BD

Never ever make assumptions.

You are just soooo wrong on all counts - I am not going to enter into too much detail - mainly because it is my own private business.

But will let you know this much - my ex-husband was not even baptised, let alone christian.

The christian I referred to was a brief relationship swiftly curtailed by his sexual demands AND bible bashing. A true hypocrite to his faith wouldn't you say?

I do agree with you on one point.

And that is that I do view religions in general with the utmost suspicion because they do not accord equal status to women. This view applies to any and ALL religions. Seems to me that religion was not only created BY men, but also FOR men.

As for you stating the bleeding obvious "Mostly life is just get along with each other, and do what needs to be done."

Just another example of your patronising attitude to me. Pity you don't try to get along with non-christians, such as, for example, Muslims?

Such a pity you find independent women unattractive - says alot about you that you can only 'like' women who fit your ideals. How typically male and typically religious.

And then you go on to say this "I feel we need to revisit gender roles, with responsibility, love and respect being the framework for both"

Really? Its a bit difficult to respect someone that you are forced to 'take guidance from' as in your view of the male/female relationship.

Why don't you practise what you preach?

Cheers m'dear

R0bert

Will catch up with you later.

My only comment Ms Merkin is that it is you who is being "unreasonable", basing your judgements of the family law system solely on your own sordid experience.

Why else would you include the very judge who decided your own child's fate at trial in your article, a Judge Warnick?

In my experience, and I do not claim to be an expert, no-one wins in family law, neither mothers nor fathers nor children, yet it is the fathers who are generalised as "abusers" and must prove their innocence. Overzealous, greedy mothers on the other hand, are portrayed as the "victims". Yes, many women suffer at the hands of violent partners, but many men suffer a much worse fate.....psychological warfare from a bitter ex-wife determined to use what leverage she has (the child) to hit him where it hurts.

The only way to solve this crisis is to take the issue out of the courts and into the hands of experienced relationship counsellors and psychiatrists. Leave the police out of it. Leave the judges to deal with the criminals, not the bitter and twisted emotions of partners who once loved each other enough to bring a child into the world.

Lets face it, parents do the best they can with the skills they have. We are better parents than our parents...why? because we have learnt from the experience of being parented. Don't persecute former partners simply because you looked online and found that something he did during the course of an otherwise happy marriage, falls under the new definition of "abuse". If people look too closely at you they might find that you too fit the definition of an "abuser"......scary isn't it?

R0bert,

While it made sense to widen the definition of violence (because so much of it was under the radar), at the end of the day, the shift is one of thresholds – we just end up redefining, until one day we end up with an annually revised legal definition of a “reasonable person”, so that the courts do not have to (inconsistently) determine it within each case.

Yes, we are becoming more aware of female violence, but fat lot of good that will do while we continue to systematically discriminate based on some state-prescribed relativism further corrupted by overworked and plagiaristic judiciary.

Injustice will remain just that, whether delivered against backdrops of mirrored C’s fluttering in the breeze representing the best interests of children, all the wisdom of horsehair wigs fronting wood panels, and/or marching mothers playing wind pipes ...

Women and violence.

While it is slowly being acknowledged that women are just as prey to faults as men, this is NO excuse to maintain them as second citizens. Male violence still vastly exceeds that of female, this is partly due to nurture – males are encourage to be “tough” and nature; the sheer physical strength of the average adult male compared to average female.

The reason why many feminists veer away from acknowledgement of female violence is that ANY FAULT will be used against women in achieving equal rights.

Some of the posts here suggest that this is true:

“Anyone who thinks that women are less capable of violence than men have never watched New Zealand play Australia at netball……”

Sport is sport – why shouldn’t women play as aggressively as men?

Hamlet prefers the stereotype of a ‘gentle’ woman – when he sees women behaving against this stereotype he questions women’s value as caregivers. And finished his post with:

“So, where does this leave us in the discussion about family separation and the welfare of the child?

I cannot answer....”

Hamlet asks where this leaves us in discussion about family separation. Clearly nowhere.

On one hand we have Ms Merkin completely omitting the fact of female violence and on the other we have a male using the fact that women are just like men with all their faults as an excuse to question ALL women as caregivers.

And also Hamlet’s post on the Kathleen Folbigg case. For every single case of female DV there are far more examples of male DV. Does Hamlet want me to post all of those or can we discuss the real issue?

To be accepted as equal is being accepted warts and all. Women are just simply human - no more no less.

Until we have true balance between the sexes, women will continue to exploit family law and vent their rage on their children.

And men will continue to use both their political clout at the high end of town and their muscle in the home.

Both men and women are capable of violence. Terrible examples of violence against children include the Kathleen Folbigg case and the case of Barbara Wyrzykowski, who murdered her five children before committing suicide in Western Australia. Men also commit violent crimes. Neither gender has a monopoly on violence.

Neither gender has a monopoly on lying in court.

Neither gender has a monopoly on child rearing skills and abilities, or on tenderness. Apart from breastfeeding there is nothing that a female cannot do better than a male in raising a child.

What I am suggesting that each case be dealt with on its absolute merits, taking the people involved as individuals, not as males and females or mother and fathers, but as parents, with assets and imperfections.

Some would say that we do not have a balance between the sexes. It all depends on what is being looked at. For instance, instead of looking at monetary income, that is who brings in what, why not look at expenditure, that is, for whose benefit does the money get spent? I would argue that while women don’t have the income, more is actually spent on them than on males.

When considering violence, in its totality, lets just stop looking at the perpetrators and look at the victims. The ‘average’ victim of violence is a young male in his twenties, who is most likely to be assaulted by another young male. In domestic relationships there is almost as much violence in lesbian relationships as in heterosexual relationships. That is not to dismiss the seriousness and effects of domestic violence, but should we assume that all men are bad, and assume, as I know that some women have, that whilst Folbigg killed her children she should not have been imprisoned for it?

So how do we deal with all this? Do we adopt Merkin’s path and simply believe all women are incapable of violence or lying? If were are to do that then all decisions about children should be left to the mother, and we should remove the involvement of fathers and courts completely.

Well put Hamlet.

Indisputably a great majority would like to see men and women as equals. Different perhaps, but nonetheless EQUAL. It is however a great source of frustration for them that whenever convenient, some women choose to deny this to all women.

Those that only see opportunity, as victims, are happiest staring through glass ceilings and up the skirts of those above. Sisterhood would do well without them – these are its loudest critics, best saboteurs, devious perverters and provocateurs.

They are neither likely to acknowledge the irony nor the viciousness of statements such as “Until we have true balance between the sexes, women will continue to exploit family law and vent their rage on their children." In fact, they themselves utter them in all seriousness as statements of female virtue.