Wednesday, September 10, 2008

It seems we're not the first to blow the cover of the SPCA

"Organised resistance to feminism has existed for over a century,
but anti-feminist groups of men organised specifically on the basis
of their position as men (or as fathers) are more recent, appearing
only in the last 30 years. Such groups in Australia include the
Lone Fathers Association, the Men’s Rights Agency, the Men’s
Confraternity, Fathers Without Rights, the Shared Parenting
Council,
Dads Against Discrimination, and many others. “Men’s
rights” groups overlap with “fathers’ rights” groups and with noncustodial
parents’ groups, whose members are often fathers. These
groups sometimes also have female members and even co-founders,
including ‘second wives’ and other family members of men who
have had some engagement with family law...........................
For example, one of the key groups in Australia currently lobbying for
a rebuttable presumption of joint custody is the Shared Parenting
Council
, a new coalition of fathers’ rights groups with links to
such conservative Christian groups as the Festival of Light. Another,
the National Fatherhood Forum, has close links to the Australian
Family Association, a conservative Christian and ‘pro-family’
organisation. A handful of men’s and fathers’ rights groups do have
more flexible visions of family and gender relations. But most share
the common enemy of feminism, as well as gay and lesbian politics
and other progressive movements and ideals.................................
Men’s rights and fathers’ rights advocates do not accurately
represent the views of the majority of divorced and separated men.
While many men (and women) find the processes of divorce and
separation to be hurtful, only a minority subscribe to the aggressively
conservative agendas of anti-feminist men’s groups
................................
Fathers’ rights advocates seem
less interested in supporting children than in maintaining or
assuming control over their ex-spouses and the children.
They
use the language of “shared parenting”, offering an ideal few could
dispute, but this goal is undermined by their acrimony towards
the custodial parent and their commitments to a patriarchal family
structure.
In addition, their proposed solutions to child support
and contact issues often show insensitivity to children’s welfare
and involve one-sided restrictions on the custodial parent.


http://www.xyonline.net/downloads/backlash.pdf

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