The police prosecuted him for pushing his son more than once, and the son either falling or stumbling more than once. It took place on the edge of a rugby field where the son was refusing to get on and join his team. A considerable battle of wills had escalated as the child protested his remiss father's omission to bring the proper shorts in which to play. There was also some problem with the boy digging in his studs in a manner which made him more prone to stumbling as well.
A passer-by intervened and was told to mind her own business. This resulted in a letter to the principal of the school the boy attended. The principal referred the letter to the police. CYF were only involved after the police decided to prosecute. CYF interviewed the family and were happy that the boy was at no further risk. The father's out of the blue arrest, fingerprinting, photographing and interview occurred 3 weeks after the incident took place.
In court today what I have described is what the police read out as their reason for charging the father with common assault. The principle of justice whereby an accused person has the right to face his or her accuser no longer applies. It is up to the police to not just use their discretion about whether to prosecute but also to decide if the testimony has veracity. It is not up to the court to establish such.
The father pleaded guilty primarily because he cannot afford to defend the charge. He doesn't qualify for legal aid and proceedings to date will cost him $1500 he doesn't have. It hurt him badly to make this concession. He hadn't known it was against the law to 'shove' his boy. He has no record of violence and has never been in the dock before. His lawyer made an application for a section 106 discharge without conviction and the police say that due to the level of violence alleged, they will not contest this. The father has agreed to an anti-violence course which helps.
The judge took many minutes to read the many testimonials submitted in support of the father who has raised his two boys single-handedly for most of their lives. During this time, we - myself, the grandparents and partner - all remained very quiet. Apart from the father sniffing and blowing into a tissue in an attempt to hold his composure the room was silent. The father was ashen.
Eventually the judge agrees to remand the father on bail to reappear in two months at which point he should have completed the course of anger management. We filed out with wet eyes and words failing. The lawyer tells the father that there is still no guarantee he will get a discharge without conviction in September. So the distress and uncertainty he was hoping to put behind him today will continue for weeks to come. He tells me he will never trust the police or justice system again.
This is, by their own description, a middle-class well-educated couple. A couple who both work and try to raise their blended family well. The grandparents are bewildered. Angry. Like me. Disorientated and dejected. But that is nothing compared to what the father is feeling.
The bar has been lowered. The police can and will prosecute any degree of force on hearsay. Be warned.
There are some important issues here:
1. Why didn't the woman witness report it immediately to the police rather than writing to the principal. Was she just annoyed at being told to mind her own business?
2. Why was the witness the only one concerned about the father's actions when there were many many other parents present at the sportsfield who weren't concerned?
3. Why did the police not interview other potential witnesses rather than rely on one passer-by?
4. The dad was trying to get the child on to the sports field to play. Why would he 'push the child to the ground' which would defeat that purpose?
5. Why prosecute if the police are willing to accept discharge without conviction? Do they have no other choice under this law?
5. By the police using the phrase 'repeatedly pushed to the ground' based on what only the witness said, they have portrayed a dad dealing with a strong-willed child as abusive
6. By the media using this terminology, they have done what the anti-smacking supporters have done. Words matter, and by changing 'attempting to push the child on to the field to play' to 'repeatedly pushed to the ground' they have changed the whole nature of the actions of the parent.
7. Does this mean that using force to remove a protesting child (who may also fall to the ground in protest - as they do!!) to 'time-out' is potentially an assault???
There is an updated report in the NZ Herald today which has brought some balance to the coverage.
One other note:
The 'perfect parent lobby' aka Barnados, Plunket, Families Commission and Deborah Morris believe that parents should NEVER get tired, frustrated, or angry and should ALWAYS correct bad behaviour with precision and perfection!
They are still looking for their 'poster parent'!!!
As stated at the beginning, good parents are being criminalised by a flawed law.
We will continue to fight against a law that does that. We'd be keen to hear your feedback on this issue.
Thanks for speaking up on this issue, and please encourage people to visit our website www.voteNO.org.nz
Got a comment on this issue? Email feedback@familyfirst.org.nz
Have a great week
Bob McCoskrie
National Director
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Fathers for Justice The fight goes on for Dads
Fathers for Justice
The fight goes on for Dads
http://www.society- today.com/ index.php? option=com_ content&view=article&id=272:fathers- for-justice&catid=95:prelude&Itemid=409
Imagine a child living without a father. A little boy or girl clutching a teddy bear on the stairs waiting for their dad to walk through the front door. In a broken household a child will spend many nights missing a dad wishing things were different. A million parental couples go through the family courts every year, and of those at least 40% of fathers have little or no contact with their children after separation.
Of 12 million children in the UK , one in four will have suffered the grim reality of separation from a mother or father during their childhood.
Matt O'Connor, founder of one of the most high profile and controversial campaigns of the modern era, Fathers 4 Justice, described the British family courts as "the Devil's Labyrinth" because as he bluntly puts it, "when you get into the system it's near impossible to escape".
His formidable struggle to see his two children, aged eleven and nine at the time of divorce from a previous marriage, was a battle through a legal system that `criminalises and crushes you before suffocating you with a blanket of secrecy and censorship', as described in his biography Fathers 4 Justice: The Inside Story, published in 2007.
In many divorce cases a father will be more likely to lose their parental rights than the mother, raising questions about equal parental rights for the child. Fathers up and down the land share similar sentiments about the courts, but unlike Matt, who has maintained a good, healthy relationship with his children after separation from his ex-wife, for many thousands of fathers it spells the trauma of limited or denied parental access. Of all divorce cases brought before the courts, 70% of divorce petitioners cite adultery or unreasonable behaviour as the reason for denying parental rights to the father.
Many fathers are accused of unreasonable behaviour by a partner. Henry, 55, from North London , married his ex-wife for two years before the couple divorced in 1996. Their battle in the courts for parental rights over their daughter Liz, aged two at the time, lasted for 11 years and was one of the longest cases highlighted in British legal family history. It ended in 2007. Henry's attempts to stop his ex-wife's manipulative behaviour of telling `stories' to his alienated daughter became a turning point in his life when Liz wrote a letter to the judge at nine years old emphasising "she didn't want to see me anymore and hoped I was dead. A judge said it was the most horrible letter he had ever read from a nine year old".
Henry's long-term alienation from his daughter by the court was "so bad" that Liz has grown up over the years believing a father's worst nightmare, "My daughter is growing up believing her father has abused her, and the court has done nothing to stop that in any way".
While the courts granted Henry an interim contact order to visit Liz every two weeks over 12 months, his visitation rights were "obstructed at every turn by the mother". Sadly after 11 years, 25 judges, numerous costs and divorce proceedings his final court order has marked a tragic end, "I can't see her. I'm not allowed to send her any cards or letters. All contact has been stopped by the court and I have an order stating there will be no contact until my daughter agrees otherwise. Probably she's lost her father forever". Henry has not seen his daughter for two years since February 2007 and is ordered by the court to stay away from Liz, now aged 14, until she has reached the age of 18 when she will be classed as independent.
Henry again voices his frustrations, "Quite frankly it's a joke. I don't believe the child is at the top of the agenda. The law has this idea that if they keep the mother happy it transforms into the happiness of the child, while the other parent is not so important".
Matt O'Connor is adamant that it only takes one unreasonable parent in a "nuclear legal war" to make all the difference where children are the biggest victims of all, "There's no winning in this. Women will end up being alienated by their children when they get older, Children become resentful when they find out what's happened, they will ask `why was I denied my father by you'? ".
Another deprived father shares that feeling. Dave, 39, from Warrington , was married with two adopted children until his ex-wife decided to leave and then "used the children as a lever to get me out of the house", with threats of denied access to his children. The final straw came on Boxing Day 2006 where he was allowed only two hours with the kids. After legal advice from a solicitor, as is common practice in divorce proceedings, he was optimistic but got nowhere after raking up a bill for £10,000, "The scales fell from my eyes. They said yes we can do this and do that blah blah blah but it got me nowhere".
Amidst all the chaos of divorce proceedings a number of "mysterious things" suddenly emerged such as false accusations of physical abuse by his ex-wife during the relationship, a revelation that made its debut in court, "she said I was aggressive towards her and pulled out a baseball bat in front of my children and threatened to hit her, which was absolutely ridiculous". However no police evidence could prove the mother's claim.
Matt O'Connor wrote in his book that, 'they'll stick you in a contact centre in some desolate church hall or sports centre for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon once or twice a month- if you're lucky'.
Dave had an interim contact order to visit his children every Sunday from 11am to 5pm through the afternoons over a period of 18 months at a contact centre. He recalls that visitation was frequently obstructed by his ex-wife, even in summer 2008 when he arranged for his daughter to spend a week with him for a holiday break, but "amazingly my daughter became `ill' on that day, my ex-wife never sent any text message or rang me". When he finally summoned the police to resolve the situation outside the family home where he was awaiting his daughter, the police replied, "unfortunately we cannot remove the child from her mother, it's a no win situation for you, you might as well go home".
Dave feels there is no justice for fathers in a family system where "judges will always do what's in the best interests for the children while keeping in mind that the children should always be with their mother". Throughout his three year ordeal Dave has lost two jobs, a business, has become bankrupt, and has filed a suit for another contact order after an arranged visit at Christmas last year was abruptly cancelled by a text message from his ex-wife saying, "we have stopped contact. You have been sent a letter".
Dave is adamant the legal system offers preferential treatment to the `wishes' of the mother over a father's agony to see his children where "the law sits there and listens to what mums say, and all they need to say is `he's been violent to me in the past, the children don't really want to see him', and that's it -you've got no chance". At present Dave is back at square one, fighting it through the courts, a battle that will continue to be "a massive uphill struggle" to prove his entitlement for equal rights.
Every year fathers express their struggle to have their say in the the matter of their children, and mainstream awareness was brought to the importance of equal parenting for a child by Matt O'Connor's Fathers 4 Justice campaign through high profile publicity stunts like Batman and Robin on the roof tops of the Royal Courts of Justice in 2003.
Before it all began, Matt's attempt at suicide by almost jumping off a bridge brought a "spiritual enlightenment" where he envisioned a new purpose, "It shapes you. I was in a bad place. The madness was quite good in some respects because I went off and did something I wouldn't have done if I hadn't been at a low point in my life, and Fathers 4 Justice would never have been born".
Although his campaign prompted mixed reactions by the public and the media, the words that "Ignorance is obviously bliss for some people but not for me" are spoken by a father who felt the campaign was necessary to highlight fathers like himself, who are classed as single people in the eyes of the law. Michael, 36, from Reading , has a daughter aged six and was married for five years before he divorced three years ago. After a dispute his ex-wife absconded with their daughter while he was in town one afternoon, "I was happily in town and by the time I came back she had taken my daughter and gone. I didn't find out for nearly a week where she had gone".
"the law sits there and listens to what mums say, and all they need to say is `he's been violent to me in the past, the children don't really want to see him', and that's it -you've got no chance".
After she got in contact, court proceedings followed. Michael was allowed to see his daughter twice a month for two hours at a contact centre. To this day Michael has a fun, pro-active relationship with his daughter three times a week, but even though he has played a substantial role in his child's emotional wellbeing and lifestyle, he is not recognised by law as having any decisive influence as a parent, "I do most of her schooling and all of her activity training like diving, and even now I'm still classed as a single person and have no rights as a parent".
As a response to family divorce cases and fathers struggling to see their children through the courts, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice said, "The Children and Adoption Act came fully into force in December 08 and brought in new measures to enable courts to deal with non-compliance of a court order (contempt of court) whilst ensuring that the interests of the child are paramount". In respect of a child's welfare during times of separation The Department for Children, Schools and Families said, "The Government is firmly committed to improving the outcomes for children and we want every child to have the opportunity to grow up in a secure and loving family environment" .
Despite government claims that the interests of children are of primary importance, fathers like Michael are not convinced, "The biggest victims are the children. This is why our society is going down the toilet, because family values have been systematically destroyed". Michael emphasises that shared responsibility is vital as "both parents, whether you're living together or apart, should be equally responsible for the upbringing of their children by law".
Fathers like Dave from Reading only hope that his children know that he fought the best he could to see them and stay a part of their lives, "At the end of it all a child will grow up and will want to know, `Why didn't you try harder?'. If you can look that child in the eyes and say, `I did everything I could and I never gave up', then he will never throw it in your face in years to come".
However, Matt O'Connor believes it is important to realise that mothers and fathers are equally important for their different contributions to parenting and he explains, "Myself and my partner Nadine have completely different values, my ex-wife who I get on well with has different approaches, but what a man and a woman bring are two different qualities that is part of what makes the child a whole".
------------ --------- -----
Rockyie is freelance journalist. He has written for publications such as Black Britain, Arts London News etc. He lives in London
The fight goes on for Dads
http://www.society- today.com/ index.php? option=com_ content&view=article&id=272:fathers- for-justice&catid=95:prelude&Itemid=409
Imagine a child living without a father. A little boy or girl clutching a teddy bear on the stairs waiting for their dad to walk through the front door. In a broken household a child will spend many nights missing a dad wishing things were different. A million parental couples go through the family courts every year, and of those at least 40% of fathers have little or no contact with their children after separation.
Of 12 million children in the UK , one in four will have suffered the grim reality of separation from a mother or father during their childhood.
Matt O'Connor, founder of one of the most high profile and controversial campaigns of the modern era, Fathers 4 Justice, described the British family courts as "the Devil's Labyrinth" because as he bluntly puts it, "when you get into the system it's near impossible to escape".
His formidable struggle to see his two children, aged eleven and nine at the time of divorce from a previous marriage, was a battle through a legal system that `criminalises and crushes you before suffocating you with a blanket of secrecy and censorship', as described in his biography Fathers 4 Justice: The Inside Story, published in 2007.
In many divorce cases a father will be more likely to lose their parental rights than the mother, raising questions about equal parental rights for the child. Fathers up and down the land share similar sentiments about the courts, but unlike Matt, who has maintained a good, healthy relationship with his children after separation from his ex-wife, for many thousands of fathers it spells the trauma of limited or denied parental access. Of all divorce cases brought before the courts, 70% of divorce petitioners cite adultery or unreasonable behaviour as the reason for denying parental rights to the father.
Many fathers are accused of unreasonable behaviour by a partner. Henry, 55, from North London , married his ex-wife for two years before the couple divorced in 1996. Their battle in the courts for parental rights over their daughter Liz, aged two at the time, lasted for 11 years and was one of the longest cases highlighted in British legal family history. It ended in 2007. Henry's attempts to stop his ex-wife's manipulative behaviour of telling `stories' to his alienated daughter became a turning point in his life when Liz wrote a letter to the judge at nine years old emphasising "she didn't want to see me anymore and hoped I was dead. A judge said it was the most horrible letter he had ever read from a nine year old".
Henry's long-term alienation from his daughter by the court was "so bad" that Liz has grown up over the years believing a father's worst nightmare, "My daughter is growing up believing her father has abused her, and the court has done nothing to stop that in any way".
While the courts granted Henry an interim contact order to visit Liz every two weeks over 12 months, his visitation rights were "obstructed at every turn by the mother". Sadly after 11 years, 25 judges, numerous costs and divorce proceedings his final court order has marked a tragic end, "I can't see her. I'm not allowed to send her any cards or letters. All contact has been stopped by the court and I have an order stating there will be no contact until my daughter agrees otherwise. Probably she's lost her father forever". Henry has not seen his daughter for two years since February 2007 and is ordered by the court to stay away from Liz, now aged 14, until she has reached the age of 18 when she will be classed as independent.
Henry again voices his frustrations, "Quite frankly it's a joke. I don't believe the child is at the top of the agenda. The law has this idea that if they keep the mother happy it transforms into the happiness of the child, while the other parent is not so important".
Matt O'Connor is adamant that it only takes one unreasonable parent in a "nuclear legal war" to make all the difference where children are the biggest victims of all, "There's no winning in this. Women will end up being alienated by their children when they get older, Children become resentful when they find out what's happened, they will ask `why was I denied my father by you'? ".
Another deprived father shares that feeling. Dave, 39, from Warrington , was married with two adopted children until his ex-wife decided to leave and then "used the children as a lever to get me out of the house", with threats of denied access to his children. The final straw came on Boxing Day 2006 where he was allowed only two hours with the kids. After legal advice from a solicitor, as is common practice in divorce proceedings, he was optimistic but got nowhere after raking up a bill for £10,000, "The scales fell from my eyes. They said yes we can do this and do that blah blah blah but it got me nowhere".
Amidst all the chaos of divorce proceedings a number of "mysterious things" suddenly emerged such as false accusations of physical abuse by his ex-wife during the relationship, a revelation that made its debut in court, "she said I was aggressive towards her and pulled out a baseball bat in front of my children and threatened to hit her, which was absolutely ridiculous". However no police evidence could prove the mother's claim.
Matt O'Connor wrote in his book that, 'they'll stick you in a contact centre in some desolate church hall or sports centre for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon once or twice a month- if you're lucky'.
Dave had an interim contact order to visit his children every Sunday from 11am to 5pm through the afternoons over a period of 18 months at a contact centre. He recalls that visitation was frequently obstructed by his ex-wife, even in summer 2008 when he arranged for his daughter to spend a week with him for a holiday break, but "amazingly my daughter became `ill' on that day, my ex-wife never sent any text message or rang me". When he finally summoned the police to resolve the situation outside the family home where he was awaiting his daughter, the police replied, "unfortunately we cannot remove the child from her mother, it's a no win situation for you, you might as well go home".
Dave feels there is no justice for fathers in a family system where "judges will always do what's in the best interests for the children while keeping in mind that the children should always be with their mother". Throughout his three year ordeal Dave has lost two jobs, a business, has become bankrupt, and has filed a suit for another contact order after an arranged visit at Christmas last year was abruptly cancelled by a text message from his ex-wife saying, "we have stopped contact. You have been sent a letter".
Dave is adamant the legal system offers preferential treatment to the `wishes' of the mother over a father's agony to see his children where "the law sits there and listens to what mums say, and all they need to say is `he's been violent to me in the past, the children don't really want to see him', and that's it -you've got no chance". At present Dave is back at square one, fighting it through the courts, a battle that will continue to be "a massive uphill struggle" to prove his entitlement for equal rights.
Every year fathers express their struggle to have their say in the the matter of their children, and mainstream awareness was brought to the importance of equal parenting for a child by Matt O'Connor's Fathers 4 Justice campaign through high profile publicity stunts like Batman and Robin on the roof tops of the Royal Courts of Justice in 2003.
Before it all began, Matt's attempt at suicide by almost jumping off a bridge brought a "spiritual enlightenment" where he envisioned a new purpose, "It shapes you. I was in a bad place. The madness was quite good in some respects because I went off and did something I wouldn't have done if I hadn't been at a low point in my life, and Fathers 4 Justice would never have been born".
Although his campaign prompted mixed reactions by the public and the media, the words that "Ignorance is obviously bliss for some people but not for me" are spoken by a father who felt the campaign was necessary to highlight fathers like himself, who are classed as single people in the eyes of the law. Michael, 36, from Reading , has a daughter aged six and was married for five years before he divorced three years ago. After a dispute his ex-wife absconded with their daughter while he was in town one afternoon, "I was happily in town and by the time I came back she had taken my daughter and gone. I didn't find out for nearly a week where she had gone".
"the law sits there and listens to what mums say, and all they need to say is `he's been violent to me in the past, the children don't really want to see him', and that's it -you've got no chance".
After she got in contact, court proceedings followed. Michael was allowed to see his daughter twice a month for two hours at a contact centre. To this day Michael has a fun, pro-active relationship with his daughter three times a week, but even though he has played a substantial role in his child's emotional wellbeing and lifestyle, he is not recognised by law as having any decisive influence as a parent, "I do most of her schooling and all of her activity training like diving, and even now I'm still classed as a single person and have no rights as a parent".
As a response to family divorce cases and fathers struggling to see their children through the courts, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice said, "The Children and Adoption Act came fully into force in December 08 and brought in new measures to enable courts to deal with non-compliance of a court order (contempt of court) whilst ensuring that the interests of the child are paramount". In respect of a child's welfare during times of separation The Department for Children, Schools and Families said, "The Government is firmly committed to improving the outcomes for children and we want every child to have the opportunity to grow up in a secure and loving family environment" .
Despite government claims that the interests of children are of primary importance, fathers like Michael are not convinced, "The biggest victims are the children. This is why our society is going down the toilet, because family values have been systematically destroyed". Michael emphasises that shared responsibility is vital as "both parents, whether you're living together or apart, should be equally responsible for the upbringing of their children by law".
Fathers like Dave from Reading only hope that his children know that he fought the best he could to see them and stay a part of their lives, "At the end of it all a child will grow up and will want to know, `Why didn't you try harder?'. If you can look that child in the eyes and say, `I did everything I could and I never gave up', then he will never throw it in your face in years to come".
However, Matt O'Connor believes it is important to realise that mothers and fathers are equally important for their different contributions to parenting and he explains, "Myself and my partner Nadine have completely different values, my ex-wife who I get on well with has different approaches, but what a man and a woman bring are two different qualities that is part of what makes the child a whole".
------------ --------- -----
Rockyie is freelance journalist. He has written for publications such as Black Britain, Arts London News etc. He lives in London
Monday, June 22, 2009
Being a daddy's girl
I really like this article and I am thankful that I enjoy a loving bond with my custodial teenage daughter.
Janice Shaw Crouse | Sunday, June 21, 2009
Being a Daddy’s Girl
http://townhall.com/columnists/JaniceShawCrouse/2009/06/21/being_a_daddy%e2%80%99s_girl
“Behind every great woman, you will find her dad.” According to an article by Joanne Richard in the Edmonton Sun, that’s the kind of extraordinary power that a father has over his daughter. Dr. Mary Jo Rapini, a psychotherapist and author, declares that the way a dad treats his little girl determines how she will feel about herself as a woman. If fathers admire their daughter’s achievements, character, and looks, says Dr. Rapini, that girl will become a confident and self-assured person who will choose a husband who treats her the same way. In fact, Dr. Rapini echoes the old maxim that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
I think Rapini is on to something! Research studies indicate that daughters tend to marry someone who treats them like their dad treated them. That is true in our family. My husband often says that he is grateful that I am a “daddy’s girl” because he is the beneficiary of my father loving me unconditionally. Our daughter is a “daddy’s girl,” and our son married a “daddy’s girl.” It certainly has proven to be a good formula for successful marriages in our family.
Research indicates that before the age of 12, 90 percent of a girl’s self-esteem is shaped by her relationship with her father. Though my dad has been dead for over 20 years, I see him in the shape of my hands, in the color of my eyes, in my exuberance and in the ways that I face life — in both good times and during adversity. My dad encouraged me to try anything, and he gave me the confidence to believe that I would succeed whenever I do my best.
My sister laughingly says that she was in college before she realized that she wasn’t the most talented and beautiful girl around. That was the legacy of our father: each of us grew up confident in our abilities, looks, and potential. We are all confident and accomplished because daddy believed in us and encouraged us from our earliest memories.
That should not have been the case, because we lived by much stricter standards than our friends. Daddy was definitely the HEAD of our house; we were not allowed to go to dances or movies. But Daddy’s strict rules were not burdensome; he explained why he believed those rules were good for us, and in our weekly “family counsels” we had the opportunity to “talk back” and complain. It didn’t change his mind, of course, but we let off steam, and he listened respectfully. Plus, Daddy was fun. When Daddy was there, life was a party. We had a good time; he was always ready to go to the ballgames at our school and to take the family on a picnic, to a park or on a trip.
Daddy was “called to preach” when I was 11 years old. No one in my father’s family had gone to college, but he determined that he could not offer God less than his best. So, he committed to getting the education necessary for full ordination and the theological training necessary for being an in-depth and powerful preacher of the Gospel. That meant uprooting our family and moving us to another state so that he could enroll in college. During those years when he was working full-time as a student pastor and attending college and seminary, we saw the light in his study shining under the door as we went to sleep. We grew up understanding the sacrifice that was necessary for excellence and the importance of giving your very best to God.
Daddy was not perfect, of course, but we never doubted his love for mother or for us. He made it easy for us to believe in God’s love because his love was so constant and unconditional. To paraphrase George Santayana, “A good father is one of God’s Masterpieces.” Certainly, a good daddy is one of God’s greatest gifts to a little girl.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Janice Shaw Crouse | Sunday, June 21, 2009
Being a Daddy’s Girl
http://townhall.com/columnists/JaniceShawCrouse/2009/06/21/being_a_daddy%e2%80%99s_girl
“Behind every great woman, you will find her dad.” According to an article by Joanne Richard in the Edmonton Sun, that’s the kind of extraordinary power that a father has over his daughter. Dr. Mary Jo Rapini, a psychotherapist and author, declares that the way a dad treats his little girl determines how she will feel about herself as a woman. If fathers admire their daughter’s achievements, character, and looks, says Dr. Rapini, that girl will become a confident and self-assured person who will choose a husband who treats her the same way. In fact, Dr. Rapini echoes the old maxim that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
I think Rapini is on to something! Research studies indicate that daughters tend to marry someone who treats them like their dad treated them. That is true in our family. My husband often says that he is grateful that I am a “daddy’s girl” because he is the beneficiary of my father loving me unconditionally. Our daughter is a “daddy’s girl,” and our son married a “daddy’s girl.” It certainly has proven to be a good formula for successful marriages in our family.
Research indicates that before the age of 12, 90 percent of a girl’s self-esteem is shaped by her relationship with her father. Though my dad has been dead for over 20 years, I see him in the shape of my hands, in the color of my eyes, in my exuberance and in the ways that I face life — in both good times and during adversity. My dad encouraged me to try anything, and he gave me the confidence to believe that I would succeed whenever I do my best.
My sister laughingly says that she was in college before she realized that she wasn’t the most talented and beautiful girl around. That was the legacy of our father: each of us grew up confident in our abilities, looks, and potential. We are all confident and accomplished because daddy believed in us and encouraged us from our earliest memories.
That should not have been the case, because we lived by much stricter standards than our friends. Daddy was definitely the HEAD of our house; we were not allowed to go to dances or movies. But Daddy’s strict rules were not burdensome; he explained why he believed those rules were good for us, and in our weekly “family counsels” we had the opportunity to “talk back” and complain. It didn’t change his mind, of course, but we let off steam, and he listened respectfully. Plus, Daddy was fun. When Daddy was there, life was a party. We had a good time; he was always ready to go to the ballgames at our school and to take the family on a picnic, to a park or on a trip.
Daddy was “called to preach” when I was 11 years old. No one in my father’s family had gone to college, but he determined that he could not offer God less than his best. So, he committed to getting the education necessary for full ordination and the theological training necessary for being an in-depth and powerful preacher of the Gospel. That meant uprooting our family and moving us to another state so that he could enroll in college. During those years when he was working full-time as a student pastor and attending college and seminary, we saw the light in his study shining under the door as we went to sleep. We grew up understanding the sacrifice that was necessary for excellence and the importance of giving your very best to God.
Daddy was not perfect, of course, but we never doubted his love for mother or for us. He made it easy for us to believe in God’s love because his love was so constant and unconditional. To paraphrase George Santayana, “A good father is one of God’s Masterpieces.” Certainly, a good daddy is one of God’s greatest gifts to a little girl.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
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