Mollydukes,
I would agree with Bozie that “abuse” is only a minor reason for single parent families.

The principle reason is divorce and separation, and the principle reasons for divorce and separation are “Affective issues” according to the study at http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/WP20tables.html#table3 . This includes such things as “Communication”, “Incompatability”, “Affairs” etc. Interestingly, both males and females report almost identical %’s in this area. This means that both males and females should improve in this area, as marriage is highly important for the good of society.

From what I have seen, feminist propaganda is almost always anti-male and anti-marriage, and I have seen almost nothing from feminists that is pro-male and pro-marriage. Feminists should therefore begin to closely study their own communication and their own often biased research, before they talk about “discrimination”.

The government program to encourage single parents to work may / may not be greatly constructive, but encouraging more marriage and less divorce and seperation would be better in the long term one would think.

The Women's refuge I escaped to from my husband was government funded.

The single parents pension I received for 3 years, helped me to re-establish myself.

The student allowance I received while at college assisted with my degree.

My mother looked after my then young children - there were very few child care centres and beyond my means anyway.

The point is single parents need both support and encourgement to re-enter the work force and recover from the break up of their relationship (regardless of who ever is at fault it is painful for both parties). A civilised society takes care of its people that is why we have government. If people are left to flounder then all too often the result is misery, depression and criminal behaviour.

I believe in equal opportunity for both men and women - our government is the instrument through which legislation can be made to assist this ideal.

People can work hard 'do the right thing' and still life can trip them up through no fault of their own. If there are no agencies in place (such as refuges) these people may well fail.

It is very hard for single parents raising children it is in our best interests to care for our people. This means a supportive system for parents to find work - a punitive approach is not the way.

Garra, Timkins does have some good ideas and I guess in this issue, he is responding with the same personal insights about the causes of single parents, that I (and Ringtail) are.

There may be a minority of marriages that break up due to male violence but when yours is one of them, it is difficult to see the statistics as being more ‘real’ than one’s own experience.

I guess this is the same for Timkins and he can’t see that feminism is not the problem.

Bozzie, you are wrong because there is a lot that governments could and should do about making life easier for the single parents of either gender. The result of poor parenting is children who grow up to be poor and inadequate individuals and a burden on us all, even if we don’t provide them with welfare.

They will still be a burden in the increased crime and social problems poorly socialised individuals create.

Some people are unfortunate enough not to have family or friends that they can rely on.

In a decent society that benefits us all in the long run the government provides a safety net

Mollydukes, thanks for your most recent post on this topic. Your earlier one left me with the impression that you thought male violence was the main issue in modern family breakup, thanks for clearing that up.

I agree that feminism is not itself the problem. There were some really important issues which needed (not saying all are done with either) to be addressing in regard to gender equality. Valuing people for who they are rather than what gender they have.

As you pointed out in your post it is easy to see the whole situation through the filters of our own experience.

In my case I had a sometimes violent wife (thankfully my experience was no where near as bad as Ringtails). In my search for understanding I have formed the view that she treated family life as a smorgasboard. She wanted and demanded the benefits of both feminism and the old approach. Lots of rights and few responsibilities. The image that continues to come to mind is the demand to be treated as the little princess. Part time work for her, sharing of housework and child raising (but key decisions about both should be hers alone), outside work is mens work and not her responsibility and a continual insistance that she make the major decisions about the families finances (ever increasiong debt).

Post separation/divorce - she moved to another area (after I bought a house) which made the demands of shared parenting very difficult on the child and involving him in the issues enough to do him real harm. The milking of the system continues with a coresponding reduction in my role as a dad and ongoing financial burden to myself and other taxpayers.

Not feminism, just abuse. The safety net should take some account of how people got to need it, not be a tool for the self centered.

Mollydukes,
You started out believing that divorce and single parent families mostly occur because of abusive husbands, but it was pointed out to you in the link provided, that only 25% of divorced women actually listed abuse as a reason for their divorce. 75% didn’t, but feminists have routinely portrayed males as being abusive, and your prior beliefs about husbands and divorce should indicate to you just how pervasive that propaganda has become.

If someone puts to one side any pre-conceived notions that fathers are abusers, dead beat dads etc, they may see situations differently.

In the case of encouraging single mothers back into the workforce, there could also be a case of inequity for fathers:- if it is looked at from a father’s viewpoint.

If the woman is a single parent, then she can receive various government pensions and subsidies, and it appears that this list will grow as the government develops programs to retrain single parent women back into the workforce. She will also be receiving child support paid by the father (although he will most likely have no say in how that money is spent).

A married woman receives very little of these government pensions and subsidies, and if she stays at home then this will be paid for by the husband, and if she wants to go back into the workforce, then it is likely that the husband will have to pay for any retraining as well.

From the father’s viewpoint, he is always paying out. He becomes the workhorse and paypacket no matter what the situation. He presently has few choices available, and he will get almost no government support, recognition or even acknowledgement.

Marriage is there for a reason, because anything else becomes too complex and does not work very well for society as a whole, but the concern by many men about the propaganda that is so often being thrown at them (eg abuser, dead beat dad etc) can be better understood when looked at from the male’s viewpoint.

"At the moment we have hundreds of thousands of Australians of working age who have no obligation to look for work even though they are capable of it and that's going to be the focus," Mr Costello said yesterday.
(From ‘The Age’ 10/05/05)

The question to be asked is, ‘Why is this the focus of the budget?’. At this point in time, we have roughly 5% unemployment, and untold numbers of people who are under-employed. A significant number of these people are desperately seeking work, but are unable to find it. This is because there just isn’t enough work available for the ammount of people who are seeking it.
So what is to be gained by forcing the stay at home mothers and disabled people, to become job-seekers? Or forcing the unemployed to look harder for jobs? These initiatives are not focused on creating more jobs, they are about enlarging the pool of people who are looking for the existing ammount of jobs. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has been complaining for a while about ‘wages pressure’. Now if the pool of job-seekers is enlarged, competition for jobs will increase, which will probably result in ‘wages pressure’ being eased. In other words, more job seekers means lower wages for workers.

But there is also a secondary purpose to these measures. The Federal government, by demonising welfare recipients of any description, is preparing the public for cuts to welfare payments. The Nine Network’s A.C.A. has been assisting with this demonisation lately, by running stories about ‘lazy’ unemployed people.

At the same time, the Government is hinting that it is about to cut taxes for the wealthy.

So there is a clear, two pronged agenda emerging here. On the one hand the Federal government is trying to look after its wealthy business partners, by keeping wages low. At the same time, it is depriving money from the most needy groups in our society, to provide tax cuts to its wealthy constituency.