Introduction
This is not meant to be a thorough or balanced review -- no doubt attempts
at such a review have appeared elsewhere. This review is a brief look
at some serious deficiencies and also some positive aspects of the book,
from the perspective of one who doesn't have the huge advantage (in
a Law School context) of being either female or Maori.
As an introduction to Family Law in New Zealand, this book fits the
bill well -- as far as I can tell, being a newcomer to the field. However,
I see important issues of bias, sloppiness and inappropriate political
activism in it. Bias in a legal matter is a very serious matter, sloppiness
is also always serious, and political activism in university courses
needs to be combatted in the courts, because it nullifies all our high
ideals of academic freedom (for students) and of democracy in society.
Lecturers do not get paid to be activists and students do not (generally)
choose to take courses because of their activist content. Students are
forced to take courses in order to become qualified.
Male Subservience
It is typical of the culture of Law School, as I experienced it, that
Mark Henaghan apologises for being male (page 245)! He states:
"I am also a man; I hope I can overcome that bias, but that
is for the reader to assess."
There is nothing wrong with that statement, except that it would be
inconceivable for a female New Zealand writer on the Law to apologise
for being female in similar terms. In New Zealand legal culture, men
are assumed to be in control and biased in favour of men, and so they
end up being biased against their own sex. Legal women, on the other
hand, just keep on pushing their own self-intersts without any apologies
-- except that some women, such as Pauline Tapp and Nicola Taylor, are
prepared to take a reasonably objective view of issues, apparently.
Domestic Violence
According to the index, women's refuges are mentioned on four pages.
Men's and fathers' groups are, according to the index, not mentioned
at all. The mention of the refuges on pages 127-8 and page 132 is appropriate,
in the sense that it is part of a historical account of pressures for
change in domestic violence legislation. However, the wording states
sexist, man-hating propaganda as fact, rather than maintaining the appropriate
distance (if any exists) between the views of the authors of that chapter
(Pauline Tapp and Nicola Taylor) and the views of the refuges.
On page 251, in the chapter written by Mark Henaghan, cites the refuges
as an authority on domestic violence and conciliation. This is biased
and negligent, since the women's refuges are run by a fairly random
collection of variously sexist, ignorant, and unintelligent persons,
with no claim to prefessionalism or objectivity whatsoever. In the Men's/Fathers'
Movement, Professor Henaghan seems to have acquired the reputation of
being one of the least anti-male participants in the Family Law scene.
If that is truly the case, it goes to show how serious the anti-male
bias in that scene is.
On the other hand, on page 78, Pauline Tapp and Nicola Taylor argue
that
"as regards violence between adults, the current legislative
and professional focus almost solely on male violence ignores the
evidence of the origins of violence, silences the voices of children
and creates an anger among those whose perception of reality is ignored."
They are to be commended for stepping aside from the Feminazi bullying
and hysteria on this topic.
Sloppiness
On page 82, Pauline Tapp and Nicola Taylor state:
"The term 'child abuse' covers several dimensions of adult behaviour
towards children."
Yet, on the very next page they state:
"The issue of abuse perpetrated by siblings within a family
is yet another variation."
This is an apparent self-contradiction, which is somewhat sloppy.
Activism
The chapter on "Maori Aspirations and Family Law" is activist,
and therefore inappropriate in a Family Law textbook. It is one-sided,
taking a pro-Maori, anti-Pakeha line. It also claims to represent all
Maoris, whereas it clearly does not. It assumes that separatism is the
only possible way to approach the differences between the Maori and
European (and Asian, Pacific Islands, etc.) approaches to all the relevant
issues.
Other
Pauline Tapp and Nicola Taylor are dogmatic in their claim to know
how best to "manage" child abuse, yet they fail to consider
trends in child abuse statistics or the issue of child abuse prevention.
In fact, they state that they have deliberately avoided discussing prevention,
since "child abuse cannot be legislated against" (page 90).
I would argue that child abuse is linked to the breakdown in the two-parent
family, which is itself linked to the introduction of no-fault divorce.
I would argue that most child abuse is perpetrated by step-parents and
single parents. Two parents together can manage children much better
than one parent alone can, and the stepparent-stepchild bond can seldom
be as strong as the bond between blood relatives, which opens the door
to behaviour of all sorts that is more typical of strangers than of
relatives.
So we could indeed "legislate against child-abuse", by making
divorce and separation harder to get, and by creating tax incentives
and other measures to make the housewife/househusband the norm that
they once were. There needs to be less hypocritical legislative talk
about the "best interests of the child" and more legislative
action to secure those interests.
