06.11.07
Father’s rights
Note: predictably enough the ST got a load of letters giving out about this column. Before the row starts on this forum I want to stress, I do NOT condone the current situation in the Family Law Courts and totally support the father’s rights campaign in so far as it extends to things like shared custody, names on birth certs etc. I do NOT support it spreading into things like car insurance and teaching. My principal point is HOW we arrived at the current situation. Who was the father of Anne Lovett’s baby? Women coped without men because they had to, not because of an evil feminist plot against men. That’s what I want acknowledged….So don’t start with the tragic stories of men who got done over by women. I know those stories. I sympathise. Its not fair. But let’s be truthful about how we arrived here…
I read one piece of election literature carefully : the card from the Fathers’ Rights Party. It asked “Are boys and men getting a raw deal?” and went on to list various grievances such as boys not doing as well as girls in education, high motor insurance, high male prison population, men dying seven years younger than women and separated fathers not being valued by the state. The Fathers’ Rights Party thinks that the solution is a Minister for Men.
What a joke. Men dominate politics from branch to cabinet level and now they want another Minister to look after them? Girls do better at school because they work harder. Women have cheaper insurance because they don’t drink, speed and kill others with the same zeal as men. Women live longer than men because they take better care of themselves. Fathers aren’t valued because so many women were left holding the baby they discovered they could get along without them. Men are getting a raw deal but since they’re the ones dealing the cards, I don’t understand why they need a political party. They could just change their behaviour.
I am personally familiar with appalling stories of fathers who have found themselves with few or no rights with regard to their children. It isn’t fair that they don’t have those rights and I’d be happy to see them restored. Some women are perfectly capable of using children as weapons in separation cases and the courts shouldn’t be easily fooled into co-operating with them. However I resent the notion that marauding feminists stormed the Dail and the Courts and stole rights from men. No one took away fathers rights: they gave them away. They ran off and came back to discover themselves surplus to requirements. Until there is some acknowledgement of this from the likes of the Fathers Rights Party, they aren’t going to get much sympathy, and therefore much help, from women.
How many awful films, books and documentaries have we seen about Magdalene Laundries and babies sold for adoption? How many women were packed off in disgrace and never heard from again? Why was the state obliged to pay Deserted Wives and Single Mothers’ allowances in the first place? The fathers weren’t exactly banging down the doors and rescuing the women from the laundries, were they? Shared custody is a relatively new concept for a nation that in one generation went from locking up pregnant women to supporting them financially because the fathers weren’t interested.
Social policy for the past 25 years has excluded men not because it had anything against fathers, but because it had to learn to function without them. I support the Fathers’ Rights Party policy that unmarried father’s names should be put on birth certificates but let’s not forget plenty of fathers weren’t too keen on being identified. If fathers are opting back in, that’s nice, but as in all cases of conflict resolution, a bit of truth and reconciliation about the past is required.
The narrative of the men’s movement assumes that we live in a post-feminist world. In this fictional world women not only have achieved full equality in all aspects of life but the balance has been tipped in their favour. Men, in the eyes of some, are now victims of our tyranny. The fact that men still dominate politics, academia, the public and civil service and private corporations is conveniently ignored.
Women organised themselves and campaigned for legal changes such as maternity pay. Those rights were granted to women by men who were and still are in power. If I understand the Fathers’ Rights Party correctly, they would like to elect TD’s so they can lobby themselves to give similar benefits to men. How bizarre.
Men are in crisis, but they are going the wrong way about getting themselves out of it.
The first thing they should do is stick to the core issue. They are called the Fathers Rights Party. Most people would be sympathetic to the fact that fathers are being treated unfairly by the Family Law Courts. But what’s that got to do with high motor insurance? Who thinks that premiums should be reduced for young male drivers who are statistically far more likely to cause death and serious injury to themselves and others? In fact, the actuarial cost of the insurance aside most people would agree that using high premiums to keep young male drivers off the road is a good thing. Calling yourself the Fathers Rights Party and highlighting the fact that most prisoners are men on your election literature doesn’t help the men’s movement. It just reminds people that most criminals are men, which is hardly conducive to fatherhood.
Secondly, if the Father’s Rights Movement wants to make progress they need to get women on board. They aren’t going to do that by developing policies which expressly annoy women. The Fathers Rights Party complains that too many primary school teachers are women thus leaving school boys without role models. The boys probably can’t help noticing that while the teachers are women, the principal is a man, and that structure is repeated throughout public and private employment.
If women have spotted a family friendly profession like primary school teaching, then well done to them for entering in droves. If male graduates see higher things for themselves than teaching small children, that’s their prerogative. The suggestion by the Fathers Rights Party that there should be affirmative action style quotas to achieve equal numbers of male teachers in primary schools is risible. If men have rejected primary school teaching despite their better chances of advancement within the profession, why should women candidates lose out on jobs so that a male colleague can make up the quota?
Finally, men will have to stick together. Last September Bertie Ahern explained on the Six-One news how the break up of his marriage left him broke and homeless. Fortunately he had friends to give him cash and a place to live. He went on to become the most powerful man in the country for ten years and one who knew at first hand how men can come off very badly from a separation. What did he do about it? Nothing. He had mates to help him out and it didn’t seem to dawn on him to help those who weren’t so fortunate.
The Fathers’ Rights Party literature bears a tag line “They say things won’t change because men don’t vote”. They do vote. They get elected. They become Taoiseach. They take cash from their friends and call it a loan so they don’t have to pay tax. Then they sit back and enjoy the trappings of power. That’s not a post-feminist world. That’s a man’s world and they are the only ones who can change it.
James said,
June 11, 2007 at 8:07 pm
I agree that the Fathers’ Rights Party should stick to there main aim rather than getting involved in car insurance and other areas they think men have been given a hard time.
Like wise women should stop giving out about politicians being mainly men you have had the vote for a few years now and your are not all voting for women.
Pete said,
June 11, 2007 at 10:07 pm
All fair enough except for your assumtion that all broken families are caused by the man running off and leaving the woman holding the baby. Women leave too, sometimes for good reasons, but sometimes just because they’re bored or meet someone younger/richer/whatever. And why not – they have the security of knowing that they’ll get to hang on to all the assets and most of the future earnings of the father they dump. That’s unfair, and that should be the core issue of the Father’s Rights Party.
JC Skinner said,
June 12, 2007 at 12:54 am
It is not young fathers whose rights to even see or know their children are being ignored today in 21st century Ireland, who were in any way responsible for crafting the illogical and socially experimental family law system we have inherited.
You’ve totally lost sight of the core issue here, which is the needs of children.
We need to migrate to a system of shared parenting in all cases it is possible, and as quickly as possible.
But as long as women collude with the antiquities of our laws, which were written in a time that women were assumed to be the caregivers (ie the 70s and 80s), then men and children will continue getting shortchanged, not just by the legal system but also by women like you who feign concern at the plight of fathers robbed of their children’s childhoods, but actually couldn’t give a shit.
Sarah said,
June 12, 2007 at 9:40 am
JC/Pete, Please remember, I don’t say fathers aren’t entitled to those rights. I say they don’t have them because a system was forced to evolve that didn’t include fathers. It should change, but fathers don’t have their names on the birth certs because they didn’t want them on. Like I say JC, where were the fathers of the Magdalene laundry girls? Who was doing the colluding then?
JC Skinner said,
June 12, 2007 at 4:26 pm
How should I know, Sarah? I was a baby myself! Your Magdalene analogy is irrelevant and meaningless in the current context, except insofar as you seem to feel that because women were once emotionally brutalised and stripped of their human rights, it’s fine that the same occurs to men and children now.
Fathers don’t have their names on the birth cert here because the law prohibits co-habiting unmarried parents to register anything more than the mother in the maternity hospital. From that initial insult and removal of rights all the rest flow.
Like I said already, the insensitivity you display undermines any statement you make about being sympathetic to change.
cathal said,
June 12, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Fathers aren’t named on birth certs because mothers don’t want their name to appear on the cert. Fathers don’t have a choice. Single mothers are financially better off if the father is not named. I think it is wrong to blame men of today for the sins or failures of fathers from a by-gone age.
Single fathers have no rights but married fathers are generally excluded by schools and social services etc. because “It appears to us (The HSE North East) that this issue of including fathers in treatment options was not the norm at the time (2004).
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/hse-lacks-policy-to-deal-with-parents-who-separate-126709.html
Harking back to the Magdalene laundries and blaming fathers of today is nonsense. Should we blame women because the nuns who ran the Magdalene laundries were women? JC Skinner is right when he says that you’ve totally lost sight of the core issue here, which are the needs of children. Children are voiceless and the state takes the mother as the voice for the child in all cases, be it the courts,social services, housing, education, health, etc.
Sarah said,
June 12, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Where did I say “it’s fine that the same occurs to men and children now”?
The pair of you are wilfully refusing to accept that I accept that the current situation is wrong.
And JC you are just plain wrong about that rubbish of the law “prohibiting” registering the father. Read how to register a birth here http://www.groireland.ie/registering_a_birth.htm
There is nothing to stop the father’s name, if unmarried, going on the birth cert.
jim jones said,
June 12, 2007 at 5:02 pm
JC was wrong to say that the law prohibits the registration of the father but cathal was right to say the single mothers are financially better off when the father isn’t named. She’ll get a higher amount of social welfare, she’ll get rent allowance and eventually a council house. All the while, the father can be making unrecorded cash in hand payments but has no say if the couple split
CG said,
June 12, 2007 at 5:42 pm
James we don’t vote for women because the parties don’t run them. Not a single woman ran in my constituency. When equal numbers of women run for parties across the board, then you can blame women voters for not putting them into power. But at the moment we’re not given a choice because parties don’t run women.
The article is spot on I think. I used to have some sympathy for father’s rights groups but most of that has evaporated. Most women get custody because most women are primary caregivers. When fathers do an equal share they’ll get equal custody. The fact is that most of these guys worked their jobs while their wife got the kids ready for school and gave them their baths and made their dinner. Once they get divorced, they can’t expect the courts to agree to totally disrupting the children’s lives just because NOW they don’t think childcare is beneath them. They should have done it all along.
And Paul I don’t think Sarah’s assuming the man is always to blame for breakup of a family. But what you’re basically saying is that a wife who’s not happy should be forced to stay married to a man who is. Sorry, but she doesn’t owe him that. He’s not entitled to it.
That’s the problem I have with the father’s rights stuff. Underlying so much of it is this idea that while married, hey, they OWNED their wives, and how dare the women have decided they weren’t happy. And once divorced and not supplying the man with sex, why should the man be required to continue to provide money for the children? Because that’s what marriage is of course. One party supplies sex, the other supplies money. No wonder they got divorced.
A lot of the measures that father’s rights proponents support seem reasonable at first but are actually just designed to further keep that bitch who divorced them under control. Like wanting mothers to have to keep detailed records of how all child support payments are spent. Like ok, but in practice, how is one supposed to work out every drop of petrol getting to sports training and every fairy cake baked for a school event (as opposed to guzzled by that scheming bitch). She claims to need 500 euro a month but just bought a new car? How dare she expect to keep the children in the same lifestyle they have known since birth. Unless she’s living in rags she has no right to ask for a penny. Etc etc ad nauseam.
And the fathers rights people are really DAMAGING as well because ordinary fellas go to them confused and in the throes of the divorce, and maybe they were oblivious to their wife’s unhappiness which is why they’re getting divorced in the first place, and they get told the courts hate them, their ex-wife wants to cut them out of their children’s lives, and that they’ll be a walking wallet for evermore. When in reality of course the majority of all divorces are settled amicably and everyone just wants to get on with things and be as happy as they can. And custody is worked out to everyone’s satisfaction and people CAN bear to be in each others company. And most decent men don’t mind paying money so that their children can have nice clothes and trips out and and a mother who isn’t panicked about cash all the time. And everyone is happy.
Of course that probably jars with JC Skinner’s view of society, where evil selfish women collude with (er, MALE) judges to do honest men out of contact with their children. You say its all about the best interests of the CHILD, but that’s bollocks to be honest. We need to switch to a standard of ’shared parenting’? Bollocks is that in children’s best interests. Children need to go to school every day and come home to a house with routine. Kids who are switched back and forth on a half-and-half basis come to school unprepared and disorganised, and certainly not happy. The fact is that children need ONE primary home, which means one parent must provide most of the weekly care, with the other one ‘getting’ them most weekends. The parent they stay with primarily should be the same parent who has cared for them for most of their lives. That is practically always the mother. If the poor, helpless young fathers, god love them, want to care for their children so badly they should do it from day one. Of course, it couldn’t possibly be the case that they feel cheated by their ex-wives and view custody arrangements as cruel one-upmanship and haggling over chattel. Of course not. The men are the VICTIMS here. Yeah.
Sarah said,
June 12, 2007 at 6:23 pm
“All the while, the father can be making unrecorded cash in hand payments but has no say if the couple split”
True, but why is he making the unrecorded cash payments and collaborating in the social welfare system? Because it suits both parties?
In fact, I don’t give FF much credit as you all know but Seamus Brennan did end the practice whereby payments were cut off if the father was staying in the house because the system had financial incentives to cut out the father. This is a good move.
But like I say the system evolved because there WERE no cash payments….
CG said,
June 12, 2007 at 6:29 pm
“True, but why is he making the unrecorded cash payments and collaborating in the social welfare system? ”
Oh, because all unmarried mothers are welfare cheats Sarah, determined to con society out of a council house and good men out of their children!
jim jones said,
June 12, 2007 at 6:42 pm
I have to disagree with the point made by CG that “we’re not given a choice because parties don’t run women”. The Progressive Democrats maintained the last administration with a minority parliamentary party which had a 50/50 gender divide but were the only party to lose seats in the last election becaue they weren’t popular with men or women. People should not vote on gender but on policies as politicians should represent their constituents regardless of gender.
The line “When fathers do an equal share they’ll get equal custody” is completely without foundation. I worked a shift and my wife worked as a jobsharer resulting in us both sharing the child care arrangements without any outside help, paid or otherwise. When we separated, she got sole custody while I got four hours, three days a week. This has happened to a number of my collegues, who all work shift and shared the childcare all along.
How can a woman, after a separation, expect to keep the children in the same lifestyle they have known since birth? It would be nice but there are now two homes to run with no increase in income. Other than the father takes up residence on a park bench and gets food donations from the Simon Community, the lifestyle for all has to suffer.
The claim that “the majority of all divorces are settled amicably” should be viewed in the context of the following link
http://justlikeaman.blogspot.com/2007/02/more-irish-divorces-separations-settled.html
Sarah-”True, but why is he making the unrecorded cash payments and collaborating in the social welfare system? ”
CG-”Oh, because all unmarried mothers are welfare cheats”.
Unrecorded cash payments result in both parents being welfare cheats. Don’t be so hard on the single mums.
CG said,
June 12, 2007 at 7:12 pm
The single mothers comment was sarcastic, Jim, I was disagreeing with the assumption that women chose not to name their baby’s fathers so as to cheat social welfare.
The link you gave seems to support the idea that divorces are settled amicably. Were you trying to draw attention to the anti-women comments section?
Point taken about now having to support two homes on the same money but the fact is that the children should not be the ones to suffer. Their primary home should get more of the cash.
And as far as you and you ex-wife sharing all childcare equitably – really? REALLY? So when your children were born, you took equal time off?
The women politicians point is separate but I’ll just say this: the legislature is supposed to be representative of the people. When the face of government is overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly white and male, that is a Bad Thing. In an ideal world it would fairly represent the society it governed. Wanting a balanced government is a legitimate issue to consider when deciding who to vote for. HOW important it is depends on the individual – but voting for a women candidate partly because she’ll balance out the Dail a bit more is fair enough. Other stuff comes into play too – but choosing who to vote for is always a juggle and a balance finding the candidate who best matches what you want. But anyway. The fathers rights stuff is much more interesting than this, I’m all electioned-out!
jim jones said,
June 12, 2007 at 7:25 pm
No, CG, I was drawing attention to the following:
March 6, 2007 1:42 PM
McDavitt said…
“I’ve just come across this post from last February and thought I’d add something to the debate. I consented to the custody of our children being granted solely to my wife. However, I was unaware of this as it was negotiated between my wife’s solicitor and my own without my knowledge. A complaint I made to the Law Society about this behaviour resulted in my receiving a refund of €3,500. However, I still do not have joint custody of our children which results in constant discrimination by State institutions such as the HSE and the school our children attend. I was effectively removed as a parent to our children but the official record shows that I “consented” to this.
Fathers don’t matter. Children are seen as the property of mothers, single or married, whereas fathers have no rights. Fathers might believe that they have rights but, on separation, suddenly discover that they are expendable. Fine Gael propose to introduce paid paternity leave but the reporting of the family policy ignored this in both the Irish Independent and the irish times”.
Just because fathers officially “consent” to no longer having custody, it is apparent, from this post, that the “consenting” is done between solicitors.
In relation to your comment “And as far as you and you ex-wife sharing all childcare equitably – really? REALLY? So when your children were born, you took equal time off?”
do you not believe this? Why would we have paid child care when I was off work and at home while my wife was working?
I didn’t take the same time off as my wife did when our children were born because, in this jurisdiction, a woman is entitled to paid maternity leave whereas a man isn’t. You might say this is to help her get over the birth of the child but it is also true for adoptive parents.
jim jones said,
June 12, 2007 at 7:34 pm
I should have added that I can’t agree with the point
“the fact is that the children should not be the ones to suffer. Their primary home should get more of the cash”.
In a separation or divorce, all things change. It’s a not-very-nice fact of life that EVERYONE (except the legal teams) suffers.
CG said,
June 12, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Yeah, Jim, but children should suffer LEAST. That means that their primary home should get more of the cash. Because in the vast majority of cases, the mother has done more of the caregiving, she is awarded majority custody. This is because it is BETTER for children to have one primary home than to be shifted about during the school week (a point Padraig makes very well in your link). So women get more of the money (usually) even though ‘they’ broke up the marriage (ie instigated the divorce- I don’t think that necessarily makes it them who broke up the marriage though).
What happened to that fella is terrible (no one has denied that a few poor individuals are in a sorry way – in fact the first thing Sarah said was that yes, these sob stories exist but they don’t validate the fathers rights people by themselves) but are crooked solicitors widespread and preying solely on men who want custody? Hell no.
And, exactly. Your wife took the time off work after the birth of kids. She took the economic penalty (and there is a massive one). You didn’t. She has put more time into caring for the kids, partly through the tyranny of biology but partly because you didn’t stop working, though you could have. It is in children’s interests to remain primarily with the person who has given them more care in their lives.
(Sorry for sounding really personal there – I certainly don’t want to be and I don’t even know you. I only say it because you brought up your circumstances. The fact is though, that women do most of the childrearing. I just hate the fact that the ONLY time that sexual stereotyping ever works even slightly in women’s favour (and even then not because they ARE women, but by dint of the ‘women’s work’ they’ve done), men come running out crying ‘prejudice’ and claiming to be victims. Where were they before?)
Padraig O'Morain said,
June 12, 2007 at 8:11 pm
In my work as a counsellor and in other capacities I have come across these three categories of fathers who are not living with their children:
1. The most common by far are those who are involved with their children and work out the details of the involvement with the mother of the children.
2. Next are those who are less involved with their children than the mother would like them to be.
3. Third are those who want more involvement but are frustrated by the mother.
jim jones said,
June 12, 2007 at 8:49 pm
I said that
“I didn’t take the same time off as my wife did when our children were born because, in this jurisdiction, a woman is entitled to paid maternity leave whereas a man isn’t”
but CG seems to have missed this vital economic fact by saying
“Your wife took the time off work after the birth of kids. She took the economic penalty (and there is a massive one).
She got PAID to take time off whereas I didn’t. Fine Gael recently said that they would introduce PAID paternity leave if in government but this policy was ignored by the media.
Also, as we were living together at the time, any “economic penalty” would have been suffered by the entire family. I could have stopped working but we would all have lost out.
How can you possibly say that crooked solicitors are not widespread? Due to the secrecy of the Family Law courts, even if they ALL were, we would not be allowed to know.
CG claims that “women do most of the childrearing”. I accept that but, as in my case, when it was shared, I am still only allowed limited contact. Forget about me, what about the kids? Is it fair on them to have to spend such little time with their dad? They have even pointed out the unfairness to me themselves.
CG seems to have a bit of an issue with sexual stereotyping only working in women’s favour in family break-ups but I have to get back to the point the JC Skinner made that this should all be about the children. Equality goes both ways, whether we like it or not.
Padraig says of the three types of father he has come across,
“Third are those who want more involvement but are frustrated by the mother.”
This is the group that should be looked after. Those who can reach agreement with the mother are fine, those who don’t want to be involved cannot be forced but the fathers who want more involvement with their children but are frustrated by the mother should be helped. Instead, the state, in the guise of the HSE and the schools, etc. stands in their way. We should all now tune into Primetime and watch the broadcast about the “Da” project in Ballyfermot.
CG said,
June 12, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Jim, I am sorry if you were offended that I spoke about your personal situation, but you did bring it up as an example. The fact is that taking time off work damages the career of the individual (you are in a better position re your work now than your ex-wife is).
I already addressed JC’s ‘think of the children!!’ point. So did Padraig in the link you gave. You’re ignoring it. I’ve said again and again, children need ONE primary home. It is NOT good for them to be halved between parents (however good it might be for the parents).
Come off it about the law courts. You seriously believe that all these (as I said earlier, usually MALE) judges and solicitors are conspiring to screw men over?
Women get custody more because they do the majority of childrearing. Men have no problem with this until their marriages break up and suddenly the women’s work is no longer beneath them.
Elizabeth said,
June 12, 2007 at 9:50 pm
There is a lot of truth in Sarah’s article. Padraig said that the smallest group of separated fathers he encountered were those who wanted more involvement but were frustrated by the mother. I think Sarah’s central point was that not only are these men in a minority, they are a relatively recent phenomenon. The state has been very slow to cater to their needs, which is disgraceful, but the structures that are in place reflect recent history rather than a feminist conspiracy.
Jim Jones said:
“How can you possibly say that crooked solicitors are not widespread? Due to the secrecy of the Family Law courts, even if they ALL were, we would not be allowed to know”.
This so-called secrecy is often cited as further proof of the conspiracy, as if the family courts were some kind of feminazi star chamber. In fact, family cases are heard in camera to protect the privacy of the parties, given the sensitivity of the subject matter and the involvement of children. The alternative would be a media free for all, where names and details of settlements etc could be published in the newspapers and broadcast and your neighbours and in-laws could sit in the courtroom – I don’t see how that would help an already fraught and sad situation. The difficulty is that the lack of knowledge about family law cases makes it difficult for lawyers to predict outcomes and for judges to be consistent. The attempted solution to this has been Carol Coulter’s project (referred to in the link provided by Jim Jones) which has, for the first time, provided a statistical analysis of family law proceedings. Her findings did not support many of the anecdotal myths which have grown up around this area and, although she was reporting from a position of factual information, she was roundly criticised by John Waters et al.
Incidentally, it is also a fact that many of the applications to the family courts do not involve divorce or separation but are made by women seeking orders to bar their violent partners from the home or orders to deal with partners who have failed to pay maintenance for their children even though they have the means to do so.
jim jones said,
June 12, 2007 at 10:04 pm
CG said “When fathers do an equal share they’ll get equal custody”
I said that “In my case, when it (Child care) was shared, I am still only allowed limited contact but CG ignored this.
CG then ignored the earlier point (When fathers do an equal share they’ll get equal custody), and stating that ‘Children need ONE primary home. It is NOT good for them to be halved between parents (however good it might be for the parents)”.
I have noticed that CG hasn’t commented on the link
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/hse-lacks-policy-to-deal-with-parents-who-separate-126709.html which proves the institutionalised discrimination against fathers.
In relation to the family law courts, I will prove how it is a completely unfair institution where there is no consistency, regardless of the gender of the Judge. These links should prove to any reasonable thinking person why family matters should be removed from the courts
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/abducted-schoolgirls-can-stay-on-in-ireland-with-their-mother-683683.html
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/mum-who-abducted-kids-loses-court-bid-to-keep-them-691347.html
CG, what’s your hang-up with gender? Do you really believe that a Judge or solicitor is any better, or worse, because they are male or female?
brian t said,
June 12, 2007 at 10:10 pm
I’m seeing colleagues at work suffering the burden of childcare costs, doctors’ bills, etc. Both parents need to work full-time, to afford to live anywhere near Dublin that they can actually commute from. I work at a multinational company, with people from all across Europe so, in a few years, the kids of some colleagues will be refused places at local schools, because they’re not Catholic. (Doesn’t the Irish Constitution have something to say about that?)
I don’t know if your article is “right” or not, but in combination with the comments here, and other articles, it paints an enervating picture of what men can look forward to, should they be so short-sighted as to get involved with a woman whose “clock” is ticking. Meanwhile, we have single women in their thirties wondering out loud: “where have all the good men gone?” Learning from the mistakes made by other men, that’s where.
CG said,
June 12, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Brian t – why do men’s rights people always come back to the unpleasant threats about how ’sorry’ all we women are going to be when our “clock” starts ticking?
I may only be a tremulous illogical womb on legs, captive to my base biological instincts, but I’d rather die alone than with some eejit who thinks society is out to get his gender.
jim jones said,
June 12, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Click on http://www.rte.ie and go to video highlights No. 4 to see tonight’s topical programme on Primetime
Pete said,
June 13, 2007 at 12:56 am
CG, I don’t see any threat in brian t’s post. What threat?
All he’s saying is that more and more men are seeing other men’s lives being wreaked by divorce, and decide not to go down the marriage route. It’s a reasonable response – they basically see a choice between dying alone, or dying alone and broke. They choose the former. It’s a rational choice, not a threat.
I found your first post on this thread hilarious for the views it expressed on marriage. Straight out of some text-book. “One party supplies sex, the other supplies money.”? God, if sex was all men wanted, there are much quicker and cheaper ways of getting it. And a woman who can’t earn money herself isn’t much use in a marriage these days, where both “parties” have to earn money full-time to have any hope of paying the mortgage and childcare. Long commutes, busy jobs and a child or two leaves neither “party” with the time or energy to even think about sex. That’s marriage today, and neither “party” is particularly happy about it.
“But what you’re basically saying is that a wife who’s not happy should be forced to stay married to a man who is.”. No, I’m not saying anyone should be forced to stay married to anyone. But what about the opposite situation, where the man is not happy and the woman is? Who is more likely to be trapped in an unhappy marriage? I say it’s the man! It’s much easier for the woman to end the marriage, knowing that the courts will give her the children, the house and most of the man’s income. If the unhappy man ends the marriage, he’s loses his home, income, and children. He’s trapped, she’s not. That gross unfairness is caused by the current court system, and what I’m saying is that the Fathers Rights Party are right to campaign to change it. Although I do agree with Sarah that some of their campaigning doesn’t do themselves any favours.
CG said,
June 13, 2007 at 1:24 am
Grr. Yet again someone fails to recognise SARCASM. My point was that this is how more obnoxious fathers rights brigade seem to see marriage. It’s not how I see it. Hence my comment ‘no wonder they got divorced’.
I’m getting sick of repeating the same things again and again without anyone bothering to engage with them. The ‘poor man’ (sob, sob) does not ‘lose’ his children, Pete, but he cannot expect to suddenly become their primary caregiver if he hasn’t been so all along. All I’ve been saying, and in this I heartily agree with Sarah’s original post, is that men can’t expect to have it both ways. Every study shows that female partners do the majority of the childrearing, whether or not they work. Even when men CAN take paternity leave, they often don’t. They can’t make those choices and then demand that the courts give them their children just because dirty nappies are no longer beneath them.
There’s no systematic unfairness in the court system. Coulter’s report bloody well PROVED that most people leave the courts satisfied and amicable. If a few men weren’t handed their every wish on a silver platter, they need to take a good look at the life choices they made prior to their divorce.
Your take on trapped men had me laughing. Tell that to all the abandoned wives. I wonder why they didn’t manage to ‘trap’ their man better?
Brian t reading back I think I may have been a bit harsh. The reason is that threats (or wild nostradamian prophesising, whatever you like to call it) about how miserable all the ungrateful bitches are going to be when they hit 35 are well-beloved of the more odious members of the men’s rights ‘movement’. Have a look for a few of their charming blogs and websites if you feel like a laugh (or a fright – they are seriously deluded, seriously bitter, and seriously misogynistic). Anyway you probably aren’t like that. But the idea that men are going to desert marriage in droves – yeah, right. Most people, in the world just as in Carol Coulter’s report, are happy and don’t blame a feminist conspiracy for unfortunate events in their lives. The sort that do, and want to have a ‘marriage strike’, are welcome to – women everywhere are better off without them.
brian t said,
June 13, 2007 at 7:15 am
Threats? Conspiracies? “Marriage Strikes”? No.
I was talking about the overall atmosphere that has been created, not any specific cases, or any explicit “action”. We’re all “playing the odds” here, and the way the odds have shifted against men, however much or little, will naturally have a knock-on effect on the next generation of bridegrooms-to-be. That’s all.
Deluded? Mysogynistic? Bitter? And you complain that no-one is “engaging” your arguments?
CG said,
June 13, 2007 at 7:51 am
Brian, I just said I wasn’t referring to you, but to a host of people who take the premise you’re referring to (”the way the odds have shifted against men”) and take it to bizarre levels.
I obviously disagree with the premise from the start, but the ‘marriage strike’ thing – google it if you don’t believe me how nasty the ‘men’s right movement’ is.
Niall said,
June 13, 2007 at 8:29 am
Just a quick point on teaching and men, it’s important to note that while a larger proportion of men are principals than are teachers, this in part reflects the fact that there were a greater proportion of male teachers in the past. Indeed, the profession was looked upon as male somewhere in the distant past.
One of the reasons you find that men are not attracted to teaching anymore is that it is difficult for a man to work with young children in any circumstance these days. Parents tend to work under the functional assumption that that men are paedophiles. If a young child has an ‘accident’ and a female teacher brings the child to a toilet and helps them clean up, then that’s one thing, but if a male teacher were to do the same, it’s looked upon with a degree of suspicion.
Now you can hardly blame parents for wanting to protect their kids, teaching has become a more stressful profession for men in recent times, so we should hardly be surprised if they abandon it.
CG said,
June 13, 2007 at 8:48 am
“Parents tend to work under the functional assumption that that men are paedophiles”
Ah not really! There’s protocols in every school now for dealing with kids who wet their pants and so forth. They don’t differentiate by sex. Myself and another teacher, both young females, had the glorious task of cleaning up a Junior Infant who had an accident a few months ago and we both had to be there the whole time he got changed.
The men-principals thing doesn’t stand up though because for decades now women have entered the profession in greater numbers than men and their chances of promotion are much more slim.
Part of the reason I’ve observed (I only worked with the youngest kids mind) that men don’t want to be primary teachers is that they’re not as interested in the babies. Male teachers tend to be more into organising sports and teams and Jnr and Snr Infants aren’t very rewarding in that respect. Our junior school was virtually all female, the senior side was split half male half female.
Of course the other reason is that its badly paid, over worked, and under appreciated, and its main draw is that it offers the chance for a great family life. You can take your kids to school, pick them up, and be with them all during the holidays. But those kind of things, as I mentioned above, don’t seem to be as important to men as to women.
CG said,
June 13, 2007 at 8:50 am
Have contradicted myself – not over worked. Must go to bed earlier!
jim jones said,
June 13, 2007 at 8:58 am
CG said
“When fathers do an equal share they’ll get equal custody”
and later claimed that
‘Children need ONE primary home. It is NOT good for them to be halved between parents (however good it might be for the parents)”.
I pointed out her contradiction earlier but this was ignored
jim jones said,
June 13, 2007 at 9:15 am
CG claims “Even when men CAN take paternity leave, they often don’t”.
I’d love to hear where you got that statistic.
jim jones said,
June 13, 2007 at 9:53 am
I thought it might be interesting to see the responses from the actual men criticised in the original article. Here are some of the letters printed but without the editing of the Sunday Times. These original letters are available at http://www.fathersrightsparty.ie/default2.asp?active_page_id=140
Sunday Times Letters Re Sarah Carey
Letters re Sarah Carey Article “Do men deserve more rights?” Sunday Times 27th May 2007
________________________________________
________________________________________
Dear Sir/Madam
I’m delighted Sarah Carey read her election material “carefully”, Sunday Times 27th May 2007. That was the objective of the flyer in the first place, sadly the majority of the electorate in Meath West probably didn’t. Ms. Carey falls into the trap of “girls do it better than boys” and forgets that all the boy’s are some mothers sons! The whole point about having the debate is not to attack, compare or demonise men and women but to raise questions as to what as a society we are doing to protect all of our citizens equally?? As the saying goes ‘the problem with equality is that it includes all of us’ and by definition that must include men/boys.
Ms. Carey asserts that “Social policy for the last 25yrs has excluded men, not because it had anything against fathers but because it had to function without them.” 14 ½ years ago I personally had to experience the humiliation of being told by a Judge (society) that “men don’t buy clothes and feed children, women do” despite the fact that I had done this for the first 2 ½ years of my child’s life, what sickens me about Ms. Carey’s patronising and condescending tone is that the Judge was female, now how does she reconcile that with the above assertion I wonder? What I can say, is that this disgusting treatment of fathers who stand up and say no, enough is enough, leaves them very exposed and vulnerable and it hardly surprises me that so many men would ‘walk away’ to stay safe and maintain their sanity and dignity.
Finally ‘I resent’ the fact that Ms. Carey sits on her ivory tower and slings arrows at those of us who have chosen a public platform and who are prepared to put our heads above the parapet while at the same time admits that she doesn’t have the courage of her own convictions, Sunday Times November 6th 2006 titled “You won’t see me in the Dáil”. Too right you won’t see her there! cowards and hypocrites never stand up and make themselves known instead they sling arrows from the periphery and snipe away at those of us who do.
As my party colleague Niall Brennan said in last week’s letter section “we don’t like it and we will change it.” If Ms. Carey has an issue with men and the FRP, as she clearly does, then perhaps one way of her making her peace with us (that’s if she wants to of course) is to “change her own behavior” as my grandmother used to say “Now wouldn’t that be something”.
Alan Beirne
Fathers Rights-Responsibility Candidate (Dublin Central)
584 North Circular Road
Dublin 1
+35387-7811218
________________________________________
I have recently joined the Fathers Rights Responsibility Party and stood as a candidate for Cork North Central in the recent election. I joined because the values and issues concerning the FRRP are also important to me, even if they do not register on the radar of any of the State’s political parties. Some examples: _
o Men and Fathers are routinely dispossessed of children and home in the so called ‘Family Law Courts’ on a daily basis.
o Family Law Courts are held in SECRET and those involved are not permitted to discuss any details outside the court.
o Legal professionals operating in the Family Law Courts refuse to accept and adhere to any Code of Conduct, and are ‘regulated’ by themselves.
o Unmarried fathers are not awarded automatic guardianship on the birth of their child (Where does the so called ‘Equality Authority’ stand on this issue?).
o Boys are not engaging academically with the educational system (I do not believe Sarah’s implication that boys can’t work hard at school).
o Suicide, particularly male suicide, is at an alarmingly high level. More people committed suicide last year than were killed on our roads (over 480 persons). 4 out of 5 suicides are male.
While the above, and many related problems, may not concern Sarah or indeed our WALK AWAY TAOISEACH, they directly affect thousands of families and parents across the country. However, every time male equality is raised, Sarah and her ilk attempt to shout down the issue as ‘a joke’, and harp on about female inequality as a higher priority.
I would ask Sarah to consider Linda Ellerbee’s comment: “People are pretty much alike. It’s only that our differences are more susceptible to definition than our similarities”.
You’re right about one thing Sarah: ‘if men don’t like it they can change it’. Well, we don’t ‘like’ it. We will change it.
Yours sincerely,
Niall Brennan,
Cobh,
Co. Cork
________________________________________
Dear Sir,
I enjoyed reading Ms. Carey’s tongue-in-cheek stab at men in her Sunday Times article “Do Men Deserve More Rights?” But over the last 30 years there have been a growing number of serious issues effecting men that society has ‘chosen’ to ignore. Men are not a homogeneous group, as the figures for male suicide, homelessness, depression, social marginalisation, alcohol and drug abuse, deaths from high risk jobs, ineffective health provision, and male gender cleansing from from their families and their children’s lives, will reveal…if journalists cared enough to focus on and investigate these issues in a forensic and professional manner. Yes, Ms. Carey is right; the world of politics seemingly is driven by men. But while a man driving a Rolls Royce can be portrayed as successful and powerful, the fact that he is a chauffeur driving women to Harrods would convey a whole different understanding of who has power over who. Ms. Carey gave a good example of how Bertie looked after himself when he was homeless following his relationship breakdown…yet, Bertie kept quiet and did nothing subsequently, despite being an elected representative (who happened to be a male), to help the thousands of men who, through no fault of their own, found themselves in similar positions. Men are programmed. through nature and/or nurture, to look after women and children, but not so inclined to help other men.
That is why men need fair rules; that is why men need the Father’s Rights Responsibility Party.
Yours, etc.
Sam Carroll
________________________________________
Reading the article entitled “Do men deserve more rights” by Sarah Carey, I was struck by a particular error in which then led to an observation.
The title FRP actually stands for Fathers Rights-Responsibility Party, (as printed on election literature referred to by Ms.Carey), not the Father’s Rights Party name which she ascribed to us. This distinction is critical and core to the genesis and ethos of the party. The grammatical error in the name with the wandering apostrophe and the singular R in the Party’s acronym used poetic licence, by design, quite deliberately, in order to emphasise the intertwined duality and indivisibility of Rights AND Responsibilities.
Our view is that all mothers and fathers primarily have responsibilities to love, care for and provide for their children (who innocently did not have a say in their own creation). In order to meet these inalienable parental responsibilities, both women and men require the rights to do so. Thus responsibilities are contingent on having commensurate rights and this applies to both men and women equally.
The problem lies with Irish Statutory and Social policies and cultures and the practice within the Family Law courts which continues to be inequitable and creates a parenting control paradigm, where effectively, fathers are “granted” rights at the whim of mothers. This discriminatory treatment is culturally underpinned by an outdated and untenable “tender years” presumption that somehow fathers are innately incapable of Joint Parenting, without the Gatekeeping supervision of the mother.
An example arises upon family separation where Social Welfare Policy refuses to recognise Joint custody. This forces a hierarchy of dominance and subservience of parenting with Fathers invariably under the thumb. This abhorrent concept of a control paradigm was supposedly what the feminist who preached equality fought to destroy (or was it only in areas where men were considered in the ascendancy, patriarchy etc?)
The great equality LIE is exposed when we look beyond the rhetoric of “feckless father”-bashing to the lived experience of thousands of fathers who care deeply and dearly (in many ways) for their children and who have stepped up to the plate, meeting their parenting responsibilities fully. These fathers (naturally) expected a supportive welcome and respect from the feminist equality warriors. Yet they end up as second class citizens and disposable parents.
Sadly, such fathers have punctured a cosy equilibrium for women, a domain of ownership, not just of children, but more importantly of childcare itself. The real problem with equally caring fathers is that they might have their own indigenous male perspective on parenting. In fact, if their roles were acknowledged, respected and as equally subvented as women’s are, then in fact they might get to like it more, and there’s the nub! Childcare cultures would have to change to accommodate men if men AND women’s hands now rocked the cradle.
While women rightly force changes in the public sphere to accommodate their special talents and needs, there seems to be a problem in accommodating and including a male parenting perspective (unless it comes from supplicant males who sing of the PC Equality hymn sheet).
Women’s groups and representatives have, for example, collectively failed to support shared parenting, unless it is overseen by the woman’s veto on what elements they actually want to share. If one doubts this thesis, then apply the Litmus test for shared parenting:- Where fathers and mothers equally share the care of their children, do you agree that child benefit should be equally shared by both parents?
Now hold your breath for the NWC to respond. Why the silence or the highlighting of only woman-friendly selective “Gender Equality” issues by the Equality Authority, our legislators etc? Why is it in the general election policy documents (by all the mainstream parties), that while policies and equality for women were emphasised, the Male dominated political fraternity (yes frater) disregarded the glaring difficulties men and boys are facing.
The FRP core mantra is “Putting Fatherhood back into the neighbourhood!”. It is filling the gap, by providing a political platform for a male perspective on family and community as an alternative to men giving out and doing nothing about it, and to those men in power who are in “The Nile”
The simplistic female response to authentic but challenging dialogue around equal parenting and specifically including the different rhythms of men , as exemplified in the article, is to misname a party, call us angry men, blame men and boys for the their difficulties, avoid the implications of the facts etc.
Finally, the observation I noted from Ms. Carey’s article was the use of the words “DESERVE” and “MORE” in the title”. Ultimately, it smacked of “Gatekeeping”, of the “knowing” sisterhood, who monitor a man’s progress, until like the poor horse in Animal Farm he has worked hard enough, and “deserves a little something!” It evoked imagery of patronage or of the granting of his “freedom” to Nelson Mandela. It reminds me of little Oliver twist cringing as he begs: “please Sir! Can I have some more?”
Sé an cheist prÃomha ná “An bhfuil Cead agam, nó an bhfuil do Cheart agam?”
Liam Ó GógáÃn
Chairman FRP
1 Dublin Road
Dundalk
Co. Louth
Mob 087 2543997
Sarah said,
June 13, 2007 at 11:52 am
Some thoughts…
One letter writer said ” I do not believe Sarah’s implication that boys can’t work hard at school” – Never said “can’t”. I said “don’t”.
I don’t know how anyone other than the super rich can afford a divorce. Everyone ends up poorer. But what can you do about that?
Fathers are hugely important in their children’s lives. For instance I think the Da project that Barnardos has launched this week is fantastic.
None of this changes the fact that social policy developed in the absence of fathers – not to exclude fathers. It’s not irrelevant to ask where were the fathers of the Magdalene babies. It’s the core issue. Someone had to rescue the women from that fate and the fathers weren’t queuing up to do it. So the state did it and hello Single Mother’s Allowance.
And I see no one picked up on the point about why the FRP is championing cheaper car insurance for men. Let’s exclude the points I made and argue with me over points I didn’t make. What a waste of time.
jim jones said,
June 13, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Got this article from a link on Padraigs blog. Thought it might show how the health services continue to marginalise fathers. I’ve also included links to show how the HSE here ignore fathers but no-one has picked up on these.
Maternity services urged to include fathers
John Carvel, social affairs editor
Monday June 4, 2007
An overhaul of NHS maternity services to stop doctors and midwives treating fathers as irrelevant is proposed today in a report from the charity Fathers Direct.
Duncan Fisher, the chief executive, said NHS research showed 60% of mothers were unhappy with the way their partner was treated before and after the birth. By ignoring fathers, staff went against the mother’s wishes. This made mothers dissatisfied and caused staff to miss out on key information, such as whether the father smoked, the state of his mental health and attitude to breast feeding.
The welfare of mother and child could be affected by a failure to address these issues. Mr Fisher said a recent survey of health visitors found 50% did not even know the father’s name.
Failure to provide fathers with information and encouragement was contributing to the breakdown of relationships. “By ignoring fathers, maternity and children’s services are storing up problems for the Child Support Agency at a later stage,” he said.
The Department of Health funded the charity’s work on producing guidelines for father-friendly maternity services, published today. They urge midwives, health visitors, doctors and receptionists to accept a duty to engage with both mother and father. “Not to do so is to compromise the wellbeing of mother and baby.” Mr Fisher said.
Whenever possible, maternity staff should register the father and involve him at every stage, including providing advice about what he can most usefully do if he attends the birth. “Staff are often good at engaging fathers if they are polite, articulate and middle class. But, if they are young or from an ethnic minority, they are regarded as too much trouble.
“Services should engage more with fathers presenting difficult behaviour, not less.” By ignoring these men, they left the mothers to deal with problems alone, Mr Fisher said.
Frances Day-Stirk, director of the Royal College of Midwives, said: “We believe maternity care should reach out to and include all members of that family. Midwives should make fathers feel welcome and involved; they should include them in parenting education, offer them the opportunity to discuss their thoughts and feelings about the changes they are facing, and support them in supporting their partner and infant.”
The Department of Health said: “Involving prospective and new fathers in a child’s life is extremely important for producing a happy and healthy child … Supportive and high quality maternity care not only contributes to ensuring a healthy start for the newborn baby, but can also help equip both fathers and mothers with the skills to be confident and caring parents as they embark on family life.”
Here’s another link for CG but you probably wont comment on it because it proves a point that can’t be argued.
http://www.village.ie/Ireland/Health/HSE_failed_to_deal_with_guardianship_rights_of_father/
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/hse-lacks-policy-to-deal-with-parents-who-separate-126709.html
Sarah said,
June 13, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Jim
what has any of this got to do with any of the points I made?
As for new fathers…that article is about the NHS.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of my peers complain about the father’s treatment in the hospitals and they’ve been in different hospitals and private/public, married and unmarried…
I don’t know about anyone else’s experience but my husband was fully involved and consulted about every aspect of both my children’s births. This was under the absolutely wonderful Community Midwives scheme in Holles St. For example I wanted a home birth for our second baby and the boss midwife talked to him separately to make sure he was happy about it. They fully engaged with him all the time and when I had the babies he could ring them afterwards, and did several times, to ask them stuff. One of them used to hug him a lot
In fact, the only weird story I was told was by one of the midwives. A mother had her baby and the next day announced she didn’t want to go home because she hated her husband. They had met both of them the whole time during the pregnancy and quite frankly, didn’t believe her stories about his alleged cruelty. They suspected the birth had triggered a psychosis and sent for the psychiatrist. I don’t know what happened in the end because she had her baby around about the same I did. They let her stay in hospital, but they were taking his side…
Anyway, can we PLEASE stick to the point?
jim jones said,
June 13, 2007 at 2:06 pm
The point I was trying to make was that fathers are generally ignored. I thought this article would help prove the point as it shows how fathers are ignored by the NHS as well as by the HSE. I notice you didn’t comment on the links I posted. Maybe the fact that children’s rights are ignored by the HSE doesn’t sit comfortably with anyone replying to these posts. Children have the right to have their legal guardians (their married parents) act on their behalf. They are not the possession of the mothers but state institutions continue to act as if they are, contrary to the law and, therefore, the common good. If they did not, their would be no need for groups such as The FR-RP or The “Da” project.
Sarah said,
June 13, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Jim
Could you show me the place where I said unmarried fathers should be ignored? I haven’t commented on the links because clearly the HSE is wrong. I know children have the right to both parents. I said in my article mothers should not use children as weapons bla bla. You argue as if I think the HSE is right. I don’t.
And “generally ignored” is a bit of leap from an article about the NHS. Like I said I’ve never heard anyone complain about the treatment of fathers in maternity hospitals…
And none of you have answered my point about the FRP focusing on stupid things like the high cost of motor insurance for young men. Sometimes I think people don’t actually read the articles at all. They see one or two key phrases and assume the rest. I clearly said I SUPPORT FATHERS RIGHTS. I don’t support the FRP manifesto. Lobby the Taoiseach Mr Separated Father and stop wasting time and effort looking for a Minister for Men. Its silly.
jim jones said,
June 13, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Sarah,
You seem to be a bit annoyed that these comments are not all about the points you made in your article but a debate developed last evening with a number of false points being made. Some derogatory generalisations were made about fathers. I included the links and article to try and offer some balance.
“Generally ignored” may have been a bit of a leap but research showed
“60% of mothers were unhappy with the way their partner was treated before and after the birth. By ignoring fathers, staff went against the mother’s wishes”.
60% is quite substantial. This figure is based on research whereas your opinion is based on anecdotes from your peers.
You are correct that the FRP shouldn’t focus on motor insurance or a minister for men but you did exactly what you criticise people for by focusing on “one or two key phrases and assume the rest”. You did not respond to any of the other points made by the various writers.
Sarah said,
June 13, 2007 at 3:21 pm
ok, fair enough, you are responding to other comments, not just my article.
but that 60% is still in the NHS not Ireland…
I haven’t responded to lots of other points because I agree with them, and where I don’t I’ve already made my point.
Men are being hard done by in the family courts. But this arose because of tradition not a conspiracy…can’t keep repeating it!
JC Skinner said,
June 13, 2007 at 3:26 pm
On a point of fact, I said it was prohibited for a father to have his name on the birth cert AT THE MATERNITY HOSPITAL. This is the case. I was forced to take my partner and newborn to Baggot Street and sit with junkies in the methadone clinic for three hours before the lemon-sucking disapproving harridan with the rosary ring (I kid you not) finally deigned to see us and register me on the birth cert.
Whereas, married fathers can have their name registered on the cert at the hospital.
jim jones said,
June 13, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Sarah,
You still seem to hold fast to the idea that men of today have to suffer for the sins or failures of an earlier generation. It may have been a tradition but why should something so wrong be maintained? Can we not develop as a society? Should we not now move on?
During the Primetime programme on the “Da” project last night, David Coleman, Clinical Psychologist said: “If things continue the way they are, where fathers become less and less involved is that you’ll have a bunch of boys growing up who won’t really know what it’s like to be a man and how to be a man involved in relationships because that’s the key bit. So I think it’s really important that children have some access to men around them who can show them the way. So I think it is really important that fathers are included at some level because if you don’t have fathers around then you don’t have that balance and I think parenting is usually about balance”.
On the same programme, Margaret Dromey, CEO Treoir, Unmarried Parents and their Children said: “Generally, we don’t respect fathers very well. We don’t encourage fathers, married or unmarried. An example would be not giving parental leave; I think that if we’re serious about both the parents taking a role in children’s lives we have to address the issue of parental leave, constitutional protection and of legislation for fathers”.
However, an article on the launch of family policy of Fine Gael on family affairs (Irish Independent 15 May 2007) focused on items such as a refund for families using childcare, an increase in the home carer’s credit along with extra tax relief for single income families, etc. For some unusual reason though, there was no mention of the proposal to introduce paid paternity leave. Should we take from this that The Irish Independent does not view fathers as part of a family? A similar article in the Irish Times similarly failed. This would indicate that fathers being ignored is widespread.
The school my children attend have adopted a policy that excludes the non-custodial (generally male) parent contrary to the Guardianship of Infants Act. When I brought this up at a Parents Association meeting, I was told they couldn’t discuss matters that only affected one family, despite my saying that this had the potential to affect ALL the families in the school.
Is there a requirement that any referrences made have to be Irish? I got that article of Padraig O’Morains blog. Must tell him its irrelevant.
Sarah said,
June 13, 2007 at 3:56 pm
“You still seem to hold fast to the idea that men of today have to suffer for the sins or failures of an earlier generation.”
This is where you have me totally and completely wrong. I don’t think they HAVE to suffer, I am simply saying it is the REASON they are suffering. These are two very different things. David Coleman is right.
The NHS experience of fathers is irrelevant to the Irish experience.
jim jones said,
June 13, 2007 at 4:14 pm
You say that I have you totally and completely wrong, that you don’t think fathers HAVE to suffer but simply that it is the REASON they are suffering and that these are two very different things yet you said in your article that, “as in all cases of conflict resolution, a bit of truth and reconciliation about the past is required”. Should the fathers of today apologise for the sins or failures of a previous generation?
Should I approach my father and get him to apologise for the wrongs of his generation or should I leave it to my son to castigate me for failing to stand up for HIS rights now?
Sarah said,
June 13, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Don’t apologise, but do acknowledge.
jim jones said,
June 13, 2007 at 4:50 pm
We must have a communication problem. I didn’t say I would apologise but asked if I should ask my father for something he had no hand, act or part in. What should I acknowledge?
Sarah said,
June 13, 2007 at 5:43 pm
“Should the fathers of today apologise for the sins or failures of a previous generation?”
No, but they should acknowledge that the reason they are in the current mess is because the fathers of the past pissed off and left the single mothers to rot not because the state ganged up on them.
They should do this because a) it is the truth and its the right thing to do and b) once someone acknowledges a grievance it immediately diffuses the row. It would mean you’d get the women on board to help you in your cause. Instead you confine yourselves to bitching about the bitches who are the mothers of your children and it loses you sympathy. From a purely pragmatic point of view its the intelligent thing to do. Also, complaining about car insurance doesn’t help. If you’d listen to me you’d see that I’m actually trying to help.
JC Skinner said,
June 13, 2007 at 6:04 pm
But it’s not the truth, Sarah. We are in the current situation solely because the dinosaur legal system overseeing children in general was drafted at a time when it was commonly thought by all sexes that rearing children was mother’s work.
Now, a further issue worth debating is the extent to which women subsequently became complicit in a system which rewarded them emotionally and financially.
But unlike you, I’d rather seek to forge a consensus based upon the needs of children and the principle of shared parenting, rather than seek to tar anyone currently dealing with these issues with the sins of their forefathers or foremothers.
Your constant attempt to play a gender blame game in that context strikes me as bizarre at best, cheap headline grabbing at worst.
jim jones said,
June 13, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Yeah, we do have a communication problem.
You seem to think that I am one of the FRRP but I’m not. I’m not a member of The Unmarried and Separated Fathers of Ireland, Parental Equality or the National Mens Council.
I simply came across your article and forwarded the letters from their website to your blog. If you go through my posts, you will see that all my problems stem from the state ignoring my children’s right to have me act as their legal guardian, in accordance with the law. I’m not bitching about bitches. May I remind you that my reference to the NHS research showed 60% of MOTHERS were unhappy with the way their partner was treated before and after the birth. By ignoring fathers, staff went against the MOTHER’S wishes. This involved women complaining that their partners being ignored, not men bitching about bitches.
I do not believe that men apologising for the past will stop individual women from treating children like personal possessions, particularly when the state continues to ignore children’s rights.
I’m in the current mess (of having precious little time with my children) because of the woman I married, not because of societal abuse of women before she was born.
Sarah said,
June 13, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Well Jim if you’re not in the FRP I don’t know why you are arguing. I specifically stated in my article ” I am personally familiar with appalling stories of fathers who have found themselves with few or no rights with regard to their children. It isn’t fair that they don’t have those rights and I’d be happy to see them restored. Some women are perfectly capable of using children as weapons in separation cases and the courts shouldn’t be easily fooled into co-operating with them.”
What Family Courts has to do with motor insurance and gender quotas for primary school teachers is beyond me.
As for JC
“We are in the current situation solely because the dinosaur legal system overseeing children in general was drafted at a time when it was commonly thought by all sexes that rearing children was mother’s work”
That is also true but still doesn’t explain why a Single Mother’s Allowance was needed and how anomalies like the birth cert issue arose. They developed in the ABSENCE of fathers. And I registered both of my children’s births in Baggot St, (or was it Lombard St? – one of those places) so no point feeling aggrieved. It’s called bureaucracy.
Unmarried fathers do have an extra complication in that a written declaration is needed to confirm paternity,but to be honest, I would have thought that was to protect men, not discriminate against them. Sure what’s to stop me giving any old name as the father of my children? A marriage means the husband is taking responsibility for issue. If there is no marriage, then surely it makes sense to have something in writing?
And Jim, STOP telling me about the NHS. You might as well be talking about Timbuctoo.
ALL I have done is point out that the current mess evolved because of the past behaviour of men, not because of a feminised state pushing men out. Call it a blame game, but if you’re happy to waste your time denying the past then your campaign will be damaged.
Do you know what you’d both be better off doing? Thornton Hall is to house Mountjoy Jail. The Governor John Lonergan is against it because taking the jail out of the city centre, from where most of the inmates come, will make it much harder for children to visit their fathers. Campaigning to keep Mountjoy in town would be useful for fathers instead of conducting an argument with me about things I didn’t say.
jim jones said,
June 13, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Am I excluded from the argument because I’m not a member of the FRP? You wrote the article in the Sunday Times, where I first read it. I then checked out your blog and got involved. Am I not entitled to my opinion? Your article did not only criticize the FRP but made some very unfair generalisations against men as a gender and fathers in particular and so, as a father and a man, I am entitled to defend myself, as your unfair generalisations included me.
You said “Fathers aren’t valued because so many women were left holding the baby they discovered they could get along without them. Men are getting a raw deal but since they’re the ones dealing the cards, I don’t understand why they need a political party. They could just change their behaviour”. How can I change the behaviour of previous generations of men? Why am I not valued because other men had unprotected sex?
Do I have to remind you that you said, in your article, that “men will have to stick together”? Yet here you are asking why I am arguing. I’m arguing because I’m entitled to argue against someone who objects to a political party by running down an entire gender, rather than undermining the policies of that party.
Sarah said,
June 13, 2007 at 7:52 pm
sigh, this is my last comment on this.
The “changing their behaviour” refers to the things in the FRP manifesto such as the motor insurance, the poor grades in school and their lack of attention to their health. So I don’t run down the entire gender-I do specifically complain about their policies and their goals, such as a Minister for Men. Men are in control. A separated father is Taoiseach. I think campaigners for father’s rights should talk to him instead of running no hope candidates in the election and broadening their agenda to include things no one supports to the detriment of a core issue which most people would support.
The other point I make is that we arrived at the current situation because of past behaviour not through discrimination against men. That to my mind, is irrefutable. Apologise, don’t apologise, acknowledge, don’t acknowledge, do what you want. If you want to make progress I’m giving you some PR advice on how to handle the campaign. If you don’t want to take it, fine, but don’t be surprised at the total dismissal of the FRP by the electorate.I think the Meath West guy got 123 votes.
CG said,
June 13, 2007 at 7:55 pm
On low take up of paternity leave: UK estimated 60-80% take up of increased leave, only around 20% of men actually took it (note I’m not saying they’re bad fathers because of this or that they don’t love their children, just that they made the decision not to be primary caregiver).
Sorry for any confusion regarding equal custody comment – what I meant was that when father-mother caregivers split is equal, father-mother custody split will be too. Or heck, if it were even 80-20 mother-father, 20% of majority custody would go to to fathers. But while mothers make up over 90% of primary caregivers, they will be awarded majority (ie weekday) custody in over 90% of cases. It’s not a feminist conspiracy, it just reflects the work done by men and women in our society. And I’m all for increasing parental leave so its totally equal and couples can decide for themselves who will take what! But we need to realise that the situation today got this way because of choices men (and women) made. No one’s out to get men.
jim jones said,
June 13, 2007 at 8:16 pm
sorry CG. You’re to late. Sarah has deemed that UK statistics are irrelevant. A link proving your point would be handy cause I don’t believe that ANYBODY dosen’t take up the offer of paid leave.
JC Skinner said,
June 13, 2007 at 10:32 pm
No, they didn’t develop in the absence of fathers. They developed in the absence of consideration for both fathers and children. There’s a big difference, Sarah.
omaniblog said,
June 14, 2007 at 8:57 am
I’ve only come across this exchange 20 minutes ago. I’ve read the post and all the comments.
The tone puts me off.
I have experience that is relevant in that I split from my first wife and we have two children together. I’ve been through my own experience of breaking up, deciding how our children should be cared for, divorcing, living alone, dividing assets and paying money for my children. I’ve also married again and have one child with my wife. Most of my experience was gained in UK but now I’m trying to understand how things work in Ireland.
The tone puts me off.
There has been too little curiosity in the exchanges for my taste. I’d have preferred people to have written shorter comments, and to have sounded as if they were open to persuasion.
There were two comments I liked a lot: CJ & Padraig O’Morann. Thank you both.
copernicus said,
June 14, 2007 at 9:13 am
Some legal advice for JC Skinner – get married.
Unmarried fathers will never have their names automatically registered on birth certs or be provided with constitutional rights solely on the basis of paternity, and rightly so. Paternity can result from one-night stands, rape, incestuous abuse.
JC Skinner is in what the legal system would term a “de facto” family which will give rise to certain legal rights to guardianship and access if his relationship breaks down and his wife moves on.
Most of the posts by men here and the letters to the ST are full of misleading nonsense and tendentious anecdotal, unsubstantiated claims about the legal and health systems.
copernicus said,
June 14, 2007 at 9:14 am
er, not his wife obviously.
omaniblog said,
June 14, 2007 at 9:20 am
Sarah,
I’ve taken a shower and realise that there is one more thing I’d like to offer now.
I found your original statement to be excellent. As fine a comprehensive statement of that viewpoint as I have ever read. Indeed, I admired the way you strove to balance the need to connect with the past and the need to reform the present.
Now |I have something against which I can develop my thinking. I couldn’t ask for more at this stage.
Thanks.
jim jones said,
June 14, 2007 at 9:54 am
The tone may put omaniblog off but he seems to have been able to work things out with his wife. If only we all could. Padraig pointed out that most men in this situation do likewise but what about the minority that doesn’t?
I’d love to be able to do as omaniblog did but my wife my wife wasn’t “open to persuasion”.
By the way, you say that the other comment you liked was by CJ. Can’t see that reply. Would it have been CG or JC?
In relation to the claim by copernicus, “Most of the posts by men are full of misleading nonsense and tendentious anecdotal, unsubstantiated claims about the legal and health systems”.
I suggest you read the following articles:
http://www.village.ie/Ireland/Health/HSE_failed_to_deal_with_guardianship_rights_of_father/
and
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/hse-lacks-policy-to-deal-with-parents-who-separate-126709.html
Then let us know if you if these are “misleading nonsense” or “unsubstantiated claims”. This issue is now with the ombudsman. The School Separation policy mentioned will soon be dealt with by the equality tribunal. I will keep you posted.
I am making enquiries of The Law Society to see if the result of complaints can be published but I think they are confidential. Any claims in relation to the family law courts are covered by the secrecy of the “In Camera” rule.
JC Skinner said,
June 14, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Copernicus, that is somewhat unlikely since my child’s mother is now married to someone else and living abroad. I wouldn’t want to subject her to bigamy prosecution merely to copper-fasten my rights of access and guardianship over my child.
Hence I’ve done what every other unmarried father has to do – go to the courts, wade through their adversarial and antiquated legal system in the family law courts repeatedly until a judge finally granted me access and guardianship.
Interestingly, my child is now living with me, with her mother in another relationship abroad, yet I STILL cannot gain custody rights without another trip to the courtroom which her mother would be expected to attend.
I note with interest that Sarah bailed from this discussion once she realised she was out of her depth. But knowing her personally to be an intelligent woman, I expect that she will now go and reformulate her thoughts in this area and come to realise that blaming today’s fathers for either the current family law situation or indeed the magdalene laundries is errant nonsense.
jim jones said,
June 14, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Hiya JC,
Sarah wasn’t the only one who bailed. CG stopped posting after asked to verify her claim that fathers in the UK weren’t availing of paid paternity leave. It should be remembered that ANY excuse to demonise fathers just creates another difficulty for todays generation of babies, 40% who are born outside marriage and, therefore, with NO rights to see or know their fathers.
omaniblog said,
June 14, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Jim Jones,
Thanks for the comment. I’ve looked back through comments to check. I can’t find the person with whom I felt most agreement. It all looks too much like pent up emotions pouring out. Perhaps I’m wrong to stand back so much for this. Perhaps if I were cut off from my children I’d be too mad to say anything sympathetic to people who didn’t immediately agree with me.
Yes, I feel fortunate
something good was worked out between me and my first wife. It wasn’t easy. There were days I poured out invective and felt helpless. I raged. I wanted to give up my job and become a full time parent. I wanted to hire a nanny to care for them while I was away working. I wanted all sorts of things.
Fortunately I’d married a reasonable woman.
It was fairly easy to approach the problem with the good of the children most in mind. In my opinion, men shouldn’t have children with women without asking themselves ‘is this woman the kind of person who will stay reasonable and caring in a crisis?’ ‘What’s her family and friends like?’ Men and women should be careful about who they enter into contracts with. (In case there is any misunderstanding, I think women should do the same.) There has been enough evidence in the public domain to warn us all. This is a tricky area. People change over time. I certainly did.
Finally,
saying anything is ‘errant nonsense’ is fun, but unlikely to lead to any meeting of minds, I’d say.
JC Skinner said,
June 14, 2007 at 3:43 pm
The irony, or should I say tragedy, at the bottom of all of this is that it is children’s rights and needs that are being ignored, Jim.
That people who are mothers, parents of children themselves, cannot see that greatly worries me.
We’re well into an experimental scenario, unprecedented in human history, of creating generations of children without fathers. The early results of the experiments are already in, and Sarah touched on some of them: poor performance in relation to school by boys, for example. But the others are even more profound.
Research by a feminist in England in the Nineties found that parents raised by single mothers with no father influence were significantly more likely to suffer drug and alcohol problems at an early age, get in trouble with the law, perform less well academically and end up in lower paying work as an adult, and this was AFTER the research had compensated for income levels of the parents.
My personal situation is now resolved, after in excess of a decade of fighting, largely with the legal system rather than the mother, for not only my right to be a parent but even more for my child’s right to have a father.
But I have tremendous sympathy with those younger fathers starting out on the same path today, and I have huge concern in relation to the sort of children that are being created by this unwarranted and evil social experimentation.
jim jones said,
June 14, 2007 at 4:10 pm
JC’s points are of a personal nature but are backed up at the launch of the Barnardos “Da”project by Dr McAleese who spoke about the “dangerous blind spot” of ignoring the role of fathers in the lives of their children. Dr McAleese said “To reduce a father to an absence or just a sum of money is to ignore the potential he has as a benign stabilising influence in his child’s life, and the potential his more active inclusion in childrearing has for better, healthier, less resentful, family relationships all round. There are no grand claims that this work of father inclusion is likely to be easily or quickly delivered but there is clear evidence that properly structured and guided it is wanted, welcomed, helpful and beneficial to all the players. It simply enriches all their lives, enriching fatherhood, childhood, parenthood.”
“Thanks to the Da Project we can look forward to a shift in focus and a more complete vision of what needs to be done in the child’s best interest”, he said.
http://www.barnardos.ie/daproject.htm
copernicus said,
June 15, 2007 at 2:05 am
Seems the courts have vindicated JC’s rights despite his unmarried status and he’s confusing structural issues in the legal system which exist across the civil and criminal lists with an anti-father bias.
The bottom line is that hard cases make bad law and for the moment JC will have to suck it up and pay for more law on the basis of the life choices he made and while that seems harsh and the courts certainly need to be made more efficient, he has to accept that the legislature and society have much wider implications to consider when tinkering with or attempting to define the “family”.
JC Skinner said,
June 15, 2007 at 10:44 am
Actually, without going into details, I went did what Sarah was spouting about and changed the law. I’m personally responsible for a number of precedents in Irish law relating to father’s rights.
Copernicus continues putting the cart before the horse – the law is creating hard cases on a systemic basis. The adversarial nature of the family law system all but prevents mediated settlements between parents, since one must take the other to court to copperfasten agreements.
What vindicated my rights was certainly not the Irish legal system despite my extensive engagement with it. What vindicated my rights was my child’s point-blank refusal as a teen to continue living with their mother.
JC Skinner said,
June 15, 2007 at 10:49 am
And like I previously stated, I still do not have even partial custody despite my child living under my roof and being the only parent or guardian resident in this state.
And I won’t be granted even partial custody without commencing another adversarial court case which would require the mother’s return from abroad to attend.
A much better system that ours already exists, in Scandinavia, where it is deemed compulsory to name the father on birth certs and mediated agreements between separated parents, whether ever married or not, is the norm.
Obviously where a father denies being the parent, they can challenge their name on the birth cert by producing a DNA sample which is then compared with the child’s.
So it’s not an issue of tinkering with anything, so much as seeking to update our laws to bring them in line with more enlightened nations.
jim jones said,
June 15, 2007 at 11:16 am
I have to agree with copernicus when he says that “the courts have vindicated JC’s rights despite his unmarried status” but how much did it cost in legal fees? You don’t go in and out of court for ten years without some legal advisor making thousands.
He is also right to point out that “the structural issues in the legal system which exist across the civil and criminal lists exist”. It may be ok to delay an insurance claim for five years or even a murder trial for ten years. Eventually, these matters get sorted and justice is done. But it is disgraceful that family law cases involving children can drag on for years. The ten years JC spent within the legal system is more nearly 30% of the child’s life.
However, he is wrong to say that JC “has to accept that the legislature and society have much wider implications to consider when tinkering with or attempting to define the family”. The legislature and society have to accept that, in most cases, children are better of with their father involved. Therefore, a father should have the same automatic rights as the mother. In the minority of cases where their is an issue with the father, it should be open to the mother to go to court and state exactly why it is in the best interest of the children that he be removed from their lives. Rather than the father using the courts to fight for the right to be a father, the mother should have to give reasons why he shouldn’t. This would remove the majority of cases from the family law courts and speed up the process for the remainder. This would suit the mother, the father and especially the children in most cases. In fact, it would suit everyone except for the life long ticket holders of the slow coaches on the gravy train.
Hugh Hicks said,
June 27, 2007 at 12:14 am
“sigh, this is my last comment on this.”
Sorry to bore you to tears Sarah but in fairness it was your utterly biased piece in the Sunday Times that opened this can of worms and it simply is not acceptable for you to decide that you no longer wish to debate the many slurs and discriminations that you have directed towards fathers. If that in itself was not bad, worse still is your utter ignorance of the devestating effects on fathers of the total bias in favour of mothers, and deep rooted prejudice that exists in our family law system.
I have no intention of wasting an hour or two of my life debating your absurd suggestion that todays fathers are somehow responsible for the behaviour of their forefathers. That’s the same old, same old that the Feminist extremists have been banging out for years. Suffice to say that the vast majority of todays fathers, myself included, had absolutely nothing to do with the oppression and discrimination that women have been subjected to historically and I find it appalling that you could in any way suggest that this is justification for the scandalous treatment of fathers by our family law system.
One point I would like to raise with you is the situation regarding unmarried fathers. How you can fail to see the blatant discrimination in requiring unmarried fathers to “apply” for guardianship of their children is quite simply beyond me. You suggest that this requirement is intended to offer some form of “protection” to fathers I would be delighted if you could expand on your theory bearing in mind that if a mother and a father register their child and include the mothers and the fathers name on the birth certificate that in itself should be sufficient to acknowledge respnsibility of both parents twoards their children, in the same way that is is sufficient for a married couple.
You know as well as I do that this requirement is a direct result of the powerful influence exerted by the Catholic church (the same influence that banished unmarried mothers to work houses in the bad old days) and is intended, as it does, to deny unmarried fathers automatic rights towards their children which are, quite rightly, granted to married fathers. What you refer to as an “extra complication” to “confirm paternaty” is in fact a method of humiliating unmarried fathers by requiring them to “apply” for their rights as parents. You also seem to suggest that mothers would be content to fraudulently enter inaccurate details on a birth certificate. “Sure what’s to stop me giving any old name as the father of my children?” I would have thought moral conscience and the fact that it is illegal would be enough, but then I would not pretend to understand women as much as you.
While I would love to stay up all night and educate you about the numerous myths and inaccuracies contained in your original article I unfortunately must get some sleep so that I can attend my low wage employment in a sad and painfully futile attempt to provide for my 4 children who I have custody of from Friday evening to Sunday evening every weekend.
I would love to be able to stay up and impress upon you how hard it is for a single father to work full time and still have the energy and enthusiasm to cook, clean, wash clothes, go to the park, read stories, provide emotional support, feed and entertain numerous friends on sleep overs, devote one on one counselling and many, many other functions that are required of a parent all without any help or support from anyone and all on a low income because my dream of becoming a journalist was sacrificed because of my responsibilities towards my children; but I really must get some sleep, and anyway after reading your article I doubt very much that you would understand or acknowledge my devotion to my children, so I would probably only be wasting my time. Thank god my children and the people close to me appreciate my efforts, it really is the only acknowledgement I get and is my sanctuary from the narrow minded, gender baised, ill informed and hurtful slanders that you read in the papers about single fathers.
Luck.
jim jones said,
June 27, 2007 at 10:30 am
Hiya, Hugh,
Unfortunately, if Sarah were to ignore the fact “that the vast majority of today’s fathers had absolutely nothing to do with the oppression and discrimination that women have been subjected to historically” she would have nothing to use to back up her anti male bias when it comes to parenting.
On PRIMETIME RTE1 12 JUNE 2007,Margaret Dromey, CEO Treoir, Unmarried Parents and their Children said: “Generally, we don’t respect fathers very well. We don’t encourage fathers, married or unmarried”. This was in relation to a project by Barnardos http://www.barnardos.ie/daproject.htm that found that children do better if the father, married, single or separated, has a greater role in their lives. Unfortunately, as can be seen from the links
http://www.independent.ie/nation…ate- 126709.html and
http://www.village.ie/Ireland/He…ghts_of_father/ this country of ours fails to respect children by generally excluding fathers. The HSE have been ignoring legal advice on the matter for at least ten years and schools nationwide have policies which purposefully exclude the non custodial, generally male, parent.
jim jones said,
June 27, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Sorry but that link didn’t copy correctly so I’ll try again
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/hse-lacks-policy-to-deal-with-parents-who-separate-126709.html
jim jones said,
June 27, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Sorry but that link didn’t copy correctly so I’ll try again
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/hse-lacks-policy-to-deal-with-parents-who-separate-126709.html
jim jones said,
June 27, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Sorry but those link didn’t copy correctly so I’ll try again
http://www.village.ie/Ireland/Health/HSE_failed_to_deal_with_guardianship_rights_of_father/
and
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/hse-lacks-policy-to-deal-with-parents-who-separate-126709.html
Sarah said,
June 27, 2007 at 1:58 pm
jim, your links aren’t posting immediately because the filter thinks they are spam. I have to approve them first and I’m not always online so don’t panic if they don’t appear for a little while. Once I go online and check I approve them for publication.
Hugh Hicks said,
June 27, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Hey Jim, very pleased to make your aquaintance, and without wishing to appear as some kind of suckhole may I say that it is refreshing to come across imformed and intelligent comment regarding the issue of parental rights. You obviously speak from personal experience and it is a credit to you that you can maintain some degree of objectivity having experienced the humiliation and degradation of our family law system first hand.
Unfortunately with the rare exceptions of John Waters and Bob Geldof very few people with any hard experience or understanding of the devestating effects of our avdersarial family law system ever get an input into the debate with the result that male demonising articles such as Sarah’s are ten a penny and serve only to reduce the debate to Feminist propoganda and distract from the seriousness of the issues involved.
In addition to this if any man dare suggest that women are less than virtuous they face the inevitable onslaught of the well rehearsed Feminist agitators along with the predictable accusations of misogyny and male chauvinism. John Waters, again, is an excellent example of how this little aspect of Feminist agitation operates and it is all justified by the fact that at one time in our history women were discriminated against and oppressed by not only a male dominated society, but by a male dominated society that refused to acknowledge that women were entitled to the same rights as men.
What Feminists and advocates of womens rights fail to understand is that they are, and have been for some considerable period of time, engaging in exactly the same behaviour as the men that they so vehemently detest, despise and denounce.
Having experienced centuries of discrimination, oppression and humiliation you would think that women would be better able to identify these acts of human weakness but instead they reveal themselves just as arrogant, just as vicious, just as ignorant and just as self preserving as thier male counterparts. Only a blind man on a galloping horse or a bigot of the highest order could fail to see the discrimination, injustice and depravity contained within the family law system. Unfortunately the battle of the sexes seems to have evolved into a war for supremacy rather than a struggle for equality with the rights and welfare of children and their fathers abused and ignored by the corrupted philosophy of a gender struggle.
Does power corrupt? You can bet your sweet life it does, but it corrupts men and women, not just men.
jim jones said,
June 27, 2007 at 6:44 pm
No worries, Sarah. The problem was that the links I posted didn’t copy properly. It was nothing to do with your approval. The second posting was my inadvertently pressing the “submit comment” button twice.
To Hugh, you say that “Only a blind man on a galloping horse or a bigot of the highest order could fail to see the discrimination, injustice and depravity contained within the family law system” but I have to say that no one can see what happens within the family law system due to the “In Camera” rule. This results in everyone who comments on family law being that blind man on a galloping horse unless they have suffered, as John Waters and Bob Geldof have. The adage “Justice must not just be done but be seen to be done” should be taken into consideration and maybe changed slightly to reflect what occurs. I say that “justice CANNOT be done if it is not seen to be done”.
That is why I have tried to manage my difficulties outside of the courts and have them dealt with in other forums. I currently have four complaints with the Equality Tribunal and one with the Ombudsman. I try to concentrate on the states failure to observe my children’s rights rather than fathers rights and my personal problems with my wife. No one is interested in Fathers Rights unless they suffer as we have done but there are a lot of groups who claim to have an interest in children’s rights. In my complaint about the HSE, they claimed that all their actions were “in the best interest of the child” but it turned out that they had been ignoring the legal right of children to have one of their legal guardians act on their behalf since 1997.
I look forward with cynicism to the referendum on Children’s Rights that will probably occur within the next year. Not only are children’s rights ignored by society but the right of their legal guardians to act on their behalf is also ignored.
Hugh Hicks said,
June 27, 2007 at 10:04 pm
“This results in everyone who comments on family law being that blind man on a galloping horse unless they have suffered, as John Waters and Bob Geldof have.”
That is precisely my point Jim. John Waters and Bob Geldof attempted to focus attention on the suffering and hardship caused by our family law system because they had experienced first hand the devastating cruelty inflicted on both fathers and children by this medieval legislation. Prior to their own experiences of family law they too were as ignorant as our friend Sarah and, I dare say, were also happy enough to justify the inequities and injustices in family law as “a necessary evil” resulting from the historical abuses of women by men.
Fair play to them both for attempting to address the issues. In fairness both were sufficiently wealthy to be able to navigate the legal system to some degree of success but they were both obviously so shocked by what they had experienced that they felt strongly enough to try to make others aware of what was really going on. Sadly their efforts were ridiculed and frustrated by the likes of our darling Sarah who time and again turned the discussion around to focus entirely on the subject of male violence against women. Then, as now, the fact that men at one time treated women horrendously was justification for denying today’s fathers even basic rights to their children, and unmarried fathers absolutely none.
Without question we are all tarred with the same brush. Outrageous comments such as “Fathers aren’t valued because so many women were left holding the baby they discovered they could get along without them.” are the result of years of propoganda by Feminist extremists who realised quickly that depicting women as victims provoked very lucrative political empathy. One wonders how far women could get along without the endless supply of financial assistance from the state? How many single mothers would there be if the state decided to stop rewarding women for breaking up their families? Not half as many as there are right now I can guarantee but as long as women can maintain the status of “victims” the collective conscience of our male dominated political system will feel compelled to dole out the money and make concessions on matters relating to children in an attempt to make ammends for the historical oppression of women. All women need to do to keep the gravy train rolling is to keep alive the myth that in our modern society women are still victims and still discriminated against, when in reality the opposite is true and women are the agressors and manipulators with men more than happy to embrace the concept of equal rights. Equal meaning equal as in evenly proportioned or balanced and not equal as in discrimination in favour of women at the expense of the rights of men and their children.
jim jones said,
June 28, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Hugh, I thought you might be interested in the document from the Equality Authority, TOWARDS A VISION FOR A GENDER EQUAL SOCIETY. It can be accessed at the following link: http://193.178.1.9/index.asp?locID=107&docID=85
This document states that
“Gender equality is generally seen as “Women’s empowerment and their full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of society, including participation in the decision making process and access to power” in accordance with The Beijing Declaration. The Equality Authority’s vision of a gender equal society is reflective of this conviction. It is a vision of a society where
- there is equality between women and men in the economic, political, cultural and caring arenas.
- women have achieved equality of access, participation and outcome in all spheres of society both public and private.
- the diversity among women is acknowledged, valued and accommodated in policy and institutional practice.
Current inequalities are evident in the political, the economic, the caring and the cultural
arenas. They include
- under representation of women in the Dáil, on local authorities, on state boards and in the judiciary
- the persistent and significant gender pay gap, over-representation of women among low paid workers and among those living in poverty and under-representation of women as employers and as property holders (including farms) and under representation of women at management level in the business world and in the public sector
- the unequal and inequitable sharing of caring responsibilities, and the low levels of take-up by men of family friendly working arrangements
- the ongoing use of negative images of women in cultural, commercial and education materials”.
As you can see, the entire focus of gender equality is on one gender, undermining the actual phrase itself. We can stand up to this but we will fail. However, if we accept this and focus on the aspects that suit us, i.e. the caring arena, we have an awful lot to gain.
For example, the Equality Authority vision of society is that “there is equality between women and men in the economic, political, cultural and CARING arenas”. If more men spent more time looking after their children this would enable women to become more involved in the economic, political and cultural arenas. For the entire existence of the human race other than the last 20-30 years, this caring role has been left to the female while the male role was that of provider, and it will be very hard to get the ordinary bloke to take time off work to look after the children simply to enable his partner to work instead. This is a matter of economics. Any family would be foolish to get the main earner to take time off as opposed to the lesser earner.
Therefore, when we separate or become single fathers, we should focus on the gender inequality of society by pointing out that forcing the female to look after the children on a full time basis is unfair to WOMEN and that men should be forced to take on their responsibilities by having to accept JOINT CUSTODY. This would enable women to work without the responsibility or expense of childcare as well as having the ability to earn and so support the family financially, rather than having to rely on the male or the state. Why should it always be the women who get the children up, give them three meals a day, do the school run, the homework and everything else involved in raising the children while the men simply put the weekly cheque in the post and have a good time with the kids at the weekend? Unfortunately, we will have to make it look like women maintaining sole custody is a problem for WOMEN and unfair to WOMEN. Then we have a greater chance of succeeding.
Joe said,
June 28, 2007 at 7:41 pm
i read the artical i can agree with te point of the fathers rights people trying to change the insurance for young drivers beong wrong. but i feel the law has to be changed in regards of fathers rights to see their child. i never went to court i had a verbal agreement with my ex that i could see my daughter any time i wanted plus every second weekend (as i work the other one ) i even babysat for her just so i couold spend more time with my child. then every few weeks the money i gave her increased randomly and i i didnt give how much she needed then i didnt see my daughter. then somebody told me to get a recite for everything i gave here when i sugested this to her she went mad.i have since found out that she informed the social welfare that i was only giving €40 a week so she’s have to pay less rent but i was paying twice that at least.!!!!!!!! so at least Fathers Rights groups are highlighting stories like mine cause as a single man who listens to me ?? not FF ,FG,LAB,GREENS,PD or SF when they came canvasing in my area i informed them of my situation most just smiled and said “ah i know how you feel” and one even laugh at and asked “what can i do ??” well we all pay tax therfore expect politicions to work for there wages and sort out a fair and equal society.Isnt this the year of equality ?? yeah but only if your plight is highlighted eg the sicking racist attacks etc but not for me or the 1000’s of fathers outthere trying to see there kids. I know there 1000’s more out there that dont deserve to be fathers and dont want to see there kids but dont tar us all with the same brush
ps excuse the spelling misstakes as im dyslexic
thanks and regards
Steve said,
June 29, 2007 at 2:30 pm
We may have antiquated laws and a social welfare system that it seems any single mother can take advantage of. We may also have a family court system riddled with solicitors and barristers who milk the misery of vulnerable fathers. But the buck stops with Mammy. I am a single father and I never gave my rights away. After two years of caring for and loving my son, I was denied access. Not by Seamus Brennan or some senile judge with only a tenuous grasp of reality, though I met them, but by my sons mother. It is mass child abuse, and the perpetrators are women. Your statement that the FRP needs to acknowledge the sins of past generations of men in order to gain the sympathy of women is pathetic.
jim jones said,
June 29, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Any of you who have a vote in the Seanad elections might be interested in the following link
http://www.fathersrightsparty.ie/default2.asp?active_page_id=138
and in particular
http://www.fathersrightsparty.ie/default2.asp?active_page_id=141
No mention AT ALL about car insurance!
Hugh Hicks said,
June 29, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Hi to Steve and Joe, you are very welcome to the debate. It seems something positive is evolving from Sarah’s self righteous little tirade against fathers. Fathers are starting to speak up for themselves. All I can say is it’s about time. I hope Sarah is paying attention and actually learning something from the comments posted here. She is very quiet at the moment. Obviously too embarrassed by her own ignorance to stick her head above the parapet.
I hope in particular that she is paying attention to comments like “i didnt give how much she needed then i didnt see my daughter” and “After two years of caring for and loving my son, I was denied access. Not by Seamus Brennan or some senile judge with only a tenuous grasp of reality, though I met them, but by my sons mother.” and i hope she didn’t miss “fathers are “granted” rights at the whim of mothers”. I think instead of asking the offensive and insulting question “do men deserve more rights” she should, in the interests of justice and the welfare of children, be asking do women deserve the rights they currently have? They are abusing their rights and their children’s rights en mass by using them to extort money and exert control over men with no regard for the psychological damage they are inflicting on their children. Or maybe this does not agree with your perception of reality?
Speaking of your perception of reality. I thought you might like to reassess your opinion, “The boys probably can’t help noticing that while the teachers a woman, the principle is a man.” taking into account the following taken from the press relaese of the Women and Men in Ireland 2006 report. “women accounted for 84% of primary school teachers but only 51% of primary school managers”. Last time I looked it up 51% was MORE than half. Only slight, but still a majority and still makes a nonsense of your biased and mis-informed opinion. Or should I say propaganda?
BTW Jim, I checked out the “Vision For A Better Equality” as you suggested, thank you very much for that. Looks like a new batch of male discrimination and perks for the girlies is on the way. Pretty soon women will be the breadwinners and men will have no choice but to stay at home and mind the children while their wives and partners spend all day at work and all evening socialising with their friends. Like history is repeating itself, but in a new gender dimension. I wonder if women will treat men any better than men treated women in the past? The signs don’t look good from where I’m standing. Women are already becoming more violent, more promiscuous and prone to drinking binges (and these are facts, not opinions) and they even stoop lower than men in that they will inflict psychological abuse on their own children in order to cause pain to their ex. No wonder so many of todays teenagers are comitting suicide and showing signs of mental ilness; but I’m pretty sure Sarah has a different perspective on all of this. No doubt Sarah is convinced that this is caused by children being aware of the historical tyranny of men. Sarah?…………..anybody seen Sarah?
jim jones said,
June 29, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Sarah said, on June 13, 2007 at 7.52 pm “sigh, this is my last comment on this”. She won’t be back. However, there is nothing to stop us from continuing ourselves.
I thought I’d include this “gem” from the CEO of the Equality Authority, Niall Crowley (see the foreword http://193.178.1.9/getFile.asp?FC_ID=166&docID=85) “Towards a Vision of a Gender Equal Society seeks to establish a framework within which our society could elaborate a vision of gender equality” but goes on to say that it is “a position prepared by the Equality Authority as part of our contribution to the preparation of a National Action Plan for WOMEN”(!)
Imagine a similar document from the Equality Authority for immigrants seeking to establish equality for Chinese, rather than for ALL immigrants or for a document seeking to have all faiths cherished equally, once they were Christian!
Here is a definition of Gender equality From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“Some equalists believe that certain feminists have abandoned notions of equality, and instead focus only on females’ rights to the point of excluding/promoting the subjugation of the rights of other sexes/genders. Equalists seek to promote the rights of females, males, and everything in between.”
yet I found this United Nations definition on http://www.unicef.org/gender/index.html
“UNICEF is committed to levelling the playing field for girls and women by ensuring that all children have equal opportunity to develop their talents. We work to ensure that all babies receive the best start to life through gender-sensitive, integrated early childhood care. We work so that all children are afforded quality education, one that prepares them for a productive life.
By recognizing and addressing discrimination against girls and women, success in the fight against all forms of discrimination — class, race, ethnicity and age — will become more likely, and more lasting. We have learned that entire societies develop when girls and women are enabled to be fully contributing community members”.
and this UN definition on http://www.unfpa.org/gender/index.htm
“Gender equality is, first and foremost, a human right. Women are entitled to live in dignity and in freedom from want and from fear. Empowering women is also an indispensable tool for advancing development and reducing poverty”.
I think we have it all wrong, lads. Gender Equality is a phrase that means FEMALE Equality. The UN say that it is a human right but then go on to clarify this by saying that WOMEN are entitled to live in dignity and in freedom from want and from fear.
Maybe it’s time we just lay down and took it.
Sarah said,
July 1, 2007 at 7:15 pm
I don’t mind you guys using my blog to expose unfairness in the judicial system with regard to child custody but I draw the line at knocking Unicef. They work in developing countries where feminism isn’t about glass ceilings and equal pay, its about simple survival. In far too many countries being born a girl means that if you escape infanticide, you will automatically be denied education, risk sexual slavery at worst or forced into arranged marriages as a child at best and don’t get me started on female circumcision. The treatment of Islamic women in fundamentalist countries is medieval and “discrimination” means a lot more than who gets their name on a birth cert.
Trade hard luck stories here as long as you want but get a grip when it comes to the global position of women.
jim jones said,
July 2, 2007 at 9:49 am
That’s funny, Sarah. You said on June 13; “Campaigning to keep Mountjoy in town would be useful for fathers instead of conducting an argument with me about THINGS I DIDN’T SAY”
yet here you are undermining my point by saying
” I don’t mind you guys using my blog to expose unfairness in the judicial system with regard to child custody but I draw the line at knocking Unicef”.
I DIDN’T KNOCK UNICEF.
I simply referred to their definition of gender equality but here you are doing exactly what you say you disagree with.
Gender Equality for unicef is about treating women and girls in the Third World with equality on important issues such as infanticide, female circumcision and forced marriages. My point is that Gender Equality in this country is seeking to give females a better chance when they are already equal. Women in this country are free to choose who they marry, who they vote for, free to work (or not, as the case may be), and free to leave a marriage and take the children with them. They may be in jobs that are not well paid but this is generally because of childcare issues. They may not be in as many management positions but, again, this invariably comes down to childcare. Yet they are doing better in education, one area where they generally don’t have childcare problems. If women in this country treated their male counterparts as equals and allowed them to be equally involved with their children, then they would have less problems with childcare issues and therefore have some chance of gaining equality in the workplace and politics rather than trying to make out that they are as badly treated as the women of the Third World.
Sarah said,
July 2, 2007 at 10:34 am
JIm, you used Unicef and the UN’s definition to further your argument about equality in this country. You take issue with their definition of gender equality being female inequality. In most of the world, and in those parts of the world in which Unicef work, being a woman is a total disaster. Leave the developing world out of it. We can all have chips on our shoulders but let’s get a grip. Boys not studying for their Leaving Cert is not in the same league of “inequality” as girls not being allowed go to school at all outside the western world. Now, start writing letters to Bertie..might be more constructive…
jim jones said,
July 2, 2007 at 2:01 pm
I agree with you, Sarah. Leave the developing world out of it. We should have a definition for Gender Equality that promotes gender equality (equality of male and female) in THIS country. Unfortunately, as can be seen from the article, Men in Gender Equality- EU Advisory Committee Opinion by Niall Crowley, CEO, Equality Authority (see page 29 of http://www.equality.ie/getFile.asp?FC_ID=307&docID=628)
Gender Equality in Ireland revolves around equality for WOMEN. This article states that “The primary objective for work on men in gender equality must be to strengthen the role and contribution of men in challenging and changing the structures, institutional policies and practices, and culture (including stereotypical attitudes) that generate and sustain the inequalities experienced by WOMEN” going on to say that “It is important that work on men in gender equality is, and is perceived to be, supportive to WOMEN’S empowerment and to greater equality for WOMEN”.
Think about that for a moment. The primary objective for work on men in gender equality must be to oppose any of the things that generate and sustain the inequalities experienced by WOMEN
and
It is important that work on men in gender equality is supportive to greater equality for WOMEN.
Should men working on gender equality not promote the equality of men?
Article 40.1 of the Constitution of Ireland states that “All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law” but it now falls on men to be supportive to WOMEN’S empowerment and to greater equality for WOMEN. If that is the case, why aren’t women encouraged to support greater equality for men by letting then have shared parenting responsibilities, reducing the responsibilities women are unfairly burdened with as well as freeing them to work without having to pay for childcare?
Because gender equality is all about women.
Rob Hickey said,
July 2, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Hi Sarah,
unrelated topic but was hoping to get your opinion – I saw an interview over the weekend in one of the papers with that bastion of the Irish Woman’s cause, Miriam O’Callaghan. The leading line was “I only vote for women”.
What do you think? Is that “feminism” or is it just sexist and ignorant?
Rob
Sarah said,
July 2, 2007 at 2:54 pm
I think that’s utterly stupid. You should vote for someone based on policies. Women are in short supply in politics but voting for them just because they’re women (and I included quotas in this) is dense and counterproductive. If you want to have more women in politics you can do things like get the Dail to sit more reasonable hours, but that won’t change the fact that politics is a job that demands long hours and listening to lots of horseshit, for which most women have little patience. Not much you can do about the culture.That’s takes generations to change and not a simple matter of changing the rules of the game.
Kinda linking in with Jim’s campaign is that I believe in creating equality of opportunity – which is different from demanding equality. Create the infamous level playing field: what each side chooses to do with it after that is up to them. So for example, have a law that demands equal pay for men and women, but if women turn out to be poor negotiators then they need to cop themselves on instead of demanding more government action. And with education…women campaigned so that they could go to school and college jus tlike men. Once there, they’ve done well out of it. If men can’t compete…….
Hugh Hicks said,
July 3, 2007 at 7:03 pm
That’s strange. I could have sworn that I posted a comment here last night but it does not seem to be here. You would not stoop so low as to censor comments in order to avoid information that undermines your explaination of events, would you Sarah? No, I don’t think you would stoop that low. I must of forgotten to click the “submit” button. It was past 1:00 in the morning and I’m only human.
For reference here is a condensed version that challenges your “level playing field” theory. Currently, according to CSO statistics, there are 30,000 MORE working men living at risk of poverty than there are working women living at risk of poverty and yet this is never mentioned or debated in our media. We hear plenty about how many women are affected and at risk of poverty but the fact remains that MORE men are actually living in poverty than women. Why are there repeated high profile campaigns aimed at reducing poverty soley amongst women when there are 64% more working men living at risk of poverty than working women? 64% more!!!, and women are demanding MORE concessions. That is simply disgraceful, but I don’t hear you complaining about it Sarah.
jim jones said,
July 3, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Sarah says “I believe in creating equality of opportunity – which is different from demanding equality”.
Whats wrong with demanding equality? Either we’re equal or we’re not. If we’re not equal, we’ll accept it and move on but if we’re ARE equal then we’re entitled to be treated as such and so we WILL demand it and continue to do so until the government,schools, the HSE, Social Welfare etc. accept it.
Imagine, Sarah, that you were entitled to certain services (pay, school placemnets for your children, tax refunds, etc) but did not receive them simply because you are a women. Do you not believe that you should demand such services?
Hugh Hicks said,
July 3, 2007 at 10:51 pm
“Imagine, Sarah, that you were entitled to certain services (pay, school placemnets for your children, tax refunds, etc) but did not receive them simply because you are a women.”
Nice try Jim but I don’t think Sarah would understand where you are coming from in relation to “pay, school placemnets for your children, tax refunds, etc”. Sarah enjoys a successful career as a “journalist” and “social commentator” so I presume, although I know I should’nt, that she would be in a position to solve such irritations with money and influence.
It would also be safe to assume though (and again, I know I should’nt), that she does possess a heart, and as a parent, must have a strong emotional attachment and fondness toward her children. Imagine the following instead Sarah. Imagine that your husband has decided to end your marriage but instead of you getting automatic custody rights to your children, your husband received them. Imagine next that your husband, or ex husband as he would be, decides that you should only see your children for about 4 hours a week and maybe an overnight visit once every other week. What would you do? You would appeal to the courts, right? OK, so you appeal and the judge says that 4 hours a week and one overnight visit every other week was all that you were going to get. Imagine how that would feel Sarah. Try and imagine that very hard, because this is the important bit, try to imagine all those nights when you go to bed without being able to kiss them goodnight and tuck them in, try to imagine all those bed-time stories that you are going to miss out on, try to imagine breakfast without them, no talk of plans for the day ahead, no recounting their little dreams from the night before, no hugs, no kisses, no cuddles, no squeaky giggly little voices and then nothing, nothing at all until your 4 hour visit at the weekend, Can you imagine that Sarah? and, in fairness Sarah, you didn’t do anything wong. Your marriage just ended, no fault. It just happened. Imagine then that on top of all this along comes a man and askes the question “do women deserve more rights?”
I believe that if you imagine all this hard enough you will actually begin to feel anger and resentment build up inside of you. It’s a common reaction to having your children taken away from you for absolutely no reason and then your having your rights as a parent questioned by somebody who has no knowledge of you OR your children.
Think about it.
Sarah said,
July 4, 2007 at 10:17 am
yup, am deleting comments now.And remember, this is not a newspaper, its my blog and I can censor anything I want. I own this space.
Like I said, I don’t mind you guys using this as a platform to discuss the problems of fathers trying to get custody of their children. The situation as outlined by Hugh above is one I totally sympathise with and if exposing it to the more people helps then that’s fine with me.
But the one I deleted trailed off into the extremist feminist bla bla rant. Its also the reason you guys lose so much support. Everyone would sympathise and help campaign for father’s rights. Then you have to start lashing out at other people and other issues that have nothing to do with it, and what do you know, you piss off your potential supporters who stop wanting to know.
Equality of opportunity by the way Jim is important. When women campaigned to get the vote or get education, access to contraception, right to work after they married etc, they campaigned for the right to do those things. They didn’t campaign to force women to do those things. Just because the right to work after they married was secured, it didn’t mean every woman had to keep working (economics aside).
So you can make it legally and theoretically possible for men to say, take paternity leave equivalent to maternity leave. Doesn’t mean they’ll take it and it doesn’t mean they have to take it.
Hugh Hicks said,
July 4, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Sorry Sarah, but if you are inclined to delete perfectly reasonable argument, facts and opinion then I am afraid that I cannot continue to contribute to your debates. My comments were not nearly as “Feminist bla bla” as your original comments were feminist propoganda and anti-male slander. Typical Femminist, only lets you hear one side of the story. It might be your blog but I thought the point of blogging was to stimulate debate outside of conventional arenas. What you really mean is that this is your soap box. I sincerely hope you don’t fall off it.
Luck
Rob Hickey said,
July 4, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Ditto what Hugh Hicks said Sarah.
It seems to me that because you were losing an argument you ‘took your ball and ran home with it’.
The blog has no value if you decide what we say – “you own it” so good luck to you.
Sarah said,
July 4, 2007 at 5:14 pm
ho ho…defends himself by using “typical feminist”.
This IS my soap box with welcome contributions from people with differing opinions except when they start taking it over and using it to abuse me.
Honestly lads, head over here http://www.fathersrightsparty.ie/ to complain about feminists and I’m sure you’ll get a sympathetic hearing.
Or start your own blog. Takes 5 minutes.
Rob Hickey said,
July 4, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Making valid points shouldn’t be taken as abusing you Sarah.
Your narrow minded views on equality (and the issues surrounding it), as well as your lack of respect for opposing points of view need to be kept in check.
Sarah said,
July 4, 2007 at 6:48 pm
how do you know what he said Rob? I allowed Jim and Hugh to continue on with their posts until the feminist bashing started. All Hugh has succeeded in doing is being so cantankerous that he’s pissed off a supporter of his cause – which I have repeatedly said I am. Which is one of my main points. If you guys would stick to the point – achieving your justly deserved right to equal custody of your children whether married or not, and left Unicef and the feminists out of it, you would actually achieve something. Instead you’re so irritating you just annoy people instead of winning their support.
As for “keeping me in check” – touch the old paternalism there eh? I stood back long enough and let the lads at it..there’s such a thing as outstaying one’s welcome. Give me crewser any day…
jim jones said,
July 4, 2007 at 6:57 pm
We seem to have another breakdown in communications, Sarah.
I asked “Imagine, Sarah, that you were entitled to certain services (pay, school placements for your children, tax refunds, etc) but did not receive them simply because you are a women. Do you not believe that you should demand such services?”
but your answer was
“When women campaigned to get the vote or get education, access to contraception, right to work after they married etc, they campaigned for the right to do those things. They didn’t campaign to force women to do those things. Just because the right to work after they married was secured, it didn’t mean every woman had to keep working (economics aside)”.
I say that we are entitled to “demand” our rights as equal human beings but this doesn’t mean that if we get them that every man will have to behave as we do. I know people who don’t drive a car even though they are entitled to. But they can if they want, once they follow the rules like everybody else.
I know of parents that leave their marriages and don’t want to see their children or support them. I believe they should be made take responsibility for their children by supporting them but it may be harmful for children to spend time with a parent who didn’t love them.
In relation to your line “So you can make it legally and theoretically possible for men to say, take paternity leave equivalent to maternity leave. Doesn’t mean they’ll take it and it doesn’t mean they have to take it” I didn’t say anything that would imply that fathers would be obliged to exercise any rights they had but that does not take from the fact that they should have those rights.
This current case http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/frontpage/2007/0704/1183410236549.html
might be of interest to everyone as it should test the equality issue but I won’t hold my breath. It is important to note that this father was the primary carer. Imagine the opposite, with a single mother who was the primary carer having her two children taken from her.
I think Hugh was wrong to say “Sarah enjoys a successful career as a “journalist” and “social commentator” so I presume, although I know I shouldn’t, that she would be in a position to solve such irritations with money and influence”.
John Waters is also a journalist and social commentator but it didn’t help him. Bob Geldof can influence so much with his fame but still struggled to be allowed be a parent to his children
Sarah said,
July 4, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Jim, I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said. You were the one who took issue with the distinction between equality of opportunity and equality. All the state can do is provide the first. They can’t impose equality of everything on everyone.
That case will be very interesting. Maybe it will bring some progress for you guys. Complaining about feminists won’t.
Sarah said,
July 4, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Jim, I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said. You were the one who took issue with the distinction between equality of opportunity and equality. All the state can do is provide the first. They can’t impose equality of everything on everyone.
That case will be very interesting. Maybe it will bring some progress for you guys. Complaining about feminists won’t.
jim jones said,
July 4, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Sorry, Sarah but they can and they do. Its called the Equality Tribunal http://www.equalitytribunal.ie/index.asp?locID=59&docID=-1 and imposes equality as follows:
“The nine grounds on which discrimination is outlawed by the Equal Status Act are as follows:
• Gender
• Marital status
• Family status
• Sexual orientation
• Religious belief
• Age
• Disability
• Race colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins
• Membership of the Traveller community
The Equal Status Act 2000, prohibits discrimination in the provision of goods and services, the disposal of property and access to education, on any of the nine grounds set out below. The Act outlaws discrimination in all services that are generally available to the public whether provided by the state or the private sector”.
This means that a person cannot be discriminated (treated unequally) for any of these reasons.
Rob Hickey said,
July 4, 2007 at 8:20 pm
“As for “keeping me in check” – touch the old paternalism there eh?”
What?
Is it because I’m a man I’m paternalistic? I’m just a member of society making a point. And the point I was making was that you of course are entitled to your opinion but others should equally be entitled to argue against it and in some cases prove you wrong.
Your paternalism jibe is based on a stereotype of cigar smoking men in Portmarknock Golf Club, keeping all the power for themselves. Grow up – its time to get off your high horse.
Hugh Hicks said,
July 4, 2007 at 11:15 pm
“Or start your own blog. Takes 5 minutes”
Great advice Sarah. I decided that if you can do it anyone can do it.
Look out for the Ministry of Truth (.eu of course), coming soon. All posts welcome, even if they do not agree with my point of view, and no post will be deleted on grounds of gender bias; so even you can participate Sarah.
Sarah said,
July 5, 2007 at 9:40 am
Hopefully Hugh and Rob have finally stormed off in a huff and slammed the door behind them.
Jim, I think you and I are arguing at cross purposes. We are shifting emphasis here from equality to equality of opportunity to discrimination. They are all different things. You can’t discriminate against someone on the grounds of gender, race or disability ie. everyone has to have the right to apply for a job or take that job, regardless of their demographic profile BUT that is quite different from imposing equalness which could be done by affirmative action. So, equality of opportunity says (for example) that women can join the army or men can be primary school teachers. Which is fine. Imposing equalness (which I previously called “equality” would insist that half the army and half the nurses must be women or men. I think that’s silly.
jim jones said,
July 5, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Sarah, I’m afraid I have pointed out our break down in communication on at least two earlier occasions. I’ve just read your last post and had to read it a couple of time to try and make out what you meant to say.
You say that “We are shifting emphasis here from equality to equality of opportunity to discrimination” and that “They are all different things”. They may be different but they are all interlinked and some of the confusion may have been caused by such confusion or misinterpretation. For example, you also said “You can’t discriminate against someone on the grounds of gender, race or disability”. The problem is, you CAN. It may not be nice, it may be illegal and you may have to pay the consequences but the reason that the Equality Authority and the Equality Tribunal exist is because people actually CAN discriminate on the grounds of gender, race and disability and often do so. Maybe you meant to say that this is not allowed.
You then say that “equality of opportunity says that women can join the army or men can be primary school teachers” but try to clarify this by introducing the word “equalness” explaining that you previously called this “equality” which would “insist that half the army and half the nurses must be women or men”.
“Equality” is the state of being equal (Encarta) as in rights, treatment, quantity or value. By saying that equality is insisting that 50% of soldiers or nurses are male is confusing rights with quantity. Equality means that all men can be soldiers or nurses (rights) whereas if the army is 50% male and 50% female , then this would be quantity.
I think I know what you mean but it would be unfair of me to put words in your mouth, given that your original article was so critical of the male of the species(No one took away fathers rights: they gave them away. They ran off and came back to discover themselves surplus to requirements) yet you have since stated that you believe in equality.