There is an angry core of Australian men who use cyberspace as the latest forum to unload on how women have done them wrong

My observations left on the newspaper site but may not be published.

My goodness David you are a genuine Feminist. So glad to make your acquaintance. Do you exaggerate that "all" the men who complain are "angry"? Do you resort to hyperbole to defend the honour of feminists when you state "Setting aside the fact that there's no such thing as an over-exaggeration,..."

Well Mr. Penberthy you have been co-opted and you clearly have no clue at all about the wrath wrought by the opposite sex when they decide their partner is deserving of let me see where do I start...oh yes... verbal abuse which becomes at first annoying, then tiring and then just plain abusive. Do you not think men have feelings and their self esteem can be debilitated by constant emotional tirades? Then there is the matter of emptying the bank accounts and maxing out the credit cards. Then there is the use of weaponry such as 4.5' wooden rake handles which can kill. Did I mention getting beat on the head when not looking with a 10 lb water jug? How about your spouse robs, through fraud, your employer and ruins your career and does the same thing in a family business ruining the business.

You have not done any research to write this column and that is too bad but then its typical of those with your "manly" mindset. You criticize others for not providing citations but you argue the other way without citing any thing of merit either. You believe men are invincible and I'm not exaggerating (sarcasm). You really do not have a clue about the level of abuse women are capable of within a partnership and we haven't even gotten to emotional abuse through the alienation of children. Have you explored the abuse of children at the hands of females in your country. You should and you will be surprised to learn they are the leading gender in that respect. That is the same in the USA where single moms lead the pack for both maltreatment and killing of their children. It gets worse when you add in her new boyfriend.

In most western countries Domestic Violence is pretty much equal between genders. In my country of Canada 7% of females and 6% of males are impacted according to our lead Statistics gathering government agency. We live in a world suffused with mythological statistics that only women are victims and much of it is propaganda or gathered incorrectly. Its a pity.MJM



White Ribbon Day in forum's sight

• David Penberthy
• From: Herald Sun
• November 26, 2009 12:00AM

Ambassador: Entertainer Andrew O'Keefe spreads the White Ribbon Day message.

A few weeks ago we ran a column on The Punch website, examining their emergence. The piece documented

how even those columns with the most innocent subject matter, such as breast cancer, maternity leave, child care

or body image become a vehicle whereby crotchety men can bemoan the apparent neglect of men's health issues, the economic pressures faced by single dads and the raw deal they get from the courts.

The article had the unsurprising effect of attracting, well, an angry core of Australian men who use cyberspace as a forum to unload on how women have done them wrong.

There was a depressingly pertinent example of this mindset this week and it's worth pinging the perpetrators over it, as it demonstrated all the nonsensical self-pity of the men-are-victims-too brigade.

Related Coverage

• Editorial : Solemn promise

Bizarrely enough, the target of their anger this time was White Ribbon Day - you know, the wildly radical outfit that believes it's wrong to hit women, which argues that the overwhelming majority of victims of physical violence in the home are women, and that women are more likely to be sent to hospital or killed as a result of domestic violence.

Yes, the same apparently sinister organisation that believes it is appropriate that boys and young men should have their thinking challenged at a deliberately early age on the subject of how they treat girls and young women.

Let me be clear. The White Ribbon Day people argue those things because they are actually true. They advocate education programs for young blokes because the best way to address bad thinking is to nip it in the bud.

But it was White Ribbon Day that copped a clip over the ear from the Men's Rights Agency, which is the closest thing we have to an American-style woe-is-us men's movement in Australia.

I'm not sure how they do their sums but they claim that the domestic violence figures - official government statistics, no less - used by White Ribbon Day organisers have been exaggerated by 400 per cent and that one in every three victims of domestic violence is a man.

There is no evidence provided by the Men's Rights Agency to back up this claim of one in three, unless by domestic violence they are also counting psychological violence of the "For

God's sake, honey, will you stop watching the footy and just mow the bloody lawn" variety.

Their distortion of the stats is one thing. However, if they want to suggest that 33.3 per cent of domestic violence victims are called Nige and Bazza, and are hiding in the broom cupboard begging for mercy as the little lady gives them the rounds of the kitchen, sensible people will see it for the crock that it is.

But their continuing attempts to win a cheap headline and deter government from financing childhood education projects through White Ribbon Day should be deplored.

Parents are reporting their concerns when their sons come home wearing the WR wristband and then begin asking questions, which suggest the boys fear their future will be one of violence, the Men's Rights Agency said this week.

The MRA says there is no excuse for the intrusion of the White Ribbon message into our schools, particularly with their brand of over-exaggeration

of male violence and denial of violence by females.

Setting aside the fact that there's no such thing as an over-exaggeration, it would be nice if the Men's Rights people could line up this army of angry families who are appalled by this innocent educational gesture and, while they're at it, maybe they can also wheel out those long-suffering men for whom home is a place of terror.

Otherwise, we should just recognise it for the cant that it is.

David Penberthy is editor of The Punch website and a former editor of the Daily Telegraph newspaper

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/white-ribbon-day-in-forums-sight/story-e6frfhqf-1225803968252

Caroline Overington in OZ out does herself ~ Replace shared care with Canada model

My letter to the editor of the Paper:

from	Mike Murphy
sender time		Sent at 17:43 (GMT-04:00). Current time there: 18:02. ✆
to		letters@theaustralian.com.au
cc		online@theaustralian.com.au
date		25 October 2009 17:43
subject		Caroline Overington "Replace shared care with Canada model"

My Dear Editor:

Re: Caroline Overington "Replace shared care with Canada model", October 29, 2009 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,26259132-17044,00.html

I have followed Ms. Overington's feminist rants over the years and always wondered why there was no counter balancing to these views which are often factually incorrect. There is no exception with this article. I also find it interesting she gets her facts wrong from the Australian women's movement frequently but now dares venture to the top of the world and quotes from feminist lawyers reports which are famous for their lack of veracity and use of mendacity.

There is no difference in feminist discourse it appears no matter its national source. The information used is to promote feminist privilege and maternalist superiority often through the use of cherry picked statistics or pure fiction.

In Canada judges order maternal custody in over 90% of cases. They offer breadcrumbs to dads through the use of a legal fiction called joint custody but physical custody goes to mom who rules. Possession is not just 9/10ths of the law it is the whole of the law. Is this the model Australia aspires to by going backwards. Why doesn't Overington discus the Danish, Dutch, Belgian or French model? Perhaps even the German Cochem example? All are representative of shared parenting in practice and working for children and parents alike.

A few observations on her lack of sources and citation. "THE Rudd government has been urged to replace shared parenting laws with a model similar to that of Canada..." Urged by whom?

"The Australian understands that the Canadian model has been put to Attorney-General Robert McClelland..." Put to the AG by whom - a feminist lawyer group with less than 50 members in a country of 31 million? She quotes not just herself as "understanding" but your newspaper.

"Unlike the Australian family law regime, Canada does not require a court to presume that the best interests of the child are met by shared parenting" ..."It is unlikely that a breastfeeding baby would be placed in a shared care arrangement, as happens in Australia under the shared parenting law;" There is no shared parenting law in Canada, as yet, but bill C-422 is on the Parliamentary order table. If no shared parenting then the court presumes the status quo of maternal care which was the status quo in Australia prior to 2006.

Overington is using the non-existence of a shared parenting regime in Canada to propose Australia, in effect, go back to the status quo. Interesting circular logic. We call that a Non sequitur in most English speaking countries and indeed others.

"Canadian states and territories spell out some of the tests for the "best interests" principle." Overington needs to do more research on the socio-political and geographic nature of Canada. We have no states but we do have 3 territories on top of the world, one of which lays claim to the North Pole housing a magical figure called Santa Claus. Some of Overington's statements and conclusions are just as magical perhaps even mythological.

The Canadian Divorce Act, and most Provincially related Family legislation, is gender neutral but yet judges still award maternal custody in a 9-1 ratio to moms. I would suggest our judges need direction, as did yours, in balancing the gender difference. Our research by experts like Professor Edward Kruk, at the University Of British Columbia (the latter a Province) shows parents need a minimal 40% contact rate to maintain a parental bond. He also describes numerous negative social outcomes for children in sole care homes.

Can I recommend you hire a male reporter to help balance your reporting and opinion columns by feminists. It might make those like Overington actually do real research.

Mike Murphy

Promote Bill C-422 Equal Shared Parenting

Caroline Overington | October 26, 2009

Article from: The Australian

THE Rudd government has been urged to replace shared parenting laws with a model similar to that of Canada, where shared parenting after divorce is not necessarily considered in the best interests of the child.

The Australian understands that the Canadian model has been put to Attorney-General Robert McClelland as an option to consider as he wrestles with changes to the reforms introduced by the Howard government in 2006.

Canada places the interests of the child ahead of the right of either parent to insist upon a shared-care arrangement.

Unlike the Australian family law regime, Canada does not require a court to presume that the best interests of the child are met by shared parenting.

It encourages the courts to take into account the benefit to children of having a relationship with both parents after divorce, but also takes into account the roles played by each party before separation, and the consequences to children of too much disruption in their lives.

It is unlikely that a breastfeeding baby would be placed in a shared care arrangement, as happens in Australia under the shared parenting law; nor is it likely that children would be ordered into an arrangement that sees them woken from naps to visit their other parent, as also happens here. It is understood that the Canadian model has been put to Mr McClelland in the form of submissions from women lawyers, and from women's groups opposed to the shared parenting laws.

It is also understood that the main group representing divorced and separated men, the Shared Parenting Council, has put up no alternative to the current regime.

The group missed the deadline for submissions to the review of the law being chaired by retired family court judge Richard Chisholm. Rather than proceed without a paper from the fathers group, Professor Chisholm has offered to take a late submission.

Child custody in Canada is governed by the Divorce Act, which says that courts shall "take into consideration only the best interests of the child of the marriage".

That formulation is supported by case law, which also puts the interests of the child first.

Canadian states and territories spell out some of the tests for the "best interests" principle.

Some say any disruption of the child's life must be taken into account before shared care is considered.

Men's groups have tried to bring shared parenting to Canada, most recently in August, but so far they have failed.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,26259132-17044,00.html

Michael Coren: Feminism revisited

My letter to the editor with respect to the column:

Editor - National Post

Mr. Coren's column was very accurate. I had read Erin Pizzey's family history article in the Mail Online last Wednesday, 23/9/09 and was profoundly touched by her childhood tribulations. She is an extraordinary woman whose career and strength is inspiring to both men and women

Mr. Coren's understanding of the systemic problems many men face is helpful and his commentary very accurate. The ecosystem that caters to female victimization has made eunuchs of many men, especially those of the political, legal and judicial classes.

One dad spent 47 days in jail for throwing a sock at his wife while she was berating him. He, while throwing this harmful item said metaphorically "put a sock in it." Now to test the lethality of your sock, take it off and throw it at something, even your computer screen, with normal velocity. (Do not throw it if you have been jogging in the rain for 10K it will get the item wet). She called the police and got away with verbal abuse but he was arrested for assault. Where did our judgment go with mandatory arrest policies?


This is just one of hundreds upon hundreds of stories, in many cases, based on false allegations, where husbands and dads are criminalized and vilified by the feminist mantra we are all abusers.

Remember Tom' Cruises' so called sci-fi movie "Minority Report" about stopping a crime that hasn't yet occurred. With men we are already convicted in certain quarters, especially those mentioned above, well before anything happens.

Its got to stop.

Mike Murphy

Posted: September 29, 2009, 1:00 PM by NP Editor

Michael Coren, feminism

Growing up in Britain in the 1970s it was impossible not to be awareof Erin Pizzey. She was the iconic face of feminism, as she appeared ontelevision seemingly every other night to expose what she saw as theoppression of women. She also founded of one of the first domesticviolence shelters in the world. They were known as battered women’shomes in those days but the nomenclature, as well as the politics, haschanged over the years. So, it seems, has Erin Pizzey.

“I would go so far as to say,” she wrote last week, “that themovement, which proclaimed that all men are potential rapists andbatterers, was based on a lie that, if allowed to flourish, wouldresult in the complete destruction of family life ... Feminism, Irealized, was a lie. Women and men are both capable of extraordinarycruelty. Indeed, the only thing a child really needs — two biologicalparents under one roof — was being undermined by the very ideologywhich claimed to speak up for women’s rights.”

Pizzey seems to have arrived views which run delightfully,diametrically against the very core of contemporary feminism. And it’sdifficult to know which claim will cause the most offence to thewomen’s movement. The battle of assumptions — that all women are merelya step away from abuse — was actually won some time ago. As early asthe 1980s we were told that 50% of all women had been abused by theirmale partners at some point, and to question the statistic implied thatthe critic had something to hide.

The figures are largely inflated, heavily politicized and includewomen who during an argument with their husbands or lovers have beenshouted at. When, by the way, sociologists tried to research the ratesof lesbian abuse and indicated that they appeared to be extremely highthey were told that such work was redundant and the results far toosubjective to be reliable. What is beyond dispute is that women aresometimes abused, that they are seldom as physically strong as men andthat there was far greater acceptance of such base behaviour 40 yearsago than there is now.

It’s a crime. But one that is treated with a particular aggressionand activism by police, lawyers and judges. The mere claim of domesticviolence invariably leads to a man being removed from his home, oftenaway from his children. He is presumed guilty until he can proveotherwise, and if the incident occurs during a break-up or divorce it’sunlikely his spouse is going to suddenly admit that it was a mutualargument and that she called the police out of spite.

A very different scenario from that of a man who is, perhaps,repeatedly slapped, punched or emotionally abused by his wife. It’slikely that he will be too embarrassed to call for help and, even if hedoes, he will not be taken seriously. If the marriage ends he will belucky to see his children one day a week and perhaps every secondweekend. If, though, he misses his sometimes exorbitant supportpayments he will be called a deadbeat by allegedly responsiblepoliticians and probably treated like a career criminal.

The other aspect of Pizzey’s new analysis of feminism will probablycause even more outrage, even though it seems axiomatic and harmless:“two biological parents under one roof.” This is a philosophical warcrime for the new moralists. If we were force-fed the notion that womenwere perennial victims, we were given intravenous doses of the ideathat single-parent families were equal to the traditional variety. It’sjust not true. No child needs a bad father or dysfunctional parents butthis should not be — but frequently is — considered the conventionalnorm to which any alternative is compared.

The genuine choice is, with the exception of orthodox adoption,between two good natural parents and, yes, a broken home. Honestresearch constantly shows that we should aspire to both genders as rolemodels, male and female, to show different but equally valid forms oflove and care, the safety and certainty that there is a physical linkbetween parent and child and the stability, if at all possible, ofbeing raised in a permanent home with mum and dad rather than a daycare with someone else’s mum and dad.

Erin Pizzey has discovered a great deal over the years. Some wouldargue that her conclusions were always obvious, if only we were willingto look.
National Post

Michael Coren is a TV host and author. His website is www.michaelcoren.com.

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/09/29/330834.aspx#comments#ixzz0SW43qqL9

by WhiteRabbit Sep 29 2009 1:31 PM

Many feminists would have it that men are responsible for almost all domestic abuse. Such a fiction is propagated at the expense of the children.
by Mel from Calgary

Sep 29 2009
2:09 PM

"The genuine choice is, with the exception of orthodox adoption, between two good natural parents and, yes, a broken home."
There are only so many "orthodox adoption" parents out there and with "natural parents" being human we need plan "B" for when this doesn't happen.
I love Michael Coren clumsy use of code words.
by Sassylassie

Sep 29 2009
2:25 PM

Feminism is no longer a relevant cause, the political left cling to their lies and propaganda for government grants and to achieve special status in Academia. Personally I believe it was never about gender equality but gender supremacy by assigning victim status to all women.
Harper drastically cut funding to the mother of all feminist groups SOW and then in the next budget he returned funding to it's orginal levels. Sickening really, millions going to women to do studies on stupid subjects that have no relevance for real women.
by Anonymous66

Sep 29 2009
2:49 PM

In my opinion, Ms. Pizzey should have been challenged a lot more harshly about forgetting that "exception of adoption".
by Dirt farmer

Sep 29 2009
2:54 PM

The left likes to keep the lies going in order to destroy the family and lay the ground work to create the new "Soviet" man. It should be more important for society to work on and fix the dysfunctional characteristics of both men and women.
by rossbcan

Sep 29 2009
3:01 PM

“that the movement, which proclaimed that all men are potential rapists and batterers, was based on a lie..."
Yes, but the lie is far more pervasive and deadly than this narrow issue.
Easily refuted:
We live in an action precedes consequence reality. Nothing is REAL until an action occurs, spawning a consequence according to the laws of physical reality. This means, that all allegations of fixed "nature" implying "potential to X" to an individual or group is sheer speculation and slander, at a minimum.
This particular lie is a product of a provoked gender war between men and women, initiated by the legal "profession", aided by their partners in crime, the equally corrupt psychiatric and social "science" "professions". They feed and prosper from divorce court conflict, a protection racket by threatening the survival of BOTH spouses. The children are caught in the crossfire, abused collateral damage. When the litigants are impoverished, the legal "profession" loses all interest.
This in turn is a particular aspect of the general methodology of WAR (used most recently against Iraq, Iran now in the target sights):
1) Demonize target group (enemy) using false allegations, speculation regarding "potentialities" equated to reality by fake "experts"
2) Watch public response. When "idea" takes hold that enemy is a threat, get real and initiate aggression, with public "tolerance". Alternatively, aggress in a more subtle manner, evoking a defensive response from the enemy, which is spun as the enemy "initiating aggression"
3) Duke it out. Economic interests profit by feeding BOTH sides of the conflict and prepare to profit by rebuilding.
4) Once force has prevailed and enemy is incapable of organized defense, prey by stealing resources and enslaving the people. Demonize any dissidents as terrorists.
5) Provoke new enemy, start again at (1)
Our far wiser ancestors once stopped this madness and placed us on the path to civilization with the "rule of law" which is:
Sanction those who initiate aggression (and compensate victims) and OBEY:
http://www.cli.gs/RuleOfLaw
How do I know this? Our corrupt divorce courts taught me. A fatal tactical error, to attack an enemy while ignorant of their capabilities. What you do not know WILL kill you.
by Rectificatif

Sep 29 2009
3:03 PM

Michael, this is an excellent and important article.
BUT: You should have referenced your quotes from Mrs Pizzey. Was this the source? www.celticsurf.net/.../pizzey.html
Stats now tell us that an entire generation of young men are being disenfranchised and disadvantaged in various ways. The fabric of society, men and women together, is undermined, as natural male roles and masculine postures are ridiculued and stigmatised. Example: Rona Hardware, which has run the most virulent anti-male TV advertising we've ever seen, over and over for the past 6 months. You know the one: the husband who builds a deck inside his living room to avoid talking to his wife.

Canadian men are eunuchs; if they weren't, they'd have closed down Rona inside a month by boycotting it. But no, anti-male theology is undisputed.
Mrs Pizzey helped found the true women's movement in the UK. I hope she can reclaim that movement and help it recover from the lesbian putsch.

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/09/29/330834.aspx#comments#ixzz0SW60aJ71



by Sassylassie

Sep 29 2009
2:25 PM

Feminism is no longer a relevant cause, the political left cling to their lies and propaganda for government grants and to achieve special status in Academia. Personally I believe it was never about gender equality but gender supremacy by assigning victim status to all women.
Harper drastically cut funding to the mother of all feminist groups SOW and then in the next budget he returned funding to it's orginal levels. Sickening really, millions going to women to do studies on stupid subjects that have no relevance for real women.
by Anonymous66

Sep 29 2009
2:49 PM

In my opinion, Ms. Pizzey should have been challenged a lot more harshly about forgetting that "exception of adoption".
by Dirt farmer

Sep 29 2009
2:54 PM

The left likes to keep the lies going in order to destroy the family and lay the ground work to create the new "Soviet" man. It should be more important for society to work on and fix the dysfunctional characteristics of both men and women.
by rossbcan

Sep 29 2009
3:01 PM

“that the movement, which proclaimed that all men are potential rapists and batterers, was based on a lie..."
Yes, but the lie is far more pervasive and deadly than this narrow issue.
Easily refuted:
We live in an action precedes consequence reality. Nothing is REAL until an action occurs, spawning a consequence according to the laws of physical reality. This means, that all allegations of fixed "nature" implying "potential to X" to an individual or group is sheer speculation and slander, at a minimum.
This particular lie is a product of a provoked gender war between men and women, initiated by the legal "profession", aided by their partners in crime, the equally corrupt psychiatric and social "science" "professions". They feed and prosper from divorce court conflict, a protection racket by threatening the survival of BOTH spouses. The children are caught in the crossfire, abused collateral damage. When the litigants are impoverished, the legal "profession" loses all interest.
This in turn is a particular aspect of the general methodology of WAR (used most recently against Iraq, Iran now in the target sights):
1) Demonize target group (enemy) using false allegations, speculation regarding "potentialities" equated to reality by fake "experts"
2) Watch public response. When "idea" takes hold that enemy is a threat, get real and initiate aggression, with public "tolerance". Alternatively, aggress in a more subtle manner, evoking a defensive response from the enemy, which is spun as the enemy "initiating aggression"
3) Duke it out. Economic interests profit by feeding BOTH sides of the conflict and prepare to profit by rebuilding.
4) Once force has prevailed and enemy is incapable of organized defense, prey by stealing resources and enslaving the people. Demonize any dissidents as terrorists.
5) Provoke new enemy, start again at (1)
Our far wiser ancestors once stopped this madness and placed us on the path to civilization with the "rule of law" which is:
Sanction those who initiate aggression (and compensate victims) and OBEY:
http://www.cli.gs/RuleOfLaw
How do I know this? Our corrupt divorce courts taught me. A fatal tactical error, to attack an enemy while ignorant of their capabilities. What you do not know WILL kill you.
by Rectificatif

Sep 29 2009
3:03 PM

Michael, this is an excellent and important article.
BUT: You should have referenced your quotes from Mrs Pizzey. Was this the source? www.celticsurf.net/.../pizzey.html
Stats now tell us that an entire generation of young men are being disenfranchised and disadvantaged in various ways. The fabric of society, men and women together, is undermined, as natural male roles and masculine postures are ridiculued and stigmatised. Example: Rona Hardware, which has run the most virulent anti-male TV advertising we've ever seen, over and over for the past 6 months. You know the one: the husband who builds a deck inside his living room to avoid talking to his wife.
Canadian men are eunuchs; if they weren't, they'd have closed down Rona inside a month by boycotting it. But no, anti-male theology is undisputed.
Mrs Pizzey helped found the true women's movement in the UK. I hope she can reclaim that movement and help it recover from the lesbian putsch.

by MikeMurphy

Sep 29 2009
5:10 PM

I am a researcher and activist dealing with the current flavour of 3rd wave feminism (call it Victim, Lifeboat, or Gender if you like, they are all the same). Mr. Coren has apparently seen the light and had an epiphany which I salute.

I will be launching a HRC against Deb Matthews, Chris Bentley, Premier McQuinty and the local DV shelter in the coming months based on gender discrimination as they offer no services for Battered men. This has changed in Australia, the UK and in California. Its time has come in Ontario and the rest of Canada.

My goal has been for several years to find an equivalent service for men that provides tax supported emergency and reasonable term housing, food, and counselling for an abused man and his children. There is none in Sault Ste. Marie today as I experienced in 2006 when I first called local agencies.

This is unfortunate as I could have used this counselling a very long time ago. Had it been available perhaps it could have saved my marriage and my children a great deal of grief. I will re-commence the completion of my Human Rights Complaint once the decision on my custody battle with the ex is known.

Keep in mind an equal or greater proportion of DV related to sexual assault, robbery, bodily harm, discharging a firearm with intent, criminal negligence causing bodily harm, criminal harassment, and uttering threats, occurs after separation/divorce, not during the marriage. Eight (8)% of major assault and 40% of common assault also occurs after separation. (Stats Canada, 2008 report on Family Violence in Canada).

But look at this chart from a Stats Can Social Survey in 2005 looking at the trends to 2004. (Go here to see chart - parentalalienationcanada.blogspot.com/.../deb-matthews-feminist-minister-for.html) It clearly shows the rates of spousal violence after separation, shown in blue, are higher by a wide margin.

The social surveys draw information from a much broader sample than police reports and so I would conclude these DV shelters may well be part of a bigger problem that causes a greater degree of conflict after separation. This is not rocket science and it will not be one source but can I point you in a direction. DV shelters, family court judges ( a 9-1 ratio in awarding physical custody to moms), marginalizing men and using them as revenue spigots. An ecosystem designed to feed the female appetite for victimization.

Feminists or their sympathizers working in agencies like the CAS who don't solve problems and purport to know the right "maternal" way to do things, feminist sympathizers at other agencies who receive tax dollars for supervised access and who ostensibly deal with the mental health of children but would rather spend money on lawyers to try and intimidate dads who seek information on their children.

Did I mention many lawyers who say they only have the best interest of children in mind but as soon as your money runs out they are gone. The best interest of the Lawyer and the revenue lining their pockets is all that matters to most of them. Did I also mention that 75% of divorces in Canada are initiated by women! Do you start to get a better image of the deck and how it is stacked.

Also in the report and in my letter to Matthews is the 2006 table 4.1, page 43, from the same Stats Can 2008 report on the most recent spousal homicide numbers for 2006.
Male deaths 22 up from 12 in 2005, 56 Female deaths down 6 from 2005 and the rate per million spouses of 2.6 for men and 6.3 for women.

Turn those numbers around because they are based on 1,000,000 spouses, and as Dr. Don Dutton, PhD, UBC points out, you get 999,997.4 women do not kill their partners and 999,993.7 men do not kill their female partners. Does this warrant $208,000,000.00 for women's issues and not a cent for men.

It is pretty clear what the value of the gender of men is to the Liberal Government of Ontario and they will not even fund prostate cancer tests for men unless he already has symptoms. Women, on the other hand, can get all kinds of tests done free of charge including breast xrays. The patriarchy and feminists in government obviously like "boobs."

As these data include common law spouses where a greater degree of DV and homicide occur. All data available clearly point to the safest place for men, women and children is in a marriage. Yet these shelters are doing exactly the opposite and counselling women to "empower" themselves into single motherhood with all its attendant negative social outcomes, especially for children.

A new paradigm for DV is needed that involves all parties who are affected by it in the family.
Matthews recently decided to maintain the current gender paradigm (ie men are abusers and women victims) and she did this by having some feminist ideologues at the University of Ontario Institutue of Technology write a report confirming this should be government policy. I have asked if this contract was soul sourced in order to determine if the terms of reference were stacked to get the result Matthews want before the report was written. You can read my letter to the Matthews here if you so choose and a tiny part of my research parentalalienationcanada.blogspot.com/.../deb-matthews-feminist-minister-for.html
I am told it has the bureaucrats in a tizzy with lots of electronic messaging going on within the "Sisterhood" including the above mentioned academics at UOIT. Many of these self same bureaucrats are "Sisterhood" ideologues as well.
by Denis Pakkala

Sep 29 2009
5:17 PM

Thank You Michael Coren for speaking the truth, rather than the politically correct feminist mythology that has slowly destroyed families and eroded the rights of men to being second class citizens.

The left and the right are scared of feminist backlash and have quietly played along with the feminist agenda of blaming men and helping women.
Excellent comments above. Canadian men are eunuchs, especially politicians.
by Rectificatif

Sep 29 2009
5:27 PM

Mike Murphy, God bless you.
by teatime25

Sep 29 2009
5:32 PM

Take Back the Night marches are a bunch of phoney-victim-BS too. Interesting note about lesbian abuse Mr. Coren. Of course the feminazi's protect their own and don't want those statistics to be known.

Bigger question: where are all the so-called feminists while women in Islamic countries suffer daily under the oppression of sharia law? That is true subjugation, not the loser-mentality they teach at women's studies courses at universities.
by Rhino Party Whip

Sep 29 2009
5:32 PM

Go Mike Murphy!

by Anonymous66

Sep 29 2009
6:20 PM

MikeMurphy - HRC's are evil, and using them taints the cause you're trying to advance. You have some good points, but it would be more admirable to advance them by the political process than the kangaroo courts.

by rossbcan

Sep 29 2009
6:24 PM

@Mike Murphy

HRC's are not about fact, reason or law. The are about the private social "engineering" agendas and profit of those who run them.

The best you can do is further discredit them. But "justice", c'mon.

Ask Ezra

Besides, when the cons get their majority, bybye HRC's.

Yours is a matter of objective law and reparations. Good luck. Opening this can of worms risks a class action far larger than residential schools.

Try to find a "Plan B" that does not involve the agreement (or profit) of those who profit from this.

by Van Grungy

Sep 29 2009
6:39 PM

Umm,

Yeah, so what happened the night D'Arcy Sheppard was placed in the back of a cruiser on a domestic disturbance call?

Just wondering, cause of all those warrants ya know.

by erin17

Sep 29 2009
6:43 PM

I did open the first refuge in the world in chiswick London in 1971. I knew that violence in the family was not a gender issue. both my parents were violent and it was my mother who battered me. I said from the very beginning and I warned everyone that my vision was hi-jacked by the emerging feminist movement across the western world. They wanted a just cause and funding so they demonised all men and deified all women. The result has been the distruction of family life and fathers have been made redundant. The reason why now people are suddenly discovering what I have always been saying is that only now fifty years later am I being given a hearing. erin pizzey

by hunter902

Sep 29 2009
6:45 PM

Applaud your efforts, Mike...the imbalance needs to be brought to the forefront.

Teatime...take back the night is less about feminism than it is about how rape of women/children doesn't really get the consequences for the perp that it should in the criminal justice system.

Having agreed with most of what Mike's post was about, and feminism to the side for a moment, I would think that we could all agree that our daughters, mothers, sisters and wives should feel at least as safe as men from the fear of rape. This doesn't in any way shape or form discount the valid argument Mike put forward...it just happens to be a basis of fact. I want the streets as safe as possible for men, women and children. Random violence is not gender specific, I know...but the facts remain that more women and children are raped than men (though male rape absolutely does happen.)

Let's not confuse or equate feminism with wanting equal measures of safety for those more suceptible physically to violence.

by MikeMurphy

Sep 29 2009
6:57 PM

by Anonymous66 Sep 29 2009

6:20 PM

MikeMurphy - HRC's are evil, and using them taints the cause you're trying to advance. You have some good points, but it would be more admirable to advance them by the political process than the kangaroo courts.

____________________________

You must be new to the game. We have been trying with the political process for over 20 years. A good general when waging a battle will use any means that appear to move his strategy forward. Sun Tzu has said many wise things and this is but one.

"It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them instructions and care for them. Thus doubled agents are recruited and used."

One can look at HRC's as the enemy but they are ostensibly there for all sides. If they do not take up the issue then you can be assured they are as evil as many state. That, in and of itself, will be more ammunition to eliminate them.

One must and cannot ignore agents of change simply because they have served a purpose that does not suit another's viewpoint or agenda. To ignore any and all mechanisms to achieve a strategic goal is to accept defeat. You are seeing one of my tactics but you do not know the overall strategy. I believe that at times one must use the system in place, however distasteful, to change it.

Always keep in mind when in battle, and this is indeed a battle, to look at all your options. If you do not and the enemy sees it you will be thwarted and they will take advantage of it.

The feminists have a ample resources from your pocket and mine courtesy of many levels of government from municipal to federal. We do not.

by rkozga

Sep 29 2009
7:05 PM

Congratulations to Michael Coren. No doubt, the publicly-funded, United Way Campaign- supported thriving Canadian women’s groups and feminist organisations will mobilise their network of “volunteers” to target Mr. Coren as misogynist, for anyone who disagrees with their prejudices and stereotypes, is a misogynist. Meanwhile, the feminists at Statistics Canada will soon come out with their misleading: report on: “Family Violence in Canada” for 2009 again reporting only half of the domestic violence reality in Canada, as well as perpetuating the stereotype of women=poor victims, and men=violent abuser/ bad. A report which includes, as an actual act of violence against women, accusations made by women which are later found to be unfounded claims and/or mere vindictive fabrications. A report which relies on “Data Sources” such as biased women’s organisations and shelters, with not one men’s organisation or men’s abuse shelter consulted nor involved in the data gathering (since the constructed prejudice is that men do not need such services!). Thank you Mr. Coren, for your courage in addressing a reality that Canadians have been conditioned (for over 34 years) never to question nor challenge.

by rossbcan

Sep 29 2009
7:13 PM

My Plan B:

http://www.cli.gs/FamilyCourt

When aggressed against, basic choice is FIGHT or FLIGHT. When children are involved, FLIGHT is morally unacceptable. If you do, you bear full moral responsibility for what happens to them. That leaves FIGHT.

The problem is, the FIGHT is moderated and orchestrated by the legal "profession". Why on earth would they allow it to be resolved before impoverishment of the most prosperous spouse?

It is a TRAP (moral hazard of misdefined marriage), laid by "no fault" divorce which is really a license for one spouse to prey on the other during and after marriage.

Lawyers are the snake in the garden, promising entitlements and irresponsibility for those who initiate divorce under the impression they can have their spouses prosperity, without said spouse.

by MikeMurphy

Sep 29 2009
7:18 PM

Hunter 902 This isn't about ignoring violence. Its about crushing an ideology that promotes violence as a one way unidirectional process - from male to female.

I have 4 daughters who are pretty independent, self sufficient, traditional in many ways, and I would want the two youngest to train in martial arts (they are reluctant so far) to give them a greater degree of self confidence. They are strong girls regardless.

Violence against a weaker person is wrong no matter who carries it out. Keep in mind too Lesbian violence in partnerships is greater than in hetero relationships. In a case in Florida not that long ago the one female partner stabbed the other a total of 222 times "Carol Anne Burger killed her former lover by stabbing her 222 times with a Phillips-head screwdriver and then took pains to hide her crime, police said Wednesday." This was in Boynton Beach Florida in October, 2008. parentalalienationcanada.blogspot.com/2008_10_30_archive.html

We may see more of this violence go public in jurisdictions allowing same sex marriage because they will now have to go through the same painful and adversarial legal process the rest of us do. The latter getting changed is also part of a longer term strategy.

by teatime25

Sep 29 2009
7:39 PM

Gay on gay lover spats are often the worst kind of violence. Ask any ER nurse. Multiple stab wounds are common when homo's have a tiff.

by Sassylassie

Sep 29 2009
7:56 PM

You go Mike, the CHRC is suppose to protect people from Human Rights Violation, sic, not just violations against females as a protected group. It's time the CHRC provided services for all Canadians and that includes the discrimination of men. Go get them. It's discrimination to deny men access to domestic abuse shelters, it's discrimination to deny men access to community violence case workers the list of services denied men is long.

Mike I highly recommend you encourage your daughters to take self defense classes, they are much more concentrated towards stopping an assailant.

by hunter902

Sep 29 2009
8:01 PM

Mike,

That was exactly my point - to teatime...

Your earlier post hit a lot of major points that should be on everyone's radar, then came teatime's post.

Take Back the night is all about promoting safety. It still takes nothing away from your articulate viewpoint or merit in its content. Going forward, I'm sure you'll be gaining more support than you bargained for!

by Rectificatif

Sep 29 2009
8:15 PM

Murphy is correct to bother the HRC on this if he legitimately feels that his human rights have been violated. It forces the hrc to reveal its biological biases.

But, big butt, don't let the hrc bureaucracy silence you while they pee all over the case for 18 months. You must be aggressive and seek other means.

Other than that, we yearn for a political party, or at the least, a _group_, ready to defend fathers and the male population. Can Sterility be reversed?

Gentlemen, you put up with anything for Sex and Silence.

by Denis Pakkala

Sep 29 2009
11:43 PM

I applaud Mike Murphy's efforts to raise awareness of Equal Rights issues.

In the past 10 years there has been a rapidly growing field of credible peer reviewed research and professional support for treating domestic violence without gender bias.

Domestic violence is quickly becoming a big topic of debate. Any and all public awareness of these Equal rights issues is worth it.

by etarking

Sep 30 2009
1:00 AM

Feminism is the only political movement that is directly funded by the Canadian government, with your tax dollars. I wish the Canadian people understood how dangerous it is to publicly fund this political ideology.

We do understand the danger when it comes to traditional political parties, but feminism, paternalistic attitudes toward women, and pandering for the woman's vote have led us to a place where we can't question feminist dogma, even when we know it's false. It's a crying shame that what started as an equality movement has gone so wrong, and become a movement to get power and privilege. Millions of people have been victimized by feminism, including men, women, and children, without anyone in authority either recognizing it or daring to speak up about it.

The world is improved by Michael Coren's recognition that the "man bad/woman good" approach to reality is dangerous to children. Media, politicians, academia, "helping" professionals, and law bureaucrats have all used bent reasoning and bent research for decades now to promote irrational fear and loathing of men. I hope Coren's conversion is an indicator of change among the nation's opinion leaders.

We use radical feminist reasoning by default to examine every social issue, even though most women long ago repudiated it as an extremist view. We have persuaded married people that they don't have an obligation to stay together and work things out between them. We have fooled ourselves about childrens' actual parenting needs, which include secure dependence on both parents. We have frightened ourselves into treating every father in a family breakup as if he were a danger to the rest of the family either physically or psychologically, when he is actually the most powerful safety factor for the ordinary family, even those threatened with divorce.

All of this foolishness causes untold grief for millions of children that we claim to care about, and millions of women that we definitely do care about (and who don't divorce as wealthy and happy as they're led to expect), and millions of men and boys that we should care about but don't.

It's long past time to wise up, but we're so shot through and saturated with destructive myths that it is going to take a long, hard, conscious effort to recognize all of the hate and fear that we have built into virtually every social system we have. That will put us half way to rooting out our hateful habits.

-Eric Tarkington

by RobertA9

Sep 30 2009
8:20 AM

Laws and policies that marginalize and criminalize divorced fathers won't help women and certainly won't help children. In fact, they are stupidly, viciously and dangerously wrong. No one is more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose.

(For the record, I'm neither divorced nor a father.)

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/09/29/michael-coren-feminism-revisited.aspx#ixzz0ScMYWdkR

Married to the State

How government colonizes the family

By Stephen Baskerville

In 1947, with the baby boom in its infancy and few disposed to hearing of family crisis, Harvard sociologist Carle Zimmerman saw the long-term reality: the family had been deteriorating since the Renaissance and was nearing the point of no return. Whenever the family shows signs of dysfunction, Zimmerman observed, “the state helps to break it up.” During the 19th century, “law piled on law, and government agency upon government agency” until by 1900 “the state had become master of the family.” The result, he wrote in Family and Civilization, was that “the family is now truly the agent, the slave, the handmaiden of the state.”

Today we might regard 1947 as a golden age for the family. Without perceiving it, each generation has become acculturated to family deterioration and added to it. We now accept as normal what would have shocked our grandparents: cohabitation, illegitimacy, divorce, same-sex marriage, daycare, fast-food dinners. Indeed, shocking the previous generation is part of the thrill of filial rebellion.

What should shock even the liberal and the young—but today does not much disturb even the conservative and the old—are destruction of constitutional protections and invasions of personal freedom and privacy by the government’s family machinery. Some four decades ago, the Western world embarked on the boldest social experiment in its history. With no public discussion, laws were enacted in virtually every jurisdiction that ended marriage as an enforceable contract. Today it is not possible to form a binding agreement to create a family.

Few stopped to consider the implications of laws that shifted the breakup of private households from a voluntary to an involuntary process. Unilateral divorce involves government agents forcibly removing legally innocent people from their homes and seizing their property. It inherently abrogates not only the inviolability of marriage but the very concept of private life.

The most serious consequences involve children. Through involuntary divorce, a legally unimpeachable parent can be arrested for seeing his own children without government authorization. He can be charged with domestic violence or child abuse, without evidence that he has committed either crime. He can be hauled before a judge for not paying child support without proof that he actually owes it. He can even be arrested for not paying an attorney or psychotherapist whom he has not hired. No formal charge, no jury, no trial required.

To justify this repression, the divorce machinery has generated hysterias against fathers so inflammatory that few dare question them: child abuse, wife-beating, nonpayment of child support. The accused parent simply loses his family and finds himself abandoned, with everyone terrified to be associated with an accused “pedophile,” “batterer,” or “deadbeat dad.”

Our passivity before repression this serious is stunning and the starkest example yet of the erosion of that civic virtue that has been integral to American political thought since before the founding of the Republic.

Conservatives have labored this idea into a cliché. We preach that people must be more virtuous, less selfish, and more devoted to the public good. But these exhortations earn us nothing but contempt when we remain silent in the face of real tyranny, which, as usual, has appeared where we least expected it and are least equipped to resist it. Instead of resisting, we lament a decline in “culture” and declare there is very little we can do.

But as Linda McClain writes, families are “seedbeds of civic virtue” and “have a place in the project of forming persons into capable, responsible, self-governing citizens.” The family is where parents and children learn to love sacrificially, to put others’ needs before their own desires, to sacrifice for the welfare and protection of the whole. If this does not begin with one’s own home and loved ones it, does not begin at all. People unwilling to sacrifice for their own flesh and blood will not do so for the strangers who comprise their country. In the family, children learn to obey authorities other than the state—God, parents, clergy, teachers, coaches, neighbors. By accepting these, some of whom they love, children learn that government is not the only authority and is one that can and must be limited.

Conservatives have recently been eager to declare marriage and the family to be “public” institutions, largely in response to homosexual insistence that families are purely private and therefore may be defined according to the whims of individuals. But it is more precise to say that the family mediates between the public and the private, ensuring each its proper sphere. In the family children learn to distinguish and defend private life from encroachment by public power. Involvement in public affairs, which is important, begins as an extension of private responsibilities as parents, homeowners, neighbors, and parishioners. Citizens participate in public life as amateurs with a stake in their families, homes, and communities, not as professionals with a stake in a government program or ideology.

Children raised without intact families do not as readily absorb concepts such as family privacy, sacrificial love, parental authority, limited government, or civic virtue. For their rules and values come not from parents but from government officials, who have ultimate sovereignty over their lives: courts, lawyers, social workers, forensic therapists, public-school bureaucrats, and police. These are the figures they must obey rather than their parents. Thus children whose authority figures are government officials cannot distinguish the private from the public and come to see the public sphere as a realm not of civic duty and community leadership but of abstract ideology, government funding, professional employment, career advancement, and state power, in whose growth they acquire a vested interest.

It is no accident that the traditional family is described as patriarchal and that civic virtue traditionally suggested masculinity. It is also no coincidence that fathers are the ones marginalized by family decline.

Enormous attention has been devoted to the crisis of 24 million fatherless children, a phenomenon directly linked to every major social pathology from violent crime to substance abuse and truancy. Because these ills justify almost all domestic government spending, fatherlessness has resulted in a huge expansion of state power. The Obama administration aims to promote virtue with programs preaching “responsible fatherhood” and nagging men to practice “good fathering.” The Bush administration used similar schemes to argue for the importance of marriage. The result is the same: bewailing other people’s moral failings at taxpayer expense.

There is certainly truth in the connection between fatherhood and civil society. “Fathers play a key role in developing and sustaining the kind of personal character on which democracy depends,” writes Don Eberly of the National Fatherhood Initiative. Government therapy, on the other hand, cannot create virtue because it requires no sacrifice. Federal funding only gives officials incentives to perpetuate problems, so it is hardly surprising that not only have these programs done nothing to improve either fatherhood or marriage, they have exacerbated the breakdown of both.

Eberly’s point connecting fathers and freedom contains a larger truth. While families require sacrifice from all members, it is fathers whose sacrifice may extend to their very lives. Children deprived of their fathers by state officials therefore lose more than a parent. They lose the parent who connects them with the civic order. When the father protects and provides for his family, he will resist the state’s efforts to assume those roles. Under his leadership, the family is a force for limiting state power.

The single mother does not resist the state’s encroachment. On the contrary, she is our society’s principal claimant on a vast array of state services, without which she cannot manage her children. When the state usurps the roles of protector and provider and disciplinarian, the state becomes the father.

This is the story of modern politics: increasingly centralized police, plus the regulatory and welfare states that also promise various forms of protection. These paternal—and increasingly maternal—substitutes brought massive bureaucracies, fulfilling Tocqueville’s prophecy that democracy would lead to increasingly bureaucratic intrusion into private life. These agencies expanded by creating problems to solve. As police functionaries, they had to create criminals and newfangled, nonviolent crimes that most people (such as juries) could not understand and required “experts” to adjudicate—crimes that were safe for female police, crimes that could be committed only by men.

Fathers whose children are taken away by state officials do not heroically rescue them or organize opposition to the divorce machinery because the enervating power of the bureaucratic behemoth makes resistance pointless. Men are thus politically neutered and, as a result, often despised by their own children and the rest of us.

That most people do not regard these practices as tyrannical may be the most alarming aspect of all. Government agents seize control of children and property of vast numbers of law-abiding citizens through literally “no fault” of their own, and we accept it because of jargon that makes it all appear banal: “custody battle” and “division of property.” Fidelity to one’s word—let alone one’s spouse—is disdained. Basic civilities become irrelevant because family members can be made to obey through court orders. Family wealth—traditionally used to leverage both obedience from children and limits on government—is useless for both purposes. In divorce it is simply confiscated.

So vast numbers of children now grow up believing from the earliest age that it is normal for government officials to assume control over their family life, to order their parents about as if they were naughty children. This is causing more than social chaos. It is destroying our freedom and our will to defend it.

Stephen Baskerville is associate professor of government at Patrick Henry College and author of Taken into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family. A longer version of this essay will appear in The Family in America: A Journal of Public Policy.

http://www.amconmag.com/blog/married-to-the-state/