Earlier this morning we posted a piece about Parliament’s latest assault on fathers’ rights, an amendment to the Children and Families Bill:

https://j4mbdotorgdotuk.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/a-dark-day-for-fathers-rights-and-an-important-early-day-motion/

Ray Barry has just sent over the following piece, and it takes up the rest of this post:

WHO KILLED THE BILL? THE NSPCC DID.

Last week the NSPCC, as part of a consortium, killed off the part of the government’s Children and Families Bill which would have created a presumption in law that children benefit from having contact with their fathers.

The group, calling itself the Shared Parenting Consortium (a misnomer if ever there was one), successfully lobbied to change clause 11 of the bill.

The original Clause 11 said this: “A court… is as respects each parent…, unless the contrary is shown, that involvement of that parent in the life of the child concerned will further the child’s welfare.”

So, it is beneficial to a child to have the involvement of both parents, unless the contrary is shown. Where is the harm in that, you might ask?

The consortium argued that this wording did not make it sufficiently plain that the welfare of the child must be paramount, and their lobbying led to the Lords amending clause 11 last week to reflect that the “involvement” of fathers might be no more than indirect contact, e.g. permission to send a card to your child on Christmas and birthdays.

Did they miss the bit that said “unless the contrary is shown?”

That phrase gave all the protection necessary to allow a court, on the facts of an individual case, to rule that contact with one or other parent was unsafe and therefore not in the child’s interests.

With this amendment now accepted, even when a court does conclude that contact is safe and beneficial to a child, it needs to be no more than a minimal amount; an occasional card or letter will now meet the threshold set by this Bill. This amendment will convey to judges that they are obliged to order contact, but not any significant amount.

The role of the NSPCC in this consortium should not be overlooked.  They have “previous” on this issue.  They were instrumental in opposing a similar clause in the Children and Adoption Bill in 2005.  On that occasion, the NSPCC relied on a much discredited report which claimed “Women’s Aid has compiled a list of 29 children in 13 families who were killed as a result of contact (or in one case residence) arrangements in England and Wales between 1994 and 2004.” Apart from the fact that these figures were not verifiable and that much of the report was anecdotal, during the same period 536 children were killed by one or other parent, such that, even on the Women’s Aid figures, a child was less likely to be killed by a parent during contact than at other times!

Last June Mike Buchanan highlighted an NSPCC report, ‘Partner exploitation and violence in intimate personal relationships’, and an excellent rebuttal of it by American psychotherapist, Tom Golden, whose forensic analysis of the report shows quite shameful and deliberate manipulation of research findings to support the relentless anti-male and pro-female narrative spun by feminists.

I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that NSPCC’s agenda is now more anti-men than pro-children. I for one would sooner burn in hell than donate money to them.

A truly dreadful piece in today’s ‘ConservativeHome’ by Andrew Gimson, a contributing editor:

http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2014/02/the-tory-case-for-all-women-shortlists.html

I’ve just posted the following comments, and repeat them here in case they’re ‘pulled’ by the site. I invite you to add your own comments.

“Not one mention in this piece about individual merit, so far as I could see. Along with many others I cancelled my party membership the day Cameron announced his intention to introduce all-women PPC shortlists, in the autumn of 2009.

The reason most MPs are men is perfectly simple. Far more men than women seek a political career. Rather than going in for gesture politics, the Conservatives should be pointing that out. Parliament has bent over backwards over many years to be more female-friendly (revised working hours, provision of creches…) and still few women are coming forward. Indeed a number of the female Conservative MPs from the 2010 intake have already announced their intention to exit in 2015. There are fields women are disinclined to enter, politics and engineering among them. So what? There are fields men are disinclined to enter. Is anyone bothered about THAT?

The high proportion of male MPs doesn’t translate into pro-male and anti-female legislation. Quite the opposite. For 30+ years all legislation with a gender dimension – e.g. Equality Act (2010) – has been used in practise to advantage women over men. More female MPs would inevitably mean yet more assaults on the interests of men.

A year ago I formed a new political party, Justice for men & boys (and the women who love them). In our public consultation document we list 20 areas in which the interests of men (and/or boys) are assaulted by the state – through its actions and inactions – to advantage women (and/or girls). Women and/or girls are assaulted in no areas. NONE.

Because the Conservatives under Cameron have been following gender feminist agendas even more enthusiastically than the preceding Labour administrations, we’ll be contesting Conservative marginals in 2015. We have plenty of supporters and donors of both genders. This country has had enough of gesture politics. To introduce all-women PPC shortlists would be to follow the example of Harriet Harman rather than Margaret Thatcher. In 2008 Harman introduced legislation enabling parties to employ all-women PPC shortlists for the subsequent 33 years. No mention of that in the 2005 manifesto.

It’s time the Conservatives stopped pandering to gender feminists. They’re hate-driven female supremacists, and they’re on the wrong side of history.”

[Note: the following link will take you to a piece by Ray Barry about this story, with more details than in his piece included in this blog post. It’s titled, ‘Who killed the Bill? The NSPCC did.’

https://j4mbdotorgdotuk.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/who-killed-the-bill-the-nspcc-did/ ]

Last Wednesday was a dark day for fathers’ rights in the UK. The innocuous-sounding Coram Children’s Legal Centre (‘CCLC’) issued the following:

Children and Families Bill: ‘Shared Parenting’ legislation amendment places child welfare before presumption of equal contact

A consortium of children’s charities has successfully campaigned for an amendment to the Children and Families Bill which it feared could endanger the welfare of children whose parents are separating.

The Shared Parenting Consortium, led by Coram Children’s Legal Centre (CCLC) was concerned that the adoption of clause 11, which states that courts should ‘presume, unless the contrary is shown, that involvement of that parent in the life of the child concerned will further the child’s welfare’ could lead to separating parents assuming they are legally bound to equally share access to their children.

The consortium, which includes NSPCC, wanted to ensure the best interests of the child remain the paramount concern when reaching decisions on their upbringing.

Following their campaign over the last year, an amendment to clause 11 has now been made which clarifies that “involvement” means involvement of some kind, either direct or indirect, but not any particular division of a child’s time.

CCLC’s Director of International Programmes and Research, Professor Carolyn Hamilton said:

“The message to separating parents is that neither mothers nor fathers are entitled to a legally binding presumption of shared contact. Decision-making instead should rightly focus on determining the needs and best interests of each individual child, rather than focusing on the expectations of parents. 90% of access cases are settled out of court, so this amendment is crucial. It will make it clear on the face of the Bill that the welfare of children is paramount.”

The Bill will now move from the Third reading in the Lords and be sent back to the Commons for consideration of the Lords’ amendments. Finally, it will be sent to the monarch for royal assent and become law.

A link to the CCCL piece online:

http://www.childrenslegalcentre.com/index.php?page=children_and_families_bill:_%27shared_parenting%27_legislation_amendment

Virtually all of the staff of the CCCL are women, and one of its patrons is an odious gender feminist, Cherie Blair QC.

Ray Barry, leader of the Equal Parenting Alliance and Real F4J, will be our candidate for Wolverhampton SW at the 2015 general election. He writes:

This effectively negates the intended heart of the Bill, that there be a presumption that contact with both parents is in a child’s welfare interest, unless there is evidence to the contrary. This contact is now defined as “direct or indirect.” Indirect contact might be as little as permission to send your child a card every Christmas. With this presumption now effectively removed from the Bill, the position will be no different to the current position. Every initiative in the last 40 years to give a father a right in law to have access to his children has begun with trumpeting that this much-needed right will be put into law, and it is chipped away during the reading stages of the Bill by powerful lobby groups until there is nothing left of it, and exactly the same thing has happened this time. I would like to say I am surprised and disappointed but I am not. This is what I expected and predicted from the start.

Ray is working on a more detailed commentary on this matter, and we hope to post it later today.

So, what can we do now? We can encourage our MPs to sign the following Early Day Motion (EDM):

http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2013-14/210

The motion:

That this House notes that many fathers convicted of no criminal offence have very limited access to their children as a result of decisions made by the family courts following separation or divorce; further notes that the family courts operate in conditions of secrecy in which there is a lack of public accountability for the decisions they make; believes that mothers, children and fathers all have rights in relation to family contact and access where there has been family breakdown; further believes there should not be a presumption that family breakdown is the primary responsibility of either parent; further believes that where there is palpably no threat to children from their father in the context of family breakdown, the courts should try to maximise reasonable access in the interests of the children; and calls on the Government to review the operation of the family courts in general and their decision-making in relation to fathers’ access to children in the context of family breakdown in particular, taking into account the testimony of the many thousands of fathers who feel their rights are being ignored or abused in relation to their children and in particular the organisation Fathers4Justice and the 36,000 families it represents.

The EDM has been signed by 69 MPs, and needs to be signed by 100 by the end of February. We note that of the 69 signatories just seven are Conservatives, including Philip Davies MP, the only politician who’s ever won a ‘Winston’ award. We urge you to contact your MP and ask him/her to sign the EDM by the end of this month. Thank you.

I started my business career in 1979, as a management trainee with Beecham. I never worked for a better company. A year or two into the training I learned that on average female workers took more sick leave than male workers, and the majority of workers who took sick leave over a lengthy period were women. This had been common knowledge in both the private and public sectors for many years, but it appears the knowledge was somehow lost in the subsequent 35 years:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/women-make-up-two-thirds-of-uk-employees-on-long-term-sick-leave-9120703.html

From the article:

London MP Angie Bray told the Standard: “People will be surprised by the figures. It is certainly not my experience that women are more prone to long term sick leave.

“But if these statistics are accurate we need to take a closer look at what is driving them.

“Clearly if there is a serious problem then we need to ensure women have the support they need to get them fit and back into work.”

Hmm… women need ‘support’ to get them to work? Just another piece of evidence showing how sound Dr Catherine Hakim’s Preference Theory (2000) is. Her research showed that while four in seven British men are ‘work-centred’, just one in seven British women is. I believe I’ve now alluded to the theory more than 1,000 times. It certainly feels like it. Government policy directions continue to deny any gender-typical differences with respect to work orientation.

Here at our international headquarters in Bedford, we’ve long been fans of the journalist and broadcaster Angela Epstein. For years she’s spoken and written very intelligently about gender issues, and self-identifies as a non-feminist. The two things may possibly be related. Ahem. She was an early winner of a coveted ‘Maggie’ award, in October 2012:

121015 Maggie award for Angela Epstein

This post has been prompted by the welcome news that the estimable Mrs Epstein has started a new blog:

http://www.angelaepstein.co.uk/blog

Her first post:

As Angela Epstein journalist, broadcaster and commentator, I’m often invited to take part in debates on the BBC and ITV about women, equality and feminism. And while I do believe in equality, I don’t hold any truck with feminism in its modern day form. You could call me non-feminist (as opposed to anti-feminist). But before all the bra burners start howling in protest, let me explain. I believe that all the great battles upon which the Suffrage Movement was established have been won. And anything that’s left shouldn’t be a battle for women. If it’s about equality it should be a matter for all of society. Certainly squabbles about putting Jane Austen on a bank note is hardly worthy of the feminist heritage. It’s just grumpy women in bad clothes spoiling for a fight.

Biology didn’t make us equal it made us different. We have children, and that in itself may influence whether we can or want to pursue certain careers. We shouldn’t need women only shortlists or female quotas. If a woman is a good enough candidate – and she wants to apply – then she should be judged on the merit of her abilities and experience. Not her gender. Do women really look out for each other? Vast tracts of research about Queen Bee syndrome, and every day examples of backbiting and bitchiness suggests the sisterhood aren’t quite as sisterly as our gender presupposes it to be. I applaud all women who aim for the stars and reach their goals. But let’s be realistic about today’s definition of feminism. On this blog posting, I’ll be scrutinising the so called modern feminist argument and the female world of work. Join me and let me know your views.

We wish Angela every success with her new blog, and we have no doubt we’ll be seeing and hearing a lot more of her in the mainstream media over coming years.

A shocking piece of video footage from 2012:

https://archive.org/details/HomemadeVideoDrunkWomanSexualAbusesBoyXVIDEOS.COM

We obviously wouldn’t post a video of actual abuse, and thankfully a young man stopped things progressing further after the women had pulled the boy’s shirt and trousers off. It hardly needs saying the police won’t take any interest in this matter. If the video had been of a drunken male paedophile trying to sexually abuse a young girl, while other men laughed, there’d have been a media firestorm, the man would have been tracked down and the full force of the law brought down on him – and we’d support that.

In the week that an 81-year-old actor was acquitted on charges relating to alleged abuses 40-50 years ago, charges which appeared to have no supporting evidence, the continuing double standards of the police and the wider justice system are sickening.

At long last, an appropriate sentence is given to a woman who nearly killed a man:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/marie-watton-woman-who-stabbed-3130347#ixzz2t2CFxwqw

The variability of sentences is beyond belief. Only a week or two ago we posted a piece about a Glaswegian woman who slit a man’s throat and left him to die. She received a five-year sentence.

A donor has suggested we put up a post concerning TV and radio appearances, for people who might be unaware of our YouTube library. The library is maintained by the gentleman behind the ‘ManWomanMyth’ and ‘Humanity Bites’ YouTube channels, for which we’re very grateful. Our library:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKhX1c3ow6BrzdzP3ydpeZQ/videos

Most of the pieces are of BBC radio interviews and discussions, with Ray Barry or myself. Some are of pieces we weren’t involved in, but are of considerable interest to our supporters, such as the recent Newsnight piece on domestic abuse which was the subject of our official complaint to the BBC – to which we haven’t yet had a response.

The most-visited piece was drawn from Channel 4 News, in which Kat Banyard made an outrageous claim about the frequency with which schoolgirls experience sexual harassment, a claim not challenged by the relentlessly feminist-friendly Jon Snow. We publicly challenged Kat Banyard to retract her claim, and she hasn’t done so. The piece has the most ‘downvotes’ of any piece we’ve posted. Why would someone downvote a piece about a prominent feminist caught making a misleading statement? The obvious explanation is they don’t want that publicised. Wouldn’t it be better for Kat Banyard to publicly admit her ‘mistake’?

[Note: the material on this blog piece was later published, on 15.2.14, by ‘A Voice for Men’:

http://www.avoiceformen.com/men/being-a-man/

The comment stream is worth reading, as usual with AVfM.]

The inaugural ‘Being A Man’ Festival was held in London last weekend:

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/festivals-series/being-a-man

It was an event primarily focusing on how men should change so they could better serve women’s wants and needs – ‘redefining masculinity’, that kind of thing. A recurring theme of narratives around ‘redefining masculinity’ is that men must become more like women, in order that women can become more like men. There’s never any recognition in these narratives that the majority of people are gender-typical, for example that many working women would prefer to be at home looking after their children, rather than working to raise the money to pay strangers to look after them. In the UK the tax system militates against women making the choice they’d prefer.

The founder of The White Ribbon Campaign http://www.whiteribboncampaign.co.uk/ was a speaker. The campaign’s strapline is, ‘Men working to end violence against women’. No mention in the Festival programme of men as victims of violence at the hands of women, needless to say.  No mention of the many other problems men and boys face today, and what might be done about them.

The event was predictably lauded by the left-leaning press. A piece in the Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/02/being-a-man-festival-masculinity

From the article:

The festival is – obviously – the idea of a woman, Jude Kelly, artistic director at the Southbank Centre. Her mission, she suggested, was in part age-old female wisdom: that men need reminding that it might be a good thing to share their anxieties. Or, as she put it, to provide the space “for an overhaul of masculinity” and an “opportunity for men to go naked” – prompting a proportion of her male audience to cross their legs.

The end of the article:

All movements need a manifesto, and it took Grayson Perry in one of his Bo-Peepiest pink party dresses to provide one. Few men have done as much original thinking about what it means to be male as the transvestite potter, champion cyclist, therapy survivor, Turner prizewinner, devoted husband and father.

Grayson insisted that all we believed about men could be unbelieved – men can, despite the propaganda, multitask (“I never go upstairs without carrying something”) – and they can prevail in the constant battle with testosterone and keep it in their pants (frilly or otherwise), if they put their minds to it.

He ended with a scribbled series of demands. “We men ask ourselves and each other for the following: the right to be vulnerable, to be uncertain, to be wrong, to be intuitive, the right not to know, to be flexible and not to be ashamed.” He insisted that men sit down to achieve them. He received, deservedly, a standing ovation.

I’d sooner gnaw off a hand without the benefit of anaesthetic than attend such an awful event, so I was pleased to read a letter in yesterday’s Daily Mail. It was penned by an intelligent man, Andy Dumas, and takes up the remainder of this post:

“Attending the much talked about Being A Man Festival at London’s South Bank, I discovered that most of the organised discussions about modern masculinity assumed that 90 per cent of males spend 90 per cent of their time watching hard-core porn online.

Manliness as a topic was shunted aside in favour of a feminist agenda which catered only for grievances against the Great White Male.

One focus group, advertised as a discussion of the challenges facing black male professionals, digressed immediately into a predictable, hackneyed, ideological attack on culturally-embedded racism.

I admit superficial multicultural policies have failed to eliminate institutional racism, but I read all about that at university, long ago. What I wanted was an insight into the psyche of a black man operating in this pseudo-equality environment.

A panel discussing male sexuality, promiscuity and fidelity, soon drifted into a bland discussion about the evils of pornography and Britain’s uninspired sex education curriculum. Might there not have been more intellectual usefulness in exploring how men express their masculinity in the context of increased gender equality?

The final session of the day focused on ‘ordinary blokes’ – such as plumbers. Plumbers were referred to several times by the distinctly unblokey panellists to describe the archetypal ‘bloke’. But each struggled to describe how he had experienced the blokeyness so typical of plumbers.

The day descended into farce when the festival organiser, a woman, mounted the stage to screech about the evils of white male dominance, finishing by reading A Man’s Bill of Rights which was so neurotic it could only have been written by a girl. Smirk. But I was wrong! It had been penned by Grayson Perry. Smirk. It included, among other stupidity, ‘the right to be wrong’. What self-respecting man, black, white or brown, straight, gay or transgender, would sign up to that?

On balance, this show was intellectually vapid, politically cloistered and a waste of £12. I blame Jon Snow. I went only because he did. Next year I’ll take my £12 to the pub and watch the footy with the plumbers.”

The next time anyone asserts that unwanted sexual intercourse is overwhelmingly a phenomenon with male perpetrators and female victims, suggest they watch this short video:

http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/false-rape-culture/mens-rights-vs-feminist-rape-culture-explained-using-puzzle-pieces/