RObert

See

http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v3n2/jurevic.html

where the following is quoted:

Daniel Saunders, asserts that women use physical violence for very specific, and different reasons than men.[21] Firstly, a woman often uses violence in self-defence, and, is usually not the initiator of an attack. Secondly, when women do in fact initiate violence, they may do so because "they sense impending violence from their partner, and initiate the attack in order to stop the overwhelming build up of tension."[22] Finally, Saunders casts doubt on the perception that mutual combat has in fact occurred when the injuries resulting from the violence are so disparate: "A shove by a woman may enrage her partner; a shove by a man can knock a woman down and cause a concussion."

The entire piece focuses on the fact that all domestic violence is the man's fault.

I will have to remember that next time my wife threatens to call the police (and have me arrested, spend the night in the cells and lose my job - of course - that isn't domestic violence) when I try to decline to get her some booze when its late at night.

Hamlet the bias of the author is blatently obvious right from the start.

Section 1 opens with "While millions of women throughout the world have been abused by men, often to death, the subject of domestic violence has been studied to death."

And later in section 11 "As a result, societal values which seek to blame the victim of domestic violence surface again to deny her compensation from the State."

You have to get to section 14 before any mention of male victims of DV are mentioned. 1 male applicant of the 17 cases studied.

The author makes assumptions about victims fighting back - I've refered elsewhere to a feminist look at the issue of female violence by Patricia Pearson and this is one of the issues she tackles.

The author shows no sign of attempting to discover the truth of DV, rather she is looking at how certain aspects fit within the framework of her existing beliefs. Not real uncommon.

I get the impression that your own partner is a more extreme case than most others. Please don't judge all women on that basis, there are many good ones out there. I still don't fully understand why you stay when the abuse is such an issue in your life.

R0bert

RObert, I agree with you re the bias of that article, what is dissapointing is it is on an .edu site.

My wife is difficult sometimes, yes, but we haven't had the police over here since early December last year and she has been fairly well: One point of this is that her violence: which is mainly psychological and verbal, is due to an underlying medical condition that she only has partial control over.

And I know that the vast majority of women are not violent. I am not that biased against women, but against the systematic claims that a large number of men are inherently violent and that women are inherently non-violent.

I find the idea in that article that women who are violent do it in response to a perceived risk. The mention of shoving is interesting.

About twelve years ago my wife got 'unreasonably' angry. She was also inebriated at the time. She started walking into me, I walked backwards, just trying to hold her off. At one stage, with me retreating, she walked hard into me, I gave a gentle push - very gentle, just to hold her away, she was off balance, fell backwards and hit her head against a door frame. If the angle had been a little less favourable I am sure that I would have been tried for murder and would be behind bars. Fortunately no serious injury occurred.

Since then, whenever she starts acting violently I have followed the advice of every organisation dealing with domestic violence: I have gotten out of the place asap. On one occassion when she wouldn't let me leave - by holding onto me - I could have 'broken her grip' at the risk of injuring her - but the neighbours called the police, who assisted me in getting away.

Fortunately for the huge majority of the time she is well. I will repeat, she has a medical condition, she is not 'bad'.

This may give a 'reasonable' picture of why I am so 'biased' against the views expressed in original article in the thread.

There could be another explanation for why Family Law would require the fear of violence to be “reasonable” – it must be in the best interests of the child. As we already know Family Law is not based on tort law, but on no-fault, distributive justice. The argument goes that if the mother is punished, so is the child … equally, the opposite applies – advantaging the mother, advantages the child.

Through effective systematic demonisation of fathers, and men generally, women are free to assume the position of resident saint. To become expert arbiters of relationships, on reproductive rights and choices, to designate fatherhood at will, to define what is in the best interest of “their” children, which just coincidentally, perfectly aligns with their own best interests. But that is purely coincidental of course – she’s a selfless saint, and men should just damn well appreciate whatever role is granted to them. This of course can range from resident biological father who is still loved and appreciated, through to social father, silent partner, or the devil incarnate.

Men should always remember – whatever their role – it is always in the best interests of the child. Put it down to women’s intuition if you like - the mother always knows best.

Most of you probably know what I mean by silent partner. While it could mean the still resident biological father, it is more likely to be a “child support father”. “Social father” on the other hand had me stumped recently when I first came across it being used solely in the context of paternity fraud. Although the term is not used in this article, you may be interested in what Janet Albrechtsen had to say about paternity fraud yesterday in The Australian:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18928924-32522,00.html

“Mendacious mums can't be let off lightly
If the High Court is too soft on women who deceive their husbands on matters of paternity, parliament will have to step in, writes Janet Albrechtsen”

seeker, thanks for the link to the article. One which was worth reading.

Your first paragraph in that last post could be more fairly put if you substitute "resident parent" for "mother" - the system can work against mothers where the father has residency and plays the system to his own advantage.

It's mostly not a matter of gender bias in the wording of the law, rather in the implementation of it and in the support systems involved in family law.

The utter lack of accountability for some things - the resident parent who can move away from where the family previously lived and then use lack of support in parenting as a reason to avoid work and thereby claiming greater child support, and welfare being a classic case.

Time to recognise that kids will be hurt by their parents choices, attempts to shield kids from the consequences of bad choices by their parents are probably doing more harm than good.

R0bert

I would have liked to hear more from Brian, but apparently he had been censored out because of his provision of personal details in contradiction of Family Law … and the best interests of children.