ChazP:. "In this case such violence and abuse lasted for 20 years, which is a fairly average period of time for such DV.”

Oh dear Chaz, you really should consider asking someone with a better grasp on reality to check your stuff before you post. Even Patricia seems to have a closer link with the real world and that's saying something!

--

"if the children lived with their mother they would be exposed to her irrational ideas and fears."

"she would stop at nothing to avoid him having unsupervised time with the children"

Justice Watts, FCA

Sounds like he was talking about you Chaz. Is there something you'd like to tell us?

For those not following closely.

I agree that there is a problem with lumping all sorts of physical violence into the one basket.

However the pushing, shoving stuff that ChazP is so distressed that is included in the figures I've referenced about violence witnessed by kid's against fathers and stepfathers comes from what appears to the same report that ChazP had earlier used to highlight violence witnessed by kid's against mothers and stepmothers and appears to be based on the same set of criteria.

In the misdst of that was a claim by ChazP that such violence against fathers and stepfathers would be non-existant (same page of the report I found and 1% difference to the incidents of violence withessed against mothers and stepmothers).

So while ChazP seems to consider it a valid tactic to try and represent violence against women by broad definitions she tries to portray using the same report and definitions as dishonest when men are the targets of the violence.

There are dangers in trying to restrict definitions too tightly, moving definitions that seemingly depend on gender stereotypes are even more dangerous.

There is an interesting paper I found earlier "Sex Differences in Aggression Between Heterosexual Partners: A Meta-Analytic Review"
http://lilt.ilstu.edu/mjreese/psy290/downloads/Archer%202000.pdf

It does seem to be a credible attempt to draw conclusions from a variety of published research into partner violence and explore many of the questions which should be asked when trying to understand that violence.

R0bert

R0bert

Interesting claim you make:

>> Antiseptic I agree with the point that you made else where that the who does more is a distraction from the real issues. <<

Pelican, Suzeonline, Bronwyn, yours truly and many other posters have been making this same point for literally years on OLO and you only notice when Antiseptic belatedly makes this same comment.

I have heard of being slow on understanding problems, but I don't it is due to any intellectual difficulties for you, Robert.

The "real issues" in "Mischief in the Family Law Act" being the best outcome for children ascertained on a case by case analysis by the minority of parents who are unable to reach agreement without the Family Court. Those "real issues" right?

In addition, there was a connection problem when trying to load the above, since then you have referenced to another article on DV. Please start a topic about DV and put forth arguments and solutions in prevention of DV rather than trying to create division between people and causing more circular arguments such as we have been having here ad infinitum.

Ammonite, there are two conflicting imperatives that have to be considered, it seems to me. The first is the drive of some mothers to be "hyper-nurturing", as shown in the extreme case I referenced earlier about the woman who had a 7 year old in nappies and being spoon-fed. This drive, in less-extreme examples can lead to an inability of the mother to consider the father as a suitable parent simply because she thinks "her" kids need her at all times. Such a mother can and will do anything she thinks is necessary to prevent herself "losing" her children. There are many, many examples on Austlii for the searching.

The second is the "traditional" father's role, which has revolved around the dealing of family justice, frequently at the behest of the mother, with a "patriarchal" authority. In an intact family these two modes may mesh well, since Mum doesn't have to do the nasty punishment stuff and Dad doesn't have to do the nasty bum-butter stuff. Mum still gets the benefit of Dad's authority, since she compels his support and he still gets the benefit of having a well-nurtured offspring.

Once a family is broken apart however, it is not too hard for Mum to think that Dad is always going to be too tough or for Dad to think that Mum is too soft. When combined with the animosity that is inherent in an adversarial process, this can lead to all sorts of allegations being made "with the best of intentions", based on nothing at all but a sense that all's fair in defence of the kids, even if the kids aren't actually in danger. See Crispin hull's excellent piece elsewhere for the sort of "appeal to fear", which is at the heart of so much of our lawmaking in recent years.

On the other hand, there are the genuine cases of abusive partners, which need to be taken into account somehow. The question is whether our current Family Law system fails to do that and I have to say I don't think it does.

Ammonite do you have anything to contribute or is your plan to stay on the sidelines trying to trip or divert male posters without actually addressing the issues?

Antiseptic I'm undecided if the existing family law system adequately deals with genuinely abusive parents. To much spin and not enough real data to tell to my satisfaction.

I've suggested before that allegations of abuse should be handled via the same child protection mechanisms that should exist for every other child. Making a special process for family law situations is too fraught with risks all round.

Then the real question is how well do child protection mechanisms protect any child where significant known risks to the child exist? Clearly they are not perfect, that's pretty obvious.

Sometimes there are very clear examples of child proection agencies failing to follow up on known risks with tragic consequences but it's also been pointed out the dangers of various agencies with their own agenda's overstating risk to maintain or grow their share of funding.

R0bert

Just would like some clarification.

ChazP says shoving, hitting and throwing things isn't violence.

happy says being called 'dear' and using analogies that involve dogs is violence.

These two posters have no argument with each other apparently. I find that strange.

I consider 'what is violence?', however it is defined, should be applied unilaterally and consistently to both genders. Anything else is dishonest.

In the report in question, the figures on domestic violence as experienced by females come from the same questions as the figures for males. If the figures for male violence are unsound, so too are the female violence figures. I believe it was chazP who first referenced the report in the first place. It seems strange to reference a report and then claim it unsound.

Poirot,

funny posts

Robert,

Still being played by Fractelle I see.

happy,

That Nazi stuff was just fantastic. la la la la land.