"The institution of sexual intercourse is anti-feminist"
Ti-Grace Atkinson 1974
"Feminism is the theory, lesbianism is the practice."
Ti-Grace Atkinson1996
"The price of clinging to the enemy [a man] is your life. To enter into a relationship with a man who has divested himself as completely and publicly from the male role as much as possible would still be a risk. But to relate to a man who has done any less is suicide.." "I, personally, have taken the position that I will not appear with any man publicly, where it could possibly be interpreted that we were friends."
Ti-Grace Atkinson, 1974,
"I propose that the phenomenon of love is the psychological pivot in the persecution of women."
Ti-Grace Atkinson in 'Radical Feminism and Love'
"The institution of sexual intercourse is anti-feminist".
Ti-Grace Atkinson, Amazon Odyssey (p. 86)
"(Rape) is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear".
Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will p.6
"We are taught, encouraged, moulded by and lulled into accepting a range of false notions about the family. As a source of some of our most profound experiences, it continues to be such an integral part of our emotional lives that it appears beyond criticism. Yet hiding from the truth of family life leaves women and children vulnerable."
Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women.
"The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness...can be trained to do most things." -Jilly Cooper, SCUM (Society For Cutting Up Men, started by Valerie Solanas)
"The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist."
Shelia Cronin, National Organization for Women Times, Jan.1988
"Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women's movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage."
Sheila Cronin, prominent member of NOW
"Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience."
Catherine Comin -Vassar College. Assistant Dean of Students
"Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the Women's Movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage."
Sheila Cronin, in Radical Feminism - "Marriage" (1970), Koedt, Levine, and Rapone, eds., HarperCollins, 1973, p. 219)
Women are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate association with their oppressors.
Evelyn Cunningham
"Men are from another planet, sent here by spaceships to copulate with female earthlings and propagate the species—a task for which science has rendered them all but redundant. We need keep only a handful of donors on a sperm farm for that purpose, where they can subsist on pizza and beer and Playboy magazine."
Rose DiManno-Toronto Star, January 11, 1999
"If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males."
Mary Daly, former Professor at Boston College, 2001.
"How will the family unit be destroyed? ..The demand alone will throw the whole ideology of the family into question, so that women can begin establishing a community of work with each other and we can fight collectively. Women will feel freer to leave their husbands and become economically independent, either through a job or welfare."
Roxanne Dunbar, Female Liberation as a Basis for Social Revolution, New England Free Press, 1974)
"Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies."
Andrea Dworkin
"I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig."
Andrea Dworkin, Ice and Fire, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1987
"Under patriarchy, every woman is a victim, past, present and future. Under patriarchy, every woman's daughter is a victim, past, present and future. Under patriarchy, every woman's son is her potential betrayer and also the inevitable rapist or exploiter of another woman."
Andrea Dworkin Liberty, p. 58
"The newest variations on this distressingly ancient theme center on hormones and DNA: men are biologically aggressive; their fetal brains were awash in androgen; their DNA, in order to perpetuate itself, hurls them into murder and rape."
Andrea Dworkin, Letters From a War Zone, Dutton Publishing, 1989, p. 114
"Men are rapists, batterers, plunderers, killers; these same men are religious prophets, poets, heroes, figures of romance, adventure, accomplishment, figures ennobled by tragedy and defeat. Men have claimed the earth, called it 'Her.' Men ruin Her. Men have airplanes, guns, bombs, poisonous gases, weapons so perverse and deadly that they defy any authentically human imagination."
Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing Women, Penguin, 1979)
"Rape is the primary heterosexual model for sexual relating.
Rape is the primary emblem of romantic love.
Rape is the means by which a woman is initiated into her womanhood as it is defined by men.
Andrea Dworkin
"On the Left, on the Right, in the Middle; Authors, statesmen, thieves; so-called humanists and self-declared fascists; the adventurous and the contemplative, in every realm of male expression and action, violence is experienced and articulated as love and freedom."
Andrea Dworkin
"Men renounce whatever they have in common with women so as to experience no commonality with women; and what is left...is one piece of flesh a few inches long, the penis. The penis is the man; the man is human; the penis signifies humanity."
Andrea Dworkin
"Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies."
Andrea Dworkin
"Men, as a group, tend to be abusive, either verbally, sexually or emotionally. There are always the exceptions, but they are few and far between (I am married to one of them). There are different levels of violence and abuse and individual men buy into this system by varying degrees. But the male power structure always remains intact."
Message on FEMISA, responding to a request for arguments that men are unnecessary for a child to grow into mature adulthood.
"All men are rapists and that's all they are"
Marilyn French, Authoress; later, advisoress to Al Gore's Presidential Campaign.
"All patriarchists exalt the home and family as sacred, demanding it remain inviolate from prying eyes. Men want privacy for their violations of women... All women learn in childhood that women as a sex are men's prey."
Marilyn French, The Women's Room, Summit Books, 1977
"The media treat male assaults on women like rape, beating, and murder of wives and female lovers, or male incest with children, as individual aberrations...obscuring the fact that all male violence toward women is part of a concerted campaign."
Marilyn French, The Women's Room, Summit Books, 1977
"My own informal survey of adult women suggests that very few reach the age of twenty-one without suffering some form of male predation--incest, molestation, rape or attempted rape, beatings, and sometimes torture or imprisonment."
Marilyn French, The War Against Women, Ballantine Books, 1992, p. 195)
"My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them. Like a Jew just released from Dachau, I watch the handsome young Nazi soldier fall writhing to the ground with a bullet in his stomach and I look briefly and walk on. I don't even need to shrug. I simply don't care. What he was, as a person, I mean, what his shames and yearnings were, simply don't matter."
Marilyn French, Author "The Women's Room"
"The media treat male assaults on women like rape, beating, and murder of wives and female lovers, or male incest with children, as individual aberrations...obscuring the fact that all male violence toward women is part of a concerted campaign."
Marilyn French
"I was, in reality, bred by my parents as my father's concubine... What we take for granted as the stability of family life may well depend on the sexual slavery of our children. What's more, this is a cynical arrangement our institutions have colluded to conceal.".
Sylvia Fraser Journalist
MALE: represents a variant of or deviation from the category of female. The first males were mutants...the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female.
MAN: an obsolete life form... an ordinary creature who needs to be watched...a contradictory baby-man...
From 'A Feminist Dictionary; ed. Kramarae & Triechler, Pandora Press, 1985
"Women have their faults- men have only two: everything they say and everything they do."
Popular Feminist Graffiti
"The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race."
Sally Miller Gearhart, in The Future - If There Is One - Is Female.
"[Men are] freaks of nature... full of queer obsessions about fetishistic activities and fantasy goals."
Germaine Greer, The Whole Woman, Knopf, 1999
I have a great deal of difficulty with the idea of the ideal man. As far as I'm concerned, men are the product of a damaged gene. They pretend to be normal but what they're doing sitting there with benign smiles on their faces is they're manufacturing sperm. They do it all the time. They never stop.
Germain Greer
"If women are to effect a significant amelioration in their condition it seems obvious that they must refuse to marry."
Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch, McGraw-Hill, 1971, p. 317)
"...men bash women because they enjoy it; they torture women as they might torture an animal or pull the wings off flies."
Germaine Greer, The Whole Woman, Knopf, 1999
"The man regards (woman) as a receptacle into which he has emptied his sperm, a kind of human spittoon."
Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch, McGraw-Hill, 1971)
"Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release."
Germaine Greer
In an interview Germaine Greer (radical feminist, writer) was asked the question, "You were once quoted as saying your idea of the ideal man is a woman with a dick. Are you still that way inclined?" Greer first denied that she had said it, and then replied, "I have a great deal of difficulty with the idea of the ideal man. As far as I'm concerned, men are the product of a damaged gene. They pretend to be normal but what they're doing sitting there with benign smiles on their faces is they're manufacturing sperm. They do it all the time. They never stop. I mean, we women are more reasonable. We pop one follicle every 28 days, whereas they are producing 400 million sperm for each ejaculation, most of which don't take place anywhere near an ovum. I don't know that the ecosphere can tolerate it."
Germaine Greer At a Hilton Hotel literary lunch, promoting her book, The Change-Women, Aging and the Menopause, Knopf, 1992 from a news report dated 11/14/91)
"The nuclear family must be destroyed, and people must find better ways of living together…. Whatever its ultimate meaning, the breakup of families now is an objectively revolutionary process…. No woman should have to deny herself any opportunities because of her special responsibilities to her children…."
Linda Gordon in "Functions of the Family," WOMEN: A Journal of Liberation, Fall, 1969
"And if the professional rapist is to be separated from the average dominant heterosexual (male), it may be mainly a quantitative difference."
Susan Griffin
"I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which a man structurally does not have. He does not have it not because he cannot have it. He's just incapable of it."
Former US Congresswoman
Barbara Jordan
Clearly you are not yet a free-thinking feminist but rather one of those women who bounce off the male-dominated, male-controlled social structures. Who cares how men feel or what they do or whether they suffer? They have had over 2000 years to dominate and made a complete hash of it. Now it is our turn. My only comment to men is, if you don't like it, bad luck - and if you get in my way I'll run you down.
Letter to the editor, signed: "Liberated Women", Boronia Herald-Sun, Melbourne, Australia - 9 February 1996
"Marriage has existed for the benefit of men and has been a legally sanctioned method of control over women.... Male society has sold us the idea of marriage.... Now we know it is the institution that has failed us and we must work to destroy it.... The end of the institution of marriage is a necessary condition for the liberation of women. Therefore, it is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not to live individually with men."
Nancy Lehmann, Helen Sullinger, Declaration of Feminism, 1971
"Man-hating is everywhere, but everywhere it is twisted and transformed, disguised, tranquilized, and qualified. It coexists, never peacefully, with the love, desire, respect, and need women also feel for men. Always man-hating is shadowed by its milder, more diplomatic and doubtful twin, ambivalence."
Judith Levine
"I feel what they feel: man-hating, that volatile admixture of pity, contempt, disgust, envy, alienation, fear, and rage at men. It is hatred not only for the anonymous man who makes sucking noises on the street, not only for the rapist or the judge who acquits him, but for what the Greeks called philo-aphilos, 'hate in love,' for the men women share their lives with--husbands, lovers, friends, fathers, brothers, sons, coworkers."
Judith Levine, My Enemy, My love
"There are no boundaries between affectionate sex and slavery in (the male) world. Distinctions between pleasure and danger are academic; the dirty-laundrylist of 'sex acts'...includes rape, foot binding, fellatio, intercourse, auto eroticism, incest, anal intercourse, use and production of pornography, cunnilingus, sexual harassment, and murder."
Judith Levine; summarizing comment on the WAS document, (A southern Women's Writing Collective: Women Against Sex.)
"Men's sexuality is mean and violent, and men so powerful that they can 'reach WITHIN women to fuck/construct us from the inside out.' Satan-like, men possess women, making their wicked fantasies and desires women's own. A woman who has sex with a man, therefore, does so against her will, 'even if she does not feel forced.'
Judith Levine
"All men are good for is fucking, and running over with a truck". Statement made by A University of Maine Feminist Administrator, quoted by Richard Dinsmore, who brought a successful civil suit against the University in the amount of a $600,000.1995 settlement Richard had protested the quote; was dismissed thereafter on the grounds of harassment; and responded by bringing suit against the University..
"We can't destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage."
Robin Morgan.-From Sisterhood Is Powerful, (ed), 1970, p. 537
"I feel that 'man-hating' is an honourable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them."
Robin Morgan.-former president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and editor of MS magazine
"I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire."
Robin Morgan.
"I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire."
Robin Morgan.
"And let's put one lie to rest for all time: the lie that men are oppressed, too, by sexism--the lie that there can be such a thing as 'men's liberation groups.' Oppression is something that one group of people commits against another group, specifically because of a 'threatening' characteristic shared by the latter group--skin, color, sex or age, etc. The oppressors are indeed FUCKED UP by being masters, but those masters are not OPPRESSED. Any master has the alternative of divesting himself of sexism or racism--the oppressed have no alternative--for they have no power but to fight. In the long run, Women's Liberation will of course free men--but in the short run it's going to cost men a lot of privilege, which no one gives up willingly or easily. Sexism is NOT the fault of women--kill your fathers, not your mothers".
Robin Morgan.
"All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman."
Catherine MacKinnon
"Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism."
Catherine MacKinnon
"You grow up with your father holding you down and covering your mouth so another man can make a horrible searing pain between your legs."
Catherine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified: Discourses of Life and Law – Sex and Violence: A Perspective, Harvard University Press, 1987
"All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman."
Catherine MacKinnon
"Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism."
Catherine MacKinnon" Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (First Harvard University Press, 1989), p.10
"In a patriarchal society, all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent."
Catherine MacKinnon
"You grow up with your father holding you down and covering your mouth so another man can make a horrible searing pain between your legs."
Catherine MacKinnon (Prominent legal feminist scholar)
"When a woman reaches orgasm with a man she is only collaborating with the patriarchal system, eroticizing her own oppression..."
Sheila Jeffreys
FMS stands for: Full of Mostly (Bull) shit; For More Sadism; Felons, Murdereres, Ssumballs; Frequent Molesters Society
From a February 1995 handout at the "Stone Angels" satanic ritual abuse conference in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. The conference was supported financially by the Ontario Government
"Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated."
Margaret Sanger
"The most merciful thing a family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it."
Margaret Sanger, founder of planned parenthood
"To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo."
Valerie Solanas, Author of the SCUM Manifesto (SCUM=Society for Cutting Up Men)
"[Males should] "...go off to the nearest friendly suicide center where they will be quickly and painlessly gassed to death."
Valerie Solanas, Author of the SCUM Manifesto (SCUM=Society for Cutting Up Men)
"Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex."
Valerie Solanas
"The male likes death--it excites him sexually and, already dead inside, he wants to die... The male is, by his very nature, a leech, an emotional parasite and, therefore, not ethically entitled to live, as no one has the right to live at someone else's expense."
Valerie Solanas
'To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo."
Valerie
Solanas Scum Manifesto
"If the classroom situation is very heteropatriarchal--a large beginning class of 50 to 60 students, say, with few feminist students--I am likely to define my task as largely one of recruitment...of persuading students that women are oppressed,"
Professor Joyce Trebilcot of Washington University, as quoted in Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women.
"Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex."
Valerie Solanas, SCUM Manifesto (Society for Cutting Up Men.)
"Masculine sexuality involves the oppression of women, competition among men, and fear of homosexuality." "Rape is the end logic of masculine sexuality." "Male sexuality is negative."
Introductory texts for Women's Studies Courses at UCLA including: "More Power than We Want: Masculine Sexuality and Violence" by
Bruce Kokopeli and George Lakey [Cited in TNV]
I wondered if the woman married to a pig had read this ... Did that mean that all over the globe, in all innocence, women were marrying beasts? ... Why are so many men really beasts? "
Jeanette Winterson "Oranges are Not the Only Fruit" 1993, pp.71 -76
(Nazi propaganda referred to Jews as 'pigs,' 'intolerable,' and 'subhuman'. )
Commentary:
"Imagine the response if women's studies classes taught students that minorities are evil [Jews, blacks, Asians, Italians] and then advocated that the path to freedom was segregation, including the refusal to hire minorities or allow any into your home. And imagine the uproar if feminists announced that the root of the world's problems was actually mixed - race sex. All of these rants would be condemned as racism. And this is sexism - just what we are supposed to be fighting. For countless young women, [and men] the feminist movement doesn't only look absurd, it looks hypocritical."
Renée Denfeld: The New Victorians Warner Books Time Warner 1996
This is sexism. This is terror propaganda. This hatred is no different from racism, xenophobia, or religious bigotry. All men and women deserve to be treated with equal respect and dignity in education. Do your part to discourage and end sexism, along with all forms of hatred.
Half of the human race is condemned because it is born male. Some men also express anti-male hatred, just as members of other groups have slandered their own members. All males are thus condemned: your father, grandfathers, brothers, uncles, sons, lovers, friends, classmates, professors, employers, and co-workers.
Replace 'men' with any other group: Jews, Blacks, native peoples, or women, and read those claims aloud to friends. Teachers and students should not tolerate such slanders. 'Patriarchy' theory is a conspiracy theory. Those who call men 'pigs' and 'rapists' are no different from haters who use words like 'bitch', 'nigger', or 'kike'. Some misandrists laugh at violence against men, and others justify offensive violence against men. Would you laugh if someone joked about violence against Asians? ... Arabs? .Homosexuals? Speak out against prejudice. Teachers and students should not tolerate such slanders.
You have the right to complain, whether you are male or female.
Professor (Ret'd) Jeffrey Asher
Ottawa
Reply to all
@split -"Your reference also to articles highlighting the poll in Canada I am guessing is the rather biased letter that came from a spokesperson for a "Shared Parenting" association in Canada ie, effectively a representative of a "father's rights" group, hardly reflecting the opinions of all Canadians. That would be like saying Edward Dabrowski, in all his ignorance, speaks for all of Australia (God forbid)."
____________________________________________________
You are correct in that you are guessing. The poll was conducted professionally by a polling firm under the auspices of the MP who is sponsoring the equal parenting bill in Canada. It effectively duplicates one taken back in 1998 during a joint Senate/Parliamentary committee study on shared parenting which resulted in the production of a report "For the Sake of The Children" which was never implemented.
Studies have been done by many reputable scholars on shared parenting outside of OZ and they clearly show children have far more positive outcomes when both parents are in their lives after divorce. It is important when they are doing a week about rotation the parents live close together and which will not interfere with their schooling or friends. As they approach the tween and teen age years friends are far more important than either parent - to them.
My reference to deadbeat moms living off the system applies more to the earlier comments by women with obvious personality disorders. They have only one thing in mind and that is entitlements and revenge. The children are collateral but important pawns to meet their goals. They are not uncommon here in Canada and they have the same views of ownership of children.
You seem to be a more reasonable person who understands children need both parents and I wish there were more moms like you. If there are two reasonable parents then appropriate schedules could be worked out in a more coherent and "best interest"
manner.
I do recommend F4E keep the comments by the earlier posters to show the decision makers the real truth behind those who shriek loudest and who the likes of Overington is cheerleading.
There are no surpises in your article. It goes much further than just demonising fathers as parents. There is a blantant and overwhelming shift in society over the last 5 - 10 years towards anti-male sentiment. Our very government organisataions that are supposed to put children first put the mother first. Watch ninemsn.com.au - almost every day there are multiple anti-male stories. And recently we find a woman who gets off a jail term for two counts of statutory rape.
I worked 100+ hours per week to keep my ex-wife in the lifestyle she demanded (which were damnded by abuse, threats and violence). I did almost all of the housework, cooking, and extra curricular work, whilst she watched TV and spent time with her mother, and what was shocking is that she is not an isolated or extreme case. Her bahaviour is far more common than you might think. To this day she still uses the children as a weapon with which to direct her anger at me. I won my shared care case, after two years and $35,000 and complete and utter financial destruction. I may have got 50/50 parenting, but I lost my career, my superannuation, my assets and my self esteem, but it was worth it. The kids are happier, performing better in school. Any person who thninks shared care is not approapriate is a fool, is blindsided by continual lies and deception of not just caroline and adele, but by key child related organisations in australia (they know who they are!) Anyone who cares about children supports shared parenting.
I should also say that I don't support the bizarre views that children should be subject to sole custody either, nor the anti-male sentiment of some female posters here. However, I do not believe for one moment that it is in a child's best interest to be shuttled back and forth between two houses like an object, particularly not a breastfeeding infant, which is happening more and more frequently, as reported recently by Overington and can be substantiated in the actual case files (Farmer v Rogers is just one example).
The school of thought that says women should "just express" (such as the comment by Edward Dabrowski) or that the father could just use formula, demonstrates a lack of understanding of the process of breastfeeding.
Each feed effectively "puts in an order" for the next and it relies completely on the premise of supply and demand. Expressing is not in any way a substitute for feeding at the breast and while it might suffice for a feed or two, it certainly would not allow a woman to maintain supply over a period of days or a week. Some women who breastfeed find expressing excruciating or impossible. Further to this, "comp" feeding with formula would simply cause the mother painful mastitis as the only way to maintain supply is to properly drain the breast. Yes, there may be women who prolong feeding in order to gain an advantage, but I would argue that most do not. Most women breastfeed because of the uncontested health benefits to both child and mother, because it is cheaper and more convenient. Do not make all women and children suffer because of the behaviour of a few - sound familiar? You guys don't all want to be tarred with the same brush because of a handful of deadbeats, so don't do it to us either.
The reason I raise this particular issue is that any reasonable father who had his child's best interest at heart wouldn't try to interfere with this process. Any reasonable mother would accept this sign of respect and do her best to facilitate as much time as practical with the father without compromising the baby's health, or the breastfeeding relationship.
If we want to take this whole thing further, why not find a way to allow men to gestate and breastfeed. I wonder then if they would be so prepared to hand their babies over for extended periods of time, causing themselves pain, discomfort and extreme inconvenience? Come on guys, most of us do it out of love for our kids, not to make your life difficult.
Unfortunately, as we all know, we are often not dealing with reasonable people, as if we were, the courts would not be being asked to decide cases like this. In my humble opinion, any man who would seek 50% custody of a breastfeeding infant (under 12mths of age), or in fact any over nights does not have his child's best interest at heart.
I would just like to point out that there is a very strong anti-female sentiment in many of these sites, unless of course it is reference to current partners who are obviously in favour, or ex partners who simply agree to whatever the father asks for.
I would argue that what is in the child's best interest might not necessarily be what either parent is asking for. Actually, like I said in my previous post, what is in the child's best interest is for the parents to remain together in the first instance. Already in separating at least one parent has put their own interests above that of their children.
I would also like to take the opportunity to object to comments about mothers on welfare. I have found myself in this category as a result of the unplanned pregnancy of another child of our now defunct marriage. My ex is the one who ended it for no real reason, he kicked us out of the house, is paying scant child support, I no longer have an income and am reliant for the first time in my life on welfare. I am an intelligent, educated and mostly reasonable person and I am deeply offended by the comments of one of your posters to the effect that I am a dead beat because of this.
As much as possible, I have done what is in my power to be as reasonable as I can, but for every guy out there who has been wronged, I can assure you that there is a woman or two who is suffering more, simply by virtue of her biology.
Honestly, I do not know what the answers are to this issue, but I do know that slagging women off or accusing all men of being abusers is not productive. Both parents should be involved in raising their children if it is possible. Neither one is more important than the other, but I reject the premise that this makes them equal. Men and women are different and they parent differently. The relationship is a complementary one and one can not readily be replaced with the other as the failure of sole custody has shown us, but that doesn't mean that children need equal time with both parents.
I think your German research article from WSJ was actually about degu pups and voles, not human children and in fact, the researchers themselves cautioned against extrapolating their results to human populations.
Your reference also to articles highlighting the poll in Canada I am guessing is the rather biased letter that came from a spokesperson for a "Shared Parenting" association in Canada ie, effectively a representative of a "father's rights" group, hardly reflecting the opinions of all Canadians. That would be like saying Edward Dabrowski, in all his ignorance, speaks for all of Australia (God forbid).
I have read extensively on this subject and I can safely say that your own representation of "research" is not without bias. Clutching at straws is not a robust way to further your cause. These two women have reported on real cases and real issues that our Family courts are messing up. I have read the actual transcripts of the cases they refer to - have you? So in 20 years time when the real research comes in and we find that we have a whole generation of children with mental and emotional problems related to homelessness, health problems like diabetes from a massive reduction in numbers of children breastfeeding, an inability to bond and form stable relationships, creating even more broken families that the courts have to deal with, will you say "sorry" to us for using our children as guinea pigs and destroying their lives? Sorry, but you only get one chance at life. The research needs to be done first, not the other way around. There have been nothing but debacles and screw ups as a result of these amendments and the wording of them is ambiguous. They are clearly not working.
I would dearly love to know how much parenting John Howard did of his own children to make him such an authority on the subject. Amusingly it obviously didn't win him the votes he thought it would. It is widely accepted in legal and academic circles that the 2006 amendments were not based on research, but simply on pressure from lobby groups (ie men's groups), so I find it a bit rich for you, as a lobbyist to be so prepared to hang these reporters for doing what you perceive to be the same.
Perhaps if more fathers strove for equality in parenting and domestic tasks prior to separation, there would be a lot fewer separations to begin with and then our children could have what they truly deserve - both parents together in the same home. If it weren't so sad, I would probably find the whole notion of men striving for equality to be completely absurd. You want relevant statistics? Check out the Australian Bureau of Statistics HILDA survey and you will find that women still do 76% of the parenting and domestics tasks in Australia, despite often being in paid employment. If you think that is equal, your maths is worse than mine.
It is hardly surprising that we have such major issues when so many men are so focused on self promotion and what their own perceived rights are that they lose sight of what children need and have a right to and they simply resort to attacking women in the process. Incredibly juvenile and not very good role models. So too, the genuine fear I feel when I read some of the nasty, ignorant, vindictive and hateful comments written about women by men in these forums on these sites. Yes, there are some women who write nasty things about men too and I'm not condoning that, I have just found the vitriol and hatred towards women by men to be far more sinister.
It would do many of you good to just grow up and instead of looking for ways to discredit, abuse and denigrate women, try looking for ways to work together for the sake of your children.
After all, you get more flies with honey
It is sad that a power war exists between parents "using" children post separation and divorce to what advantage. For $$$? For property??? To maintain and extended control of a former spouse??? I used to sit sadly and watch my step children checking every car that past by waiting for their weekend once a fortnight sleepover at Dad's home. "Is it Dad"? Anguishing if he happened to run ten minutes late. I was just as saddened to hear that my children became high as 'their fortnightly sleepover' with me drew closer. Bags packed days in advance. A new toy or teacher's praising comment or star in a school book proudly shared with me IMMEDIATELY upon arrival.
Time with Dad that was denied! Facts that were hidden! It was a torrid, emotionally draining period. Then as the universe unfolds so did they, all of them into young adulthood. No longer could they be controlled for a vested interest and the facts poured out. I could only listen. And hear I did! All the discourse strengthened their resolve for 'Dad' to be a part of their life. And the those with vested interest by their own doing, cling to the outer fringe to where they have been banished.
When will parents learn to truly demonstrate love of their children they promote a healthy relationship with a former spouse: even in an extended family. The rewards when they start to flow are insurmountable as 'Father Time' has revealed to me.
It is the child's right to able to spend time with both parents.
Neither parent should prevent the child from seeing the other parent.
The child does not owe the mother bacause she gives birth.
The child did not asked to be born but to be loved by both parents. Why should the mother or the father prevent the child from being loved and cared for the father.
It is precisely the attitude of some mothers who think that they own the child that share care and control is important to prevent abuse of sole custody rights.
Our prime minister has recently apologise for taking away the child from the parents. I hope our legal systems will not make the same mistake of taking away or allow the child to be taken away from the father
I just read the survey Ash. I am stunned that there is so much support for equal parenting in Parliament.
It tells me that this anti-shared care campaign is being driven by a few zelouts only.
The far majority support shared parenting.
Michael,
Log into the below section of our website and read.
You will find that we did do such a survey of Parliament in 2007.
The results were very interesting.
{ Link }
We also sent 1 and a half million emails to parliament via the F4E megaphone. We may need to re-install the Megaphone again going by how successful it was last time.
Michael. A very good idea you bring up as far as lobbying of MPs is concerned, and finding out what they think on the issue and i'll certainly be doing a bit of this myself now. As regards the press council, i believe F4E have put in complaints to the press council regarding bias and inaccurate reporting by the aforementioned journalists, and i know that i put my own complaint in regarding this issue, all to no avail. This is NOT to be taken as a political statement but perhaps since he is lagging in the opinion polls, and as he was brought up by a single father himself Malcolm Turnbull may be brought onside. He may not gain any of the feminist vote but as they are nearly all voting labour he won't lose any either, he could however win thousands of alenated fathers votes if he could be persuaded to take up our cause.
What are the positions of all the members of Parliament?? Both Federal and State Members.
Lobbying would be an effective educational tool.
maybe these Parenting stories and a few of the offensive biased comments should be packaged and sent to them?
- can someone in this "group" help automate sending responses to MP's and other organisations?
These "journalists - columnist" should be reported to the Press Council and the complaints sent to overseas equivalents, of the Press Council. along the with breaches of the UN Charter on Human Rights.
Overseas Publications may also be interested in knowing about the "bias of reporting" on this issue?
The issue of the Safety of Indian students is an explain of the Presses interest in Accurate reports - from and of Australia.
The safety of our Children and well being of our society, now and in the future depends on the Shared Care Laws being extended and the "racism and bias in the media" stamped out.
Scott,
You may be shocked at the level of cyber-bullying, cuber-stalking and email threats generated from these so called women's groups.
These bizarre postings on this blog, along with the threatening and astonishingly hostile private emails are one thing, but the online stalking of innocent fathers and posting of inflamatory and innacurate allegations against 'named' individuals is quite another.
It is in fact illegal activity, but they engage in this activity behind the protection of anonymous postings, in order to prevent decent people from excercising their right to freedom of speech.
This is the real face of the toxic mothers clan, as they are sometimes referred as.
Really nasty people who are full of rage and hatred.
They really are the WRONG type of people to be involved in such a child-sensitive issue as this.
Thankyou paulette and maureen.I'm well aware that most women/mothers are not like this. My own fiancee and her ex husband were also able to put together their own parenting plan without the need to go to court, despite their differences, and all their 3 children have thrived and are achieving well. One is currently doing her phd, the other daughter has done a baking trade and is now happily married and presented my fiancee with her first grandchild and her son who is still at school has plenty of certificates for high academic achievment.My fiancee gave her husband pretty much all the time he wanted with the children and he in turn paid her the required child support as is right and proper the result has been 3 well adjusted and achieving young adults. Unfortunately it is mothers/women like the first few posters on this thread who currently have the ear of the government and who are intent on taking us back to the bad old days which saw my own daughter end up as a half feral child in a class for slow children after only 3 years with her mother. Just as mothers get emotional, so do fathers when we see our children getting abused and neglected and the family court and social workers being complicit in children ending up as my own daughter did.
Welcome and i hope you put your own submissions and stories in.
Wow! I am shocked to hear some of the women's opinion's as a woman myself. I can only presume its emotional, rather than logical. We are rather emotional beings aren't we. It does give us women a sad reputation. I know guys aren't perfect but hey, nor are we.
Ash,
Maybe a useful addition to the "Fathers Stories" we are compiling for the A-G would be a collection of the hate-ridden posts from the likes Florin, Cynthia J and Jill McGee.
To me, they and their messages are the strongest and most powerful reasons for maintaining the current shared parenting laws. Not one of them even mentions the best interest of the children, its all about them getting revenge on their ex'es.
Which is what the old system assisted them to do.
I think its obvious from the posts on this blog who the abusers are.
Rather than put forward arguments, these spiteful mothers can only make offensive remarks.
If this is the extent of their ability to reason, then I can understand why they have lost custody of their children.
Ladies, engage in good faith in this discussion. making abusive posts is helping no one, least of all your kids.
Cynthia, How stupid are you. There are many reasons a child might be bed wetting. You can't be much of a mother if you don't know this. If you read on the internet that the world was going to end tomorrow i suppose you would believe that too. If a doctor doesn't believe you then i know who i would sooner believe.To your friends florin, l mont and jill, you have been allowed to post here, yet if i posted the poisonous lies and dribble that you have posted, on a feminist site, i would be deleted and banned from the site immediately. Guess that shows who the bullies really are.
Ian, feminists such as have posted on here are not exactly renowned for mature discussion or well reasoned arguments. On almost every forum i visit they almost always resort immediately to the denigration of ALL men, and the rationale that mothers and only mothers have rights, children have virtually no rights and men have no rights at all, only responsibilities.
Shared Parenting It Should be the Norm
By Lisa S. Ebert, JD
My marriage ended almost five years ago. And of course we share the parenting of our two children equally. I say “of course†because I can't imagine it any other way. I am often astounded at the parenting arrangements I see that are anything but shared.
{ Link }
I would urge all you moms out there that don't agree that shared parenting is indeed in the best interest of the child to read the above write up!
My comments;
I am a divorced woman, mother... when my ex and I decided to divorce we agreed to put our children first and life went on. My ex husband and I never stepped foot inside a court room. My ex remarried a wonderful woman that loved and nurtured my children (then 4 and 5 years old) right from the start and I loved her for loving my children. My children are now loving, caring adults and I have 4 beautiful grandbabies with number 5 due any day... my daughter and her husband are celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary on the 19th of November.
I had no idea that this CRAP! Was going on in our so called 'Family Law System'...
I met my partner and his two young children in 2005 and sadly, that is when we were all introduced to this shamefully flawed, family law system and parental alienation...
It was my partner's ex that ended their marriage for her lover, who was also her boss. Her income is double that of my partners so you know that her current husband's income is at least double that of hers. We have been to court 6 times since May 15, 2007. They can continue the fight indefinitely...
My partner and I on the other hand have been forced into an emotional, mental, physical and financial nightmare from hell and we are on the verge of losing everything because of it.
The saddest part of all is that, whatever my partner and I are feeling and suffering through, it is ten fold for our innocent children who wanted more time with Daddy!
How sad for all children!