Australian Men's Rights Advocates - AustralianMRA
Men are losing their families
The Sun-Herald, 18 November 2007, By Maxine Frith
Steven Gillespie was overjoyed when his girlfriend of several months told him she was pregnant.
Picture: An awful realisation ... Steven Gillespie had his daughter's name tattooed on his chest, only to find out he wasn't her biological father.
They moved in together and he was present at the birth of their daughter - his first child - in 2004, cutting her umbilical cord and later having her name tattooed on his chest.
It was only after the couple split that she told him that the little girl, then two, was not his - a claim confirmed by a paternity test.
"I was absolutely devastated," Mr Gillespie, a 46-year-old computer expert from Brisbane, said. "My whole family was affected. My parents had been delighted to have a grand-daughter and my sister had bought loads of presents.
"For two years I thought she was my child and loved her and cared for her and now I don't have any rights to see her."
Mike (not his real name) is another man to have experienced the horror of discovering a much-loved child was not his. Mike, 39, brought up four children with his wife believing they were his, later to discover he was only the biological father of the eldest.
The rural labourer from NSW was married for 10 years and had three sons before he had a vasectomy.
When his wife fell pregnant again, Mike believed the vasectomy had failed.
He happily accepted the baby, a girl, as his.
But in 2003 the marriage fell apart and the couple divorced.
Mike became suspicious that the youngest child - his daughter, now nine - was not his. He used a DIY paternity test, which showed he was not the father.
He conducted tests on his three sons - now 14, 13 and 10 - and found that only the eldest was his biological child.
"I was totally shocked," Mike said. "I have lost my whole family and now I only get to see my biological son. It has totally knocked me sideways."
Fathers' Rights Groups in Australia and their Engagement with Issues in Family Law
Paper by Miranda Kaye and Julia Tolmie, 1998, feminist lecturers at the Faculty of Law, Sydney University
There is a constant and persistent view pursued by people who are often discontented litigants sometimes obviously dysfunctional, that the court is in some sense designed by anti-family groups to destroy the institution of the family in society... An unfortunate concomitant of this approach is that some people and some politicians with limited knowledge of the issues involved, tend to latch on to such dysfunctional persons for apparent political gain. This has the further unfortunate effect of empowering such persons to feel that their behaviour is not only acceptable but is the subject of sympathy and approval by politicians and government. It is all too often the experience of this court that its most persistent critics have behaved in a way which cannot stand up to public scrutiny, particularly in relation to issues of violence against women and children.
Such persons, who often espouse the rights of fathers, do very little for their cause. There are legitimate matters that can be advanced on their behalf and it is equally as important that the court and those within it do not adopt stereotyped attitudes towards men as well as women.
However, the behaviour and attitude of those who espouse so-called fathers' rights leaves little opportunity for rational discourse.
More..Feminist Scholars Say All Heterosexual Sex is Rape
Certain feminist "scholars", such as law professor Catharine McKinnon, equate all sexual intercourse with rape.
Of the 12 recognized categories of feminists, the "Female Supremacists" are by far the most damaging to society.
They inundate our universities with hatred of males and preach that males are inferior people. And you wonder why males don't go to university? If you were black, would you go to a university which teaches "White Supremacy"?
Biological Mothers Murder More of Their Own Children Than Do Biological Fathers
Australian Institute of Criminology statistics show there were 270 child homicide incidents in Australia from July 1989 to June 1999, involving 287 identified offenders and resulting in the deaths of 316 children under 15.
For example, the revised National Homicide Monitoring Program 2006-07 Annual Report states 11 homicides involved a biological mother and 5 involves a biological father.
The Western Australian figures shed light on who is likely to abuse children in families. Mothers are identified as the perpetrator of neglect and abuse in a total of 73% of verified cases.
Biological mothers account for about 35 per cent of all child murders, while biological fathers account for 29 per cent