ena
In extolling the sensitivity of your spouse to feminism you said he was "gender-blind".

However given your claimed interest in equality shouldn't the PC term for his sublime state of gender unawareness be "gender-sight-impaired", not "gender-blind"?

What about you though? If you were as gender-sight-impaired as your spouse, why would you be contributing to this thread?

Oh bother, maybe I put "gender unawareness" where I mean "gender awareness". Is the path to gender-sight-impairment one of increasing, or decreasing awareness?

There was no hint of the trouble to come as I rocked up to pick the kids up for my access visit. Previously there never had been any trouble.

This time as I prepared to leave with the kids, my son became hysterical not wanting to leave his mother. He was frightened that she was going to die. He had not been going to school for the whole week previously. A fact I did not know.

Eventually it unravelled that his mother and her current boyfriend had had a blazing row where threats of violence were issued and he was terrified that his mother was going to be killed.

Much later it had emerged that he had called the police. I don't know how many times he has done this, but when I asked him why? he said it was because mum and the boyfriend were fighting.

Sometimes the real truth does not emerge until much later after the judges have made the final consent orders.

68f of the family law is a joke.

It is interesting to read the arguments that do not focus on the issue at hand because:
a) the focus of the issue at hand is diverted to other arguments that deflect from the truth eg.:- "more than 90% of the abuse within the court system was perpetrated by the mothers."
It is clear that family violence is overwhelmingly gendered i.e. men are the largest group of perpetrators. Domestic violence and child abuse go hand in hand.
"In 1999, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) developed a comprehensive set of guidelines designed to help caseworkers, advocates, and judges establish collaborative structures and develop policies and procedures that would enhance the safety and well-being of domestic violence victims and their children. Since its release, The Greenbook, which was formally titled “Effective Intervention in Domestic Violence & Child Maltreatment Cases: Guidelines for Policy and Practice,” has assisted numerous domestic violence advocates, child welfare workers, and family court judges in building a collaborative approach to working with families experiencing domestic violence and child maltreatment. http://www.usdoj.gov/ovw/greenbook.htm
b) This FACT doesn't suit advocates of men who abuse so they decry the researchers, eg.:- "I challenge those in power to conduct research which is unbiased, and does not use advocacy research techniques, to see who is really telling the truth."
c) When arguing a point that has no legitimate reasoning, name calling is employed instead, eg:- "And family courts also give protection to malevolent women who manipulate the system to improve there financial circumstances, regardless of the emotional and developmental needs of their children."
d) They attack the messenger- "As for the rest of Dr Elspeth McInnes article, the usual one-eyed and one-sided drivel we expect from the corp of feminist politico cadres."
continued...

e) Although women also abuse children, in the family court the cases who present are more often those where men use abuse against spouses and children. A good way to mislead from this point is to challenge them with points that have no relevance, eg.:-"One in three marriages end in divorce in Australia. Most are instigated by the mother. Most court proceedings include allegations of domestic violence. By simple laws of averages, your allegations say that most men then are abusers if you consider '9 in 10' have 'substance.' Did your father do this Doctor? Mine didn't."
f) Challenging the definition of family violence and child abuse is a good way to justify actions that they themselves may have used eg.:- "Why does Dr Elspeth McInnes shy away from including child neglect and psychological harm in her (implied) definition of child abuse? To use a narrow definition of child abuse is to condemn the greater number of children up to the age of 18 to suffering in silence."
g) The fact is that the standard of proof in family court is just about impossible to attain, particularly for child sexual abuse, therefore, allegations are not substantiated. This doesn't mean the allegation has been proven wrong. It just means that the abuser has gotten away with it.

continued...

Happy's previous post is yet another attempt of a biased feminist to promote their standard line men=bad, women=victim. The overwhelming number of statistics used by people like her are skewed to portray women as victims so as to maintain the mountains of funding poured by western governments into institutes like the National Council of Single Mothers and THEIR children.

Compare the mountains of cash thrown into women's interest organisation versus men. Think: where is the office of men's affairs comparable to women's affairs in Australia? There is none.

No one here is saying abuse doesn't happen. The reality is it is NOT at the levels as portrayed by sheep like McInness. Men and women are victims AND perpetrators. No concrete, unbiased investigation has been conducted to highlight male victims nor female perpetrators. Until this time, there will be nothing but the biased lies of feminist organisation trying to maintain their funding at the same levels.

Feminist authors White and Kowalski put an interesting slant on things, they suggest that maintaining the myth of the non-aggressive woman "sustains male power" by rendering women as weak, helpless, and in need of male protection. "By deconstructing the myth of the non aggressive woman, the trap of gendered dualism (male/female: powerful/weak: perpetrator/victim) is recognized and the advantages of the myth to men is diminished" – it seems when ‘equalizing’ the sexes we provide a double edged sword - the culpability of both equally proportioned and strangely revealed. Violence, properly, understood is an aberration all too common. It is true, most violent crime is committed by men. But we have already noticed that, as women assert their rights to full participation in the social and economic world, those statistics are changing. Women are as likely to become the physical abusers in this brave new world.

Our feminist authors continue and suggest aggression among women has been ignored because it has been defined narrowly in terms of physical aggression. As a result of much female aggression having "gone unnoticed and thus unnamed....female physical aggression seems more unexpected, becomes labelled irrational, and is denied legitimacy”. Throughout the centuries, civilisations have placed women on a plinth – we need understand this, instinctively, we have always known the power contained in their virtue.

With a misguided beckoning, do we now take them down to make them ‘Happy’? In the name of equality do we pass to them an appendage and a latent, masculine aggression? The virtue of the ‘weaker’ sex is a subtlety lost on many a radical feminist. Passing too, so it seems, is this quaintly chivalrous and protective male now reminiscent of a distant era.