Mens Rights Thread

The Corinthian · 25-07-2012 8:10am

matthew8 wrote: »

The US may be more traditional, but I think men have it easier there than here because of a total lack of feminism.

What makes you say that the US has a total lack of feminism?

Woodward · 25-07-2012 9:44am

matthew8 wrote: »

The US may be more traditional, but I think men have it easier there than here because of a total lack of feminism.

Um what?! Have you not seen that Obama is introducing Title IX into STEM areas in university to limit that amount of guys that can enter?

Pawwed Rig · 25-07-2012 10:12am

matthew8 wrote: »

The US may be more traditional, but I think men have it easier there than here because of a total lack of feminism.

The grass isn't always greener. You can get a much higher quality of life in the US than you maybe able to get here but things can be alot worse too. There are very few safety nets for people when things start going wrong. The divorce rate is huge and similar to here the man usually gets the worse part of that deal because 'kids need their Mommy'. It is not unusual for a man to have to hold down 2 jobs to meet the burdens of child support awards to kids they have no automatic rights to.

Funny when I was living in the US I was shocked at the injustice of their property tax system where it is based on valuation. A family could live in a house for generations but then the prices in the local area go up and they are forced to move out as they cannot afford the rates. Looks like we are going to adopt the exact same system...........go figure

matthew8 · 25-07-2012 12:49pm

The Corinthian wrote: »

What makes you say that the US has a total lack of feminism?

If you tried to introduce the idea of gender quotas for political parties it would be laughed out of the building.

The Corinthian · 25-07-2012 12:57pm

matthew8 wrote: »

If you tried to introduce the idea of gender quotas for political parties it would be laughed out of the building.

And from that single example you can extrapolate that the US has "a total lack of feminism"?

I might agree with you, although even there it's open to debate, were you to suggest that the US has "(significantly) less feminism" influencing their society, but "total lack" ignores existing laws and policies that have been influenced in the US as a result of feminism over the last thirty years.

I suggest that you are arriving at a rather extreme false conclusion.

matthew8 · 25-07-2012 2:02pm

The Corinthian wrote: »

And from that single example you can extrapolate that the US has "a total lack of feminism"?

I might agree with you, although even there it's open to debate, were you to suggest that the US has "(significantly) less feminism" influencing their society, but "total lack" ignores existing laws and policies that have been influenced in the US as a result of feminism over the last thirty years.

I suggest that you are arriving at a rather extreme false conclusion.

Total was pushing it a bit, but it's not mainstream at all.

Piliger · 25-07-2012 2:47pm

The Corinthian wrote: »

What makes you say that the US has a total lack of feminism?

That is just nutz. Feminism and women's rights are incredibly strong in the US.
The issue of quotas is not a reflection of feminism but of common sense overcoming a daft idea.

Ash.J.Williams · 25-07-2012 2:51pm

As of yesterday i'm a legal guardian of my child! what a long expensive process for a basic human right!

iptba · 25-07-2012 3:16pm

If we move away from the US vs Ireland angle, I'm afraid I don't buy that feminism is not responsible for the introduction of gender quotas.

It's a result of a feminist-type analysis that there is seen for a need for them.

And the reason they actually happen I believe is because people especially men can be afraid to challenge feminist ideas publicly because of the ad hominem attacks that can result. So bad ideas can be pushed through because people are afraid to speak out about them.

The Corinthian · 25-07-2012 3:20pm

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

As of yesterday i'm a legal guardian of my child! what a long expensive process for a basic human right!

Congratulations! And now the bad news...

Firstly, you can lose it. Of course in practice this is incredibly difficult to do as judges are extremely reluctant to do so, however there are a number of circumstances where it can happen. As such, I'd suggest you seek some professional advice on this so to avoid these circumstances being engineered in the future.

Secondly, guardianship affords you limited rights and in the near future those rights are likely to become even more limited.

Presently guardianship gives you to block any attempt to bring your child outside of the state or report it as abduction if it is done so without your consent (although any objections you may have can be overruled in court). It also, importantly means that your child cannot be legally adopted by a third party without your consent.

Where it comes to your legal right to determine your child's legal and religious upbringing, things get more fuzzy. In theory you have that right, but in practice the courts will generally side with the custodial parent (the mother).

Additionally, if the discussion paper on guardianship reform that was released last year is anything to go by, future 'reform' of guardianship will remove the legal right to determine your child's legal and religious upbringing, instead relegating it to a consultative role (i.e. you have a right to have your opinion ignored). This 'reform' will incidentally also affect the guardianship rights of married fathers.

So, congratulations, but don't overestimate the benefits of guardianship rights. In many respects, winning it is often a Pyrrhic victory.

Ash.J.Williams · 25-07-2012 3:28pm

The Corinthian wrote: »

Congratulations! And now the bad news...

Firstly, you can lose it. Of course in practice this is incredibly difficult to do as judges are extremely reluctant to do so, however there are a number of circumstances where it can happen. As such, I'd suggest you seek some professional advice on this so to avoid these circumstances being engineered in the future.

Secondly, guardianship affords you limited rights and in the near future those rights are likely to become even more limited.

Presently guardianship gives you to block any attempt to bring your child outside of the state or report it as abduction if it is done so without your consent (although any objections you may have can be overruled in court). It also, importantly means that your child cannot be legally adopted by a third party without your consent.

Where it comes to your legal right to determine your child's legal and religious upbringing, things get more fuzzy. In theory you have that right, but in practice the courts will generally side with the custodial parent (the mother).

Additionally, if the discussion paper on guardianship reform that was released last year is anything to go by, future 'reform' of guardianship will remove the legal right to determine your child's legal and religious upbringing, instead relegating it to a consultative role (i.e. you have a right to have your opinion ignored). This 'reform' will incidentally also affect the guardianship rights of married fathers.

So, congratulations, but don't overestimate the benefits of guardianship rights. In many respects, winning it is often a Pyrrhic victory.

oh i know! on one hand it felt great but on the other hand i'm well aware who calls the shots! for me it's merely an acknowledgement, and at least my child can have some comfort from that too, that i'm there.

py2006 · 25-07-2012 8:45pm

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

As of yesterday i'm a legal guardian of my child! what a long expensive process for a basic human right!

Congrats, is there a background to this story that you would care to share? Or has it been spoken about on here already?

Ash.J.Williams · 26-07-2012 1:52pm

py2006 wrote: »

Congrats, is there a background to this story that you would care to share? Or has it been spoken about on here already?

I have spoken about it in the unmarried fathers thread. It can be pain in the *** being a single dad who does not get on with the ex. My advice to anyone in this situation who wants to be an active father is to remain calm at all times, no matter how bad things are. Take whatever crap is thrown at you on the chin, and keep up the legal pressure. In tandem with this when you have access make the most of it, as it's impossible hard to deny a parent access to a child who is visibly happy with his/her father.

The Corinthian · 26-07-2012 2:52pm

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

In tandem with this when you have access make the most of it, as it's impossible hard to deny a parent access to a child who is visibly happy with his/her father.

This can be very difficult if the mother is actively obstructing access and/or practising parental alienation.

Most upsetting of all it can leave the child in a confused position where they clearly know they cannot mention the father in front of the mother and so begin to secretly ask grandparents and others about him behind her back.

Ash.J.Williams · 26-07-2012 2:54pm

The Corinthian wrote: »

This can be very difficult if the mother is actively obstructing access and/or practising parental alienation.

Most upsetting of all it can leave the child in a confused position where they clearly know they cannot mention the father in front of the mother and so begin to secretly ask grandparents and others about him behind her back.

that is true, and i am thankful i got some kind of resolution while still an infant.

The Corinthian · 26-07-2012 3:18pm

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

that is true, and i am thankful i got some kind of resolution while still an infant.

It's not a resolution though, and that's the problem.

Guardianship and an access order look good on paper, but the former is very limited in scope and the latter is seldom enforced.

Even where the father was married and is a guardian from the child's birth, access can be obstructed by the mother with little or not hope of a judge ever doing anything other than blustering at her - few mothers have ever ended up in jail for breaking an access order, while fathers frequently face imprisonment for breaking maintenance orders.

And parental alienation is eminently possible if the custodial parent chooses to manipulate the child into believing that the father is not present not because the mother is blocking access, but out of rejection. Skewed accounts fed to a small child can have devastating psychological effects that can last well into adulthood, even if the child later is able to figure out they were essentially lied to.

Unfortunately, as things stand - and as you pointed out yourself - mothers are the ones who call the shots. In the worst case scenarios, this can lead to fathers fighting a constant legal war with little hope beyond Pyrrhic victories, often giving up as the financial and psychological toll builds up.

Even in more cooperative relationships, I've sometimes seen bribery and financial exploitation become the norm, whereby the father ends up effectively paying the mother for access to his children. How many fathers end up having the child stay with them three of four nights a week, but are terrified to suggest that perhaps maintenance should be lowered from when the child was full-time with the mother, for fear of the consequences?

It's unfortunately the product of a system designed to protect neither the rights of the child nor the father, but the traditional role of women and one that has been conveniently ignored by Feminist groups who all too often claim to represent equality and oppose those traditional roles.

For your sake, I hope that your getting guardianship results in the mother accepting your role, rather than simply adapting her tactics to obstruct you in other ways.

Ash.J.Williams · 26-07-2012 3:31pm

The Corinthian wrote: »

It's not a resolution though, and that's the problem.

Guardianship and an access order look good on paper, but the former is very limited in scope and the latter is seldom enforced.

Even where the father was married and is a guardian from the child's birth, access can be obstructed by the mother with little or not hope of a judge ever doing anything other than blustering at her - few mothers have ever ended up in jail for breaking an access order, while fathers frequently face imprisonment for breaking maintenance orders.

And parental alienation is eminently possible if the custodial parent chooses to manipulate the child into believing that the father is not present not because the mother is blocking access, but out of rejection. Skewed accounts fed to a small child can have devastating psychological effects that can last well into adulthood, even if the child later is able to figure out they were essentially lied to.

Unfortunately, as things stand - and as you pointed out yourself - mothers are the ones who call the shots. In the worst case scenarios, this can lead to fathers fighting a constant legal war with little hope beyond Pyrrhic victories, often giving up as the financial and psychological toll builds up.

Even in more cooperative relationships, I've sometimes seen bribery and financial exploitation become the norm, whereby the father ends up effectively paying the mother for access to his children. How many fathers end up having the child stay with them three of four nights a week, but are terrified to suggest that perhaps maintenance should be lowered from when the child was full-time with the mother, for fear of the consequences?

It's unfortunately the product of a system designed to protect neither the rights of the child nor the father, but the traditional role of women and one that has been conveniently ignored by Feminist groups who all too often claim to represent equality and oppose those traditional roles.

For your sake, I hope that your getting guardianship results in the mother accepting your role, rather than simply adapting her tactics to obstruct you in other ways.

I am certain this will happen. I also believe a move to another area is likely in the future too. (a different provence)

The Corinthian · 26-07-2012 4:03pm

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

I am certain this will happen.

Well, the child is always the one to suffer when this happens. Either they never learn the truth, in which case they end up feeling rejected by their father. Or they do, in which case they end up feeling betrayed by the mother. Or they end up somewhere in-between and nothing is ever resolved for them.

iptba · 27-07-2012 2:03am

Thought this was interesting (from Friday's Irish Times):
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0727/1224320883346.html

The rate of youth unemployment rose by 74 per cent between the 2006 and 2011 censuses, with 39 per cent of those aged 15-24 recorded as being without work in April last year.

Unemployment among men in this age category almost doubled in that period to 50,440 from 26,448, meaning the unemployment rate among young males stood at 45 per cent last April.

Among women in the same age group, unemployment increased from 20,674 in 2006 to 31,713 – yielding an unemployment rate of 32 per cent.

yawha · 27-07-2012 4:33am

It'd be more interesting to look at the male/female divide in terms of area, level of education, area of education, and socio-economic status, I think.

iptba · 29-07-2012 10:02pm

yawha wrote: »

It'd be more interesting to look at the male/female divide in terms of area, level of education, area of education, and socio-economic status, I think.

According to the Irish Independent:

Unemployment among women was lower than for men across almost all socio-economic groups.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/youth-unemployment-rate-hit-almost-40pc-last-year-3181380.html

iptba · 07-08-2012 2:23am

From Tuesday's Irish Times:

Are we living in a girls' world?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2012/0807/1224321615473.html

This is about children specifically.

Woodward · 07-08-2012 9:52am

iptba wrote: »

From Tuesday's Irish Times:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2012/0807/1224321615473.html

This is about children specifically.

Great article. I was one of those who complained to tesco about the folders

Piliger · 07-08-2012 8:14pm

Quite incredible. It is indicative however of how those who are producing this stuff have total confidence they can get away with it.

Can you imagine what would happen if the reverse was in these images ? All HELL would break loose in the media, in parliament and in the courts.

Blisterman · 15-08-2012 10:24am

I think a lot of the reason the men's rights movement isn't taken seriously, is because a lot of it is over petty things, which barely affect anyone, rather than actual important things such as child access rights.

So far in this thread, we've had a cherry picked example of a guy in America being told to leave a bookstore, men dying for their girlfriends at the batman shooting, a binder with "boys are smelly", an ad which "only" showed a male abuser and differing conditions in prison.

Pawwed Rig · 15-08-2012 10:33am

Child access rights were discussed in detail in the previous thread to this one along with costs of insurance among many other topics

The Corinthian · 15-08-2012 10:38am

Blisterman wrote: »

I think a lot of the reason the men's rights movement isn't taken seriously, is because a lot of it is over petty things, which barely affect anyone, rather than actual important things such as child access rights.

Out of interest, would you consider;

someone being denied access to a book-store solely due to their gender,
the social conditioning that causes one human being to sacrifice their lives, based solely on gender,
the acceptability of framing one gender in negative and insulting ways,
the portrayal of only one gender as 'evil' or 'criminal', or
the difference in treatment in the penal system based only on gender

...to be "petty things, which barely affect anyone"? I would have thought that at least some of these are pretty fundamental human rights in a society that strives towards equality.

If you do, ask yourself; why are they "petty things"? That other things may be a higher priority, there's no doubt, but to relegate them to "petty" is a bit of an exaggerated reaction and so priorities are not a sufficient excuse for this.

Might it be that you feel that as men we should "take them on the chin", like a 'real man' should? If not why? Ask yourself.

iptba · 15-08-2012 1:30pm

Blisterman wrote: »

I think a lot of the reason the men's rights movement isn't taken seriously, is because a lot of it is over petty things, which barely affect anyone, rather than actual important things such as child access rights.

So far in this thread, we've had a cherry picked example of a guy in America being told to leave a bookstore, men dying for their girlfriends at the batman shooting, a binder with "boys are smelly", an ad which "only" showed a male abuser and differing conditions in prison.

Here are a couple of links for the sorts of things Men's Rights Activists might be interested in: http://web.archive.org/web/20110304160132/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masculism

http://en.wikimannia.org/Men's_movement .

Some individual points may seem petty until they are shown to be examples of a bigger problem; or else, sometimes they may not be good examples of much. The same could be said about feminism but in contrast, feminism is take seriously, so I'm not sure that's the reason men's rights isn't taken seriously.

Blisterman · 15-08-2012 1:45pm

The Corinthian wrote: »

Out of interest, would you consider;
someone being denied access to a book-store solely due to their gender,

the social conditioning that causes one human being to sacrifice their lives, based solely on gender,

the acceptability of framing one gender in negative and insulting ways,

the portrayal of only one gender as 'evil' or 'criminal', or

the difference in treatment in the penal system based only on gender

...to be "petty things, which barely affect anyone"? I would have thought that at least some of these are pretty fundamental human rights in a society that strives towards equality.

If you do, ask yourself; why are they "petty things"? That other things may be a higher priority, there's no doubt, but to relegate them to "petty" is a bit of an exaggerated reaction and so priorities are not a sufficient excuse for this.

Might it be that you feel that as men we should "take them on the chin", like a 'real man' should? If not why? Ask yourself.

A: That was a single incident involving one person on the other side of the world. Hardly indicative of any kind of institutional discrimination.
B: That was their individual choice, and there's absolutely no indication that gender was involved. I'm sure I could find cases where the sexes were reversed.
C: It's a joke. I hardly believe that the creators of that have any ill will towards men. I do agree, there would be controversy if the sexes were reversed, but I'd still think that was a ridiculous overreaction.

There was only one person in that ad. You could just as easily say it's portraying white people, tall people, irish people, people with blue eyes, etc as criminals. They're hardly going to have a montage of people of all gender, races, nationalities abusing kids in the interests of political correctness.
E: Campaigning that imprisoned criminals are made more comfortable is not going to convince many people to join in the men's rights movement.

So, yes, I do feel these are petty issues, and somebody would have to be extremely over-sensitive to feel any real offence at these issues.

Resorting to hyperbole and hysterical language is not going to help anyone.

Blisterman · 15-08-2012 1:52pm

iptba wrote: »

Here are a couple of links for the sorts of things Men's Rights Activists might be interested in: http://web.archive.org/web/20110304160132/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masculism

http://en.wikimannia.org/Men's_movement .

Some individual points may seem petty until they are shown to be examples of a bigger problem; or else, sometimes they may not be good examples of much. The same could be said about feminism but in contrast, feminism is take seriously, so I'm not sure that's the reason men's rights isn't taken seriously.

To say that discrimination against men is a "big problem" in today's world, compared to discrimination against women, is either naive or deliberately contrarian.

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