1/2
Chaz, you're not getting it. On one hand you claim we need to put more protection for kids in place while ignoring the fact that the very stereotypes currently in place actually glorify both domestic and even child abuse the moment the victim is male and the abuser is female.

The problem has been for years that this mystique has built up around traditionalist stereotypes has resulted in this commonly held belief that the abuser in child and domestic abuse cases is almost always a man and the victim of domestic abuse is almost always a woman. It's so prevalent that the grooming statutory rape of boys by older women is almost always reported by the media as "an affair"- in other words, the notion of an underage girl "becoming a woman" when raped is considered vile by society and yet the notion of an underage boy "becoming a man" when raped is so deeply entrenched in the social psyche that almost noone even blinks when it's said.

Heck even someone on here who claimed to oppose the abuse of men and boys accused me of lying about being a battered and raped man and the victim of decades of child abuse. In recent court hearings, judges have in one case, criticised police for not telling the male victim to "man up" and in another case, awarded sole custody to a mother whom even he acknowledge had been guilty of severe child abuse. Tell me, how does this kind of sexist and stereotypical climate do anything to expose the universal nature of abuse and protect all victims? If you think the legislation you refer to will actually hurt women as opposed to the children and male partners of abusive women, then you have alot to learn about the sexist nature of our legal system.
(to be continued)

2/2 (continued)
Those of us who have been bringing up the prevalence of female abusers and studies which found women were more abusive than men have been doing it for one reason- to prove that the mystique is just that- a mystique and not reality.

The reality is that both men and women are human and capable of both good and evil. If you look at the work of pioneers in the field such as Erin Pizzey and Richard Gelles, they point to roughly a 50/50 split in the instances of abuse.

Furthermore, to cite one study from South Australia (Dal Grande, E., Woollacott, T., Taylor, A., Starr, G., Anastassiadis, K., Ben-Tovim, D., et al. (2001). Interpersonal violence and abuse survey, september 1999 . Adelaide: Epidemiology Branch, Dept. of Human Services. Retrieved September 21, 2009), it found that while 22% of all female victims report their abuse, only 7.5% of all male victims report their abuse- almost a third the number of female victims. When you consider the vile stereotypes towards male victims which exist today, and the fact that they were driven out of the mass media and mainstream society decades ago, this should not surprise anyone.

In short, until the system recognises this and stops allowing feminism and chivalry to be used as a free pass for female deviants and felons, and genuinely acknowledges the universal nature of abuse (at which point you can actually start to implement solutions on every level of society), then domestic and child abuse will only continue to flourish in society along gender lines.

ChazP:
I agree that the best interest of children is served by looking at reality and addressing both legislation and the way legislation is enforced to ensure that children are cared for in society.

Enough surveys have been done to show that children are best brought up by both parents (as though that weren't obvious anyway). Where those parents live seperately, the social and legal processes need to treat parents equally regardless of gender. The same applies to instances of child abuse of all kinds but especially sexual abuse and parental alienation. Currently, men still have to fight to take part in the children's lives, they are treated automatically as the abuser when a child is discovered to have been abused and they are the vast majority of sufferers - along with the child - in cases of parental alienation. The main additional safeguards required for children today are for the law, and for enforcement agencies, to stop treating women as victims and men as abusers and to treat each case individually, allowing the child to be truly protected from abusers and protected by those who care.

1 / 2 Bowspearer /Douglas – I find it terribly sad that you both want to continue and perpetuate this discussion as a `gender wars’ dispute because of your own personal experiences and cannot even begin to understand the situation from a child’s perspective.
Bowspearer – If, as you claim, you have been abused as a child and a man, then logic would suggest that you would be supporting this proposed legislation with every sinew of your being in order to try to prevent similar occurrences for today’s and tomorrow’s children. That is why your story rings so hollow. For centuries, children have suffered abuse and even death, because of Family Laws which give primacy and paramountcy to parental rights and which treat children merely as the possession of those parents, or as it used to be termed, among their ‘Goods and Chattels’. Do you want other children to suffer in the way you claim to have suffered?. That is how it sounds.
I have a great deal of knowledge of how the Family Law system operates from my own practice in those Courts and there is very clear gender bias against both fathers and mothers in those Courts, dependent on the idiosyncracies and prejudices of individual lawyers, Reporters, Expert Witnesses, and how they are able to persuade judges towards their particular biases.
What is urgently and desperately needed is a legal system which is primarily child-centred and focuses on the Needs, Wishes, and Rights of children and gives paramountcy to their protection from abuse and a highly-weighted consideration of their wishes. Even if this legislation is passed, it is only a beginning and a small step towards achieving such a goal.
But Bowspearer, if you want to continue to wallow in your own pain and embittered anger and deny today’s children the protection from similar experiences, then that is your right. But please don’t oppose the efforts of those who are trying to bring change to protect those children.

1 / 2. Douglas – Yes it has been shown that children thrive and develop better when their natural parents are in a close, supportive, and loving relationship and they provide security, stability, and constant and consistent loving care for their children. However, the moment they separate, such a situation ends. It does not extend into such a fractured relationship in the manner which you seem to think, particularly where one or both parents are toxic and dangerous to the children. But even if parents are not toxic and dangerous, there are real risks of harm to children by being shuttled back and forth like Ping-Pong balls and living out of suitcases, as is currently occurring because each parent, for their own selfish reasons, wants to assert their parental ‘Rights’.
It can also be shown that step-parents, co-habittees, and even live-in lovers of either parent, can be a far better parent to children than the natural parent and that children thrive under such arrangements. So a natural parent is not essentiaql in a child's life, only a caring concerned and protective substitute parent who can properly fulfill that role.
Where one or both parents are toxic and dangerous to their children, then that adds to the children’s suffering. I cannot reconcile your allegations of bias against fathers with the facts of cases where fathers who have been proven and convicted paedophiles, have been given custody of small children. Perhaps you can explain that, and why you support such decisions in your opposition to these small changes in the legislation?.
When eventually the Family Law system becomes child-centred and gives paramountcy to the protection of children, and decisions on their future are made according to what is demonstrably and measurably to their benefit, (rather than merely highly subjective opinions of what is in their best interests), then gender issues become irrelevant as the needs, wishes, and rights of children will become precedent.

Chaz, I do want to support legislation which protects children, however what you're talking about wont give it.

What you're talking about sounds lovely IN THEORY! If you think that translates to "in practice", you're a complete fool.

In practice you have a justice and legal system which primarily believes that women are only victims and men are only perpetrators. In practice this legislation opens up the flood-gates to whichever parent creates false allegations of child abuse first along with other forms of parental alienation (if they're being psychologically abusive to the children to get one-up on the other party in a bitter custody battle; they'll do the same in other situations where they deem it "necessary") where abuse parents will continue to be awarded sole custody "in the best interests of the child".

Furthermore, with the penalties for perjury removed under said legislation, it merely allows such toxic parents to carry on with their abusive ways with complete impunity.

I said I was abused, not the naive fool which you clearly are. If you had half the clue about the Family Law courts which you claim to (which in terms of children is a separate issue to WRD incidentally), then you'd be entirely aware of the fact that under the Family Law Act, it is a criminal offense to name and shame said judges. Until you change that, the law changes you're advocating for will simply make things far worse instead of far better!

Until fools like you come to not only come to recognise that crucial problem with the current Family Court system, but fight to change it, you will only continue to promote a system which encourages abuse on sexist grounds with impunity, rather than stopping it.

Making sickening statements implying I must be lying about my abuse and accusing me of wallowing in self-pity over my own abuse - all because I wont be your little propaganda puppet - wont change the harm that fools like you cause. You're a living example of the old saying of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".