Well, Relda, I accept that in your opinion, focusing on the children is 'way off the mark'. I dont really think so.

Of course children do better in an intact family of two loving parents SO LONG AS THE FAMILY IS SAFE.

I think it is the ones who are not safe that are the problem. From what i've read about control and domination in relationships the 'victim' often tries every possible way they can to comply with the demands of the 'abuser' so they too can achieve that status of a happy family. But there comes a time when they give up and leave.

Not all. There are manipulative, violent PEOPLE who are only prepared to stay in a relationship so long as they get what they want - that is their needs dominate.

Trinz,

“The decent men do not feel an unjustified need to invalidate the experiences of so many children and women.”

Presumably the decent men you have in mind are the ones who do not criticise feminist ideology, or the ones complicit only in female forms of child abuse. Decent men, who would not question paternity fraud for example – for this would be against the best interests of both mother and child.

If “Women ARE NOT responsible for men's actions” then, neither should men be held responsible for women’s actions. The way many comments read, I would be surprised to see many women claiming responsibility for anything other than success achieved through one’s own virtue and hard work. Failures, as with paternity, are often misattributed.

Cotter, "that those who quibble about who is worse - men or women - miss the point" - I think you are missing the point. The author has a long history of fighting for inequality in family law matters and dissing men. So far the post's have not really dropped to the quibble about who is worse except by some bagging men who object to Elspeth's sexist slander.

ena, I didn't back up my earlier comment about the involvement of children in child abuse. Not a full coverage but part of the issue is covered in

"Acknowledgement that children and adolescents may commit acts of sexual abuse has only occurred relatively recently (Vizard, Monck, & Misch, 1995). The National Children's Home (1992, as cited in Masson, 1995) reported that it is estimated that between one-quarter to one-third of sexual abuse cases in the UK are perpetrated by a child or young person."

The source article is an interesting read

"Who abuses children?

Compiled by Nick Richardson and Leah Bromfield, National Child Protection Clearinghouse. Published by the Australian Institute of Family Studies
ISSN 1448-9112 (Online)" http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/sheets/rs7.html

I hope that my response to your comment does not come across as an attack, you are a poster who I have a lot of respect for so if I've phrased this to strongly I'm sorry. I worry that the work of people like Elspeth is taken seriously enough in some quarters that it does real harm to real people (children and adults).

R0bert

From Child Protection and Family Law report:

Research published in l994 indicated that sexual abuse allegations are made in a significant number of cases concerning children. The Family Court's study of 294 judgments in defended cases from all over Australia heard in l990, found that 7% of cases involved allegations of sexual abuse by the child's father, and in another 3% of cases it was alleged that the children had been abused by another adult such as a stepfather or other relative. Thus, the study concluded that in l0% of the defended hearings in the Family Court, the Court had to deal with the question of alleged sexual abuse....

A review of l997 Family Court data confirmed that a significant child abuse workload was a feature of the cases coming to court, which might subsequently result in court proceedings. The review examined over 700 cases awaiting pre-hearing conferences in the Melbourne registry of the Family Court and found that more than 40% of children's cases involved allegations of some form of child abuse....

Courts exercising jurisdiction under the Family Law Act have a limited capacity to generate independent evidence in the area of allegations of child abuse. There is often an "evidence vacuum"....
A study completed in l997 in South Australia found that in 34% of cases involving child sexual abuse there was no investigation by the child protection authority....

...nearly half of all calls made to its central Helpline do not lead to an investigatory response....

Child welfare authorities do not have a general investigatory role....

Brown and her colleagues found that a substantial number of children in their first study were experiencing significant distress. 28% had severe emotional or psychiatric problems.....

Robert,
You are right, of course, sometimes it is siblings or cousins who do the abusing, but their abuse is not generally the issue in child custody cases.
I really think we have to stop fighting about gender ( and you're right again, the author does that too) and start worrying about kids and making them safe.
I do not want to be part of the blame men game, when I talk of feminism it is about women taking responsibility for their own lives. For the life of me, I can't see why any reasonable human would object to that.
The men in my life ( apart from some very sexist experiences in the work place) I love, respect and honour. I do that because they also love, respect and honour me.
Indeed, I said to my husband tonight that he is the only man I know who could sit in a forum of 100 women and not feel remotely uncomfortable. It is the highest compliment I could pay. He is truly gender-blind, and so truly at ease with his own identity. My daughters are very, very lucky, as am I.

I read this article (and the overly emotive and poorly-written 'poem'), and I felt sickened. The poem was puerile, fetid nonsense that should never have seen the light of day.
How can this person make these statements?
How can she assume that non-custodial dads are always the perpetrators of violence/abuse?
What about the Mothers?
As politically incorrect as it is for me to say this-women are just as (if not more) abusive as men.
But, women are more prone to use psychological abuse than men.
My children have been taught to hate their father....and I have never been abusive on any level. I suppose that Ms McInnes would tell me that it's my fault anyway?
For Ms McInnes to spew out this article only demonstrates the hatred that she has for men.
Frankly, anybody espousing this level of hatred should, at best, be ignored.
By the way, I refuse to use the honorific of "Dr." in relation to Ms. McInnes. The Doctor honorific implies acknowledgement of a degree of professionalism on her part. As she is clearly not exhibiting professionalism in any manner, the title of Doctor should be ignored.