Your rights are going up in smoke, we are raising the alarm
http://www.livejournal.com/users/geniusdreams/54649.html
From Matthew O'Connor ... Dads Get Beaten Up Over Domestic Violence
FQ Magazine November 2004
I recently got beaten up verbally by newsreader Fiona Bruce over the issue of Domestic Violence in an interview. What I learned from my hammering is that the phrase "domestic violence" is now synonymous with male on female violence and that we are becoming blind to other types of abuse as a result.
It didn't matter to Ms Bruce that according to the last available Home Office figures that 39 children were killed my their mums, 19 by mum's new partner and 19 by the natural father in that year or that 65% of abuse according to the NSPCC is mother on child.
Her axe to grind (which she did very firmly in my back) was that all women were Madonnas and all dads were demons. This stereotyping of men wouldn't happen to any minority group or if I happened to be gay, black or Jewish yet it is rife in society and in the media.
Prompted by a recent Daily Mirror hatchet job on Fathers 4 Justice (F4J), she painted us as violent, debaucherous individuals. Now I like to indulge in a little debauchery but to paint 12,000 people in this unfavourable light using a handful of cases beggars belief. F4J is like a slice of society, we have the good, the bad and the ugly. I can't answer for everybody's peccadilloes and predilections but I would guess that they are a lot healthier than those of your average Tory MP or Judge.
Recently another journalist (ex Tory Spin Doctor and female Commentator) lambasted Jason 'Batman at Buck Palace' Hatch as having loose morals - and this from a woman it turned out had been having an affair with a married man who had two kids for 6 years. People in glass houses...
Yet I can't help feeling that these prejudices also stereotype contemporary women as down trodden long suffering creatures. Yet the reality is that 21st century women are more financially independent, more likely to stay single, more predatory sexually and less likely to stay in a relationship that doesn't conform to their expectations to let alone one in which they are abused.
And what constitutes domestic violence? Well according to the Home Office definition it isn't just hitting or punching or shoving but also includes 'emotional and financial abuse'. So should you find yourself in the middle of a relationship breakdown and you shout at your partner to stop smacking little Johnny round the ear (which is still legal ironically) you yourself could find yourself hauled up in court for Domestic Violence. If this sounds totally unbelievable, take my word for it, it happens and it's going to happen a lot more.
From January 2005 a new form for divorcing parents will be introduced which will have a box for parents to tick if there has been any 'domestic violence' in the relationship. Should mum stop you seeing little Johnny and you wind up (god forbid) in the 'Family' Courts there will be no need for any evidence to be produced and your guilt will be established by a Judge on the basis of 'probability' rather than the normal 'beyond reasonable doubt' principle. So instead of a presumption of innocence there is a presumption of guilt and the onus is on the father to 'prove' his innocence.
And by the way, whilst any allegation is investigated you won't get to see your kids at all, you might get a non molestation order preventing you from returning to your home, you might not be able to get your belongings out of the property and if you try ringing the kids mum can have you charged with harassment. If you think this all sound like total bollocks then wake up. Next time you play Family Law Lotto it could be you.
Now what if you did throw a plate across a room, or pushed mum in an argument, or you hit her after she hit you? All right minded people will condemn any kind of violence but why is it that if mum hits you (or little Johnny for that matter) it is acceptable, but if you hit her or little Johnny you become a violent wife beating, child abusing man who can't ever see his kids again, and whilst we are at it mum can move in the next Peter Sutcliffe or Ian Huntley and nobody will raise an eyebrow. What sort of conditioning has made us view such a serious subject through warped glasses?
And if you apply this way of thinking to it's logical conclusion then all men should be risk assessed before having any contact with children. And if Dad raises any concerns about Mum's new partner nobody will take a blind bit of notice and in some tragic cases I know of some children have died as a result.
What we are seeing is a Salem like Witch Hunt against men the like we have never seen being led by Women's Aid, Refuge and the NSPCC, where to point a finger is to find you guilty, where every man is a bush lurking, wife beating, child abusing, dog kicking nutter. Why? Well according to the barking broomstick flying fanatical feminists, the Al Quieda of womankind, it's what thousands of years of war and violence has done to us. Apparently we can't help it.
What's worst is that this lethal cocktail of hypocrisy and prejudice is being used to deny good loving dads access to their kids and putting those children at genuine risk in even greater danger by spreading resources so thinly that they are not properly protected.
Far from criticising groups like Fathers 4 Justice women's groups should be applauding our proposals which are designed to reduce conflict in the Family Courts. But no we stagger on, blindly peddling myth's as facts and using ingrained prejudices to formulate more anti-male legislation.
And we have let this happen right under our noses as we have been seduced by a diet of wine, women and song. Guy's, your rights are going up in smoke and we are sounding the alarm. It's time to wake up and open your eyes.
Matt O'Connor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathers_for_justice