Part I: Anti-Male Bias - the meta-issue that
is also the main substantive issue
Introduction to Part I
Given the anti-male bias (see below) that permeates Preliminary Paper
47, one is tempted to boycott the written submission process entirely.
The New Zealand Equality Education Foundation (NZEP) has decided not
to do this, for four reasons:
1. The Men's/Fathers' Movement is used to experiencing anti-male bias
- to the extent that we are now adept at sensing nuances and degrees
of it;
2. The Law Commission has taken the trouble to hold a focus group
meeting of Men's/Fathers' representatives and to tape-record the ensuing
discussion for the purposes of their research into the issues;
3. The Law Commissioner responsible for Preliminary Paper 47, Vivienne
Ulrich, took the trouble to turn up to the above meeting to meet those
involved.
4. The amount of background information about the Family Court that
is gathered together and clearly presented in Preliminary Paper 47 is
fantastic, and needs to be applauded.
Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that, when the main target of
Men's/Fathers' Movement protests has been anti-male bias in the Family
Court, and when Preliminary Paper 47 has arguably come into being principally
as a result of those protests, it is nothing short of horrendous to
find that Preliminary Paper 47 itself reeks of this very same anti-male
bias.
How can we explain to ourselves the co-occurrence of this bias with
points 2-3 above? We can "psychologise" the issue, and partially explain
it by saying that the Feminists in the Law Commission - as elsewhere
-- are in denial about Men's/Fathers' Rights - which is undoubtedly
the case. We can speculate that there is perhaps some gamesmanship involved
here. We may think that Feminists in power consider it appropriate to
oppress men, on the (fallacious) grounds that men used to/do oppress
women. We may wonder if the person who authorized the focus-group meeting
is not the same person as the author of Preliminary Paper 47.
The Western World has gone partially mad, to the extent that students
are actually taught in schools and universities that women have been/are
"oppressed" - when the Feminist priestesses who teach this dogma have
never even examined men's lives for evidence of equally vicious, or
worse, "oppression". The mere fact that men hold/held most of the decision-making
positions is/was simply taken as proof that they oppressed women more
than men - though no effort has ever been made by Feminists to prove
this. The Law Commission, like most people, have been taught this dogma,
so it is very hard for them to approach Men's/Fathers' Rights with an
open mind, since the very idea runs counter to their "religious beliefs",
according to which society is male-dominated and oppresses women.
Part I (Substance)
The Paper spends just over one page of its 208 pages listing the "Problems"
related to "Dissatisfaction and Disempowerment of Family Court Users."
That fact is in itself symbolic -- or iconic.
The Paper says "It is difficult to unpack all the reasons for this
dissatisfaction." That is certainly true. Even after writing a book
on Men's Rights I am only now beginning to feel confident that I understand
the basis of the problem.
The Paper mentions "an allegation of gender bias", but it does not
explain what this actually consists of. I feel that this is the central
issue, and that this Paper is itself flawed because of gender bias --
whether irrecoverably or not, I can't tell yet. Here is some evidence
of gender bias:
1st evidence of gender bias
A woman, Vivienne Ulrich, is put in charge of a Law Commission project
which results
largely from the political protests of men/fathers -- whereas the
study on Women's Access to Justice (a deeply anti-male exercise), which
resulted from political pressure from women, was also headed by a woman.
The researchers on Vivienne Ulrich's project are also apparently female.
This Feminist Control Freak syndrome is typical of the legal system
which we are attacking. I can think of some men who are more anti-male
than some women, so having males doing the job would not eliminate the
possibility of anti-male bias, but the fact that the Law Commission
was so arrogant as to put an all-female team in charge sends a signal
of contempt for the Men's/Fathers' Movement.
2nd evidence of gender bias
The Paper repeatedly cites research from a female -- Professor Carol
Smart - who inaccurately and patronisingly ascribes the rise of the
Fathers' Movement to a loss of power in the private sphere. This combination
of skating over the issue of gender bias and quoting some obscure Feminist
academic putting down the Fathers' Movement is deeply offensive.
3rd evidence of gender bias
Preliminary Paper 47 cites Professor Carol Smart a second time on
one page (p. 55) - this time making a weak argument against father custody
(the idea that fathers don't know their children very well) !
4th evidence of gender bias
Preliminary Paper 47 states (paragraph 320) that we can't solve feelings
of disempowerment by users of the Family Court by means of the court
processes themselves. That statement is almost a cast iron guarantee
that this Review of court processes will get nowhere. You ignore totally,
in this statement, the fact that it is gender bias in the Family Court
itself which is the problem, and it is that which fathers want to have
addressed above all.
5th evidence of gender bias
Preliminary Paper 47 refers on page 1 to the pre-1980 days when it
was "deemed essential for lady petitioners to wear a hat and gloves
to the High Court". That is completely irrelevant. Its only function
is to demonstrate to me that you are just another of those Feminists
who run our legal system, and who feel it absolutely compulsory to feel
self-pity for themselves as women. It is an absolutely trivial matter
whether or not women have/had to wear a hat and gloves to the High Court.
Do/did men have to wear ties to the High Court ? Do you care about that
? Would you mention it ? Would you mention the fact that many men may
have avoided court cases because they were killed overseas on battlefields
? Would you mention that on page one of such a Discussion Paper ?
6th evidence of gender bias
The section on Men in "Background 2" - the so-called "statistical
overview" - has no hard statistics in it at all, and provides yet another
opportunity for the authors of Preliminary Paper 47 to quote Carol Smart's
snide remarks about men and fathers.
Part II: Substantive Issues in Preliminary Paper 47
1. Terms of Reference
Under the Terms of Reference of the present Review, the Law Commission
was requested by the Government to consider, amongst other issues, "culturally
appropriate personnel and processes."
Carol Smart's paper "Changing Family Relationships" contains the following
very important insight:
"There are cultures of marriage and divorce, and we need to understand
that these may be far more influential than current policy and practice.
It is a form of arrogance to assume that people are ignorant or simply
need more information in order to start behaving differently."
This is a brilliant insight, in my opinion. The Family Court has a
relatively Feminist culture of marriage and divorce, and many people
in Society do not. My evidence for this is the fact that "Family Court
judges were more likely to think that gender bias against women is widespread
but subtle than were other judges" (Helena Barwick, Janice Burns &
Alison Gray: "Gender Equity in the New Zealand Judicial System: Judges'
Perceptions of Gender Issues", p.33). This Feminist culture is more
than a mere bias - it is an ideology which many of its proponents believe
in fervently and zealously teach to others. It is being taught by State
and Legal organizations such as the Institute of Judicial Studies, university
Law Faculties, and the Law Society.
In this context, and in view of the political dominance of Feminist
theory on relevant topics, men and fathers must be recognized as a minority
culture within New Zealand Society. Men are numerically a minority,
they are a minority in terms of the number and size of pressure-groups
that act on their behalf, they are a minority in terms of the hostile
Feminist culture that prevails in the Family Court system, in particular,
and they are a minority according to many of the classic criteria for
minority status. For example, more boys than girls leave school without
qualifications, a greater proportion of men than women commit suicide
and are convicted by the courts, women live longer than men, men --
but not women -- are conscripted into the frontline in wartime, and
more is spent on women's health, including visits to GPs, than on men's
health.
2. Some Aspects of Professor Carol Smart's paper: "Changing Family
Relationships"
Here I make some general, negative statements about Carol Smart's
paper being cited so unnecessarily in Preliminary Paper 47:
" This is basically not a competent paper (see below), though it does
have some interesting content, as mentioned above;
" The authors of Preliminary Paper 47 seem to have been clutching
at straws, and to have been willing to cite any old source that was
derogatory towards men/fathers;
" To have been a presenter at a NZ Law Society Conference is not a
guarantee of either competence or objectivity, but of political correctness
first and foremost - to the exclusion of any need for competence;
" To be a female professor at a Western university is not a guarantee
of either competence or objectivity, since male academics are mostly
Feminists and/or terrified of opposing Feminists;
" To be a Professor of Sociology at a Western university is not a
guarantee of either competence or objectivity - rather, it is almost
a guarantee of Leftism and uninformed anti-male bias.
Carol Smart's paper is stimulating, it makes a lot of interesting
historical claims, and it is not so blatantly anti-male as works written
by women in her sort of position often seem to be. However, the main
point she sets out to prove is not actually substantiated by her somewhat
rambling comments. This is the sense in which it is not a competent
paper.
She states:
"I think that one of the keys to understanding (the need for a Men's
Movement) has been the shift in emphasis away from marriage and legally
defined relationships (i.e. the Marriage Regime) towards family policy/law
that is much more focused on parenthood."
She does not actually demonstrate this. She does demonstrate that
marriage has tended to be supplanted by de facto relationships in Western
countries, but she does not mention issues such as relationship property,
which clearly show that legally defined relationships are still very
important. She seems to see children as having more rights and power
than in the past, but this is really a separate issue, even if it is
true.
Part of her problem lies in the fact that she states:
"The Fathers' Movement has arisen as a result of a perceived (and
real) incremental loss of power in the private sphere which was not
widely felt until approximately the 1980s… There clearly was no
need for a Men's Movement before the 1980s."
This supposed sudden need for a Men's Movement was the fact that the
first quotation (above) was supposed to explain. However, even if we
agree that the Men's Movement was negligible prior to the 1980s, that
does not prove that there was no need for one before the 1980s. I would
argue that there was a need for a Men's Movement as soon as a Women's
Movement started to emerge (i.e. about 200 years ago). This submission,
however, is not the place to go into the psychological and political
factors which inhibited the growth of this movement before that time.
The Fathers' Movement, in contrast to the Men's Movement as a whole,
arose not because of some loss of "power" in the private sphere, but
because the contrast between what Feminism said it was about (equality)
and what it was actually about (female power) began to hit men in a
place that they were unable to ignore - in their ability to have contact
with their children. (I put scare-quotes around the word "power", because
one way of telling a Feminist from a non-Feminist is that a Feminist
always refers to men - but never to women - as having, wanting, or losing
"power".)
3. The New Zealand Law Society
The Law Society has a "Women's Consultative Group", which has the
avowed aim of "influenc(ing) decisions that affect women." Obviously,
most/all decisions affecting women also affect men, and there is no
counterweight that presents the male point of view in the Law Society.
I emailed the Law Society about the inappropriateness of having a Women's
Consultative Group without a male equivalent, but I received no reply.
Professional associations (including the Post Primary Teachers' Association
in the Education sector, of which I have first-hand knowledge) tend
to be run by Left-Wing and anti-male activists who prevent those of
dissimilar views from acquiring influence within the organization. Lawyers
are pressured to join the Law Society, whose every activity, including
conferences and training-courses, will necessarily be tainted by this
anti-male bias.
It is impossible for men and fathers to have any confidence in lawyers
and judges, because they are under the influence of the anti-male Law
Society. If men and fathers have no confidence in lawyers and judges,
they can have no confidence in the Legal System as a whole. This can
only result in eventual, creeping revolt, expressed in some of several
possible forms.
The Law Society has a Family Law section which claimed (http://www.familylaw.org.nz/media/famct190701.asp)
that the Family Court is not biased. However, this is a case of a biased
organization (the Law Society) claiming that another organization is
not biased. This claim cannot be taken seriously, if only because of
where the claim is coming from.
Again, we are up against the issue of the dominant Feminist culture,
which pretends that it is oppressed, in order to justify its power.
4. Lawyers
It is important to realize that, if men and fathers cannot find any/enough
lawyers to represent them adequately, they are in effect deprived of
their human rights. Lawyers exist because it is very hard to get anywhere
in the Legal System without them. As is well-known, men and fathers
often complain about lawyers - about how expensive they are, but mainly
about how anti-male they are. That is why so many fathers try to do
without lawyers in the Family Court. Preliminary Paper 47 has helped
me to understand how this comes about.
Lawyers have too much discretion vis-à-vis their clients, in
general, and in the Family Court context, in particular. They have a
duty to act in what they are pleased to see as "the client's best interests",
they have a duty to the court not to appear "obstructive", and they
have a duty to themselves and to their own careers not to act too far
outside the legal culture in which they operate.
All these "duties" can operate against lawyers' male clients in the
Family Court, as well as in other parts of the Legal System, as I have
myself experienced. Largely, I expect, because of the socializing influence
of the Law Society (especially at conferences and courses) and university
Law faculties, lawyers operate in an anti-male, Feminist culture. Feminist
anti-male lies about Domestic Violence (see my book, Sex, Lies &
Feminism, which the Law Commission has bought a copy of), for example,
are probably propagated as facts within this culture. This means that
a male client's assertion of Men's/Fathers' Rights might be undermined
by his own lawyer, who would see the expression of such views as not
being in the client's best interests. A lawyer might also refrain from
pushing such viewpoints him/herself, in order not to be viewed by the
court as "obstructive", and so as not to be viewed as a maverick by
his/her colleagues.
One solution to this is to change the Legal culture, but it would
be simpler (though no easier to achieve) to limit the amount of discretion
that a lawyer has. If a client is paying a lawyer huge fees, the client
should have the right to expect the lawyer to do exactly what they are
instructed to do. The lawyer should explain clearly why they think that
the client is acting against their own interests, if that is the case,
but the lawyer should then bow to the wishes of the paying client. It
is contrary to Natural Justice for a lawyer to be able to thwart a client's
wishes because of the lawyer's own prejudices and professional culture.
Apart from "the client's best interests", and "the best interests
of the child" (see below), another phrase that causes me grave disquiet
is "power imbalance". Preliminary Paper 47 (on page 21) states:
"The lawyer assists in rectifying any power imbalance between the
parties."
This principle should be immediately wiped from whichever documents
are used to promulgate and enforce it. I do not have any concept of
"power imbalances" between Family Court parties, except for the prevailing
bias against fathers. Therefore I must assume that this phrase has a
Feminist origin, since Feminists often talk in derogatory terms about
male "power", but never about female power. My gut feeling is this phrase
must inevitably be used against fathers in ninety percent of cases,
because Feminist and chivalrous lawyers (i.e. altogether about 99% of
Family Court lawyers, in my estimation) are psychologically incapable
of seeing a male as less powerful than a female - whatever the circumstances.
Preliminary Paper 47 (on page 22) states that lawyers who practise
in the Family Court are encouraged to join the Family Law Section of
the New Zealand Law Society. This should be reversed. All lawyers should
be deterred from even joining the Law Society, which practices a form
of ideological "provider capture" - brainwashing lawyers along Leftist
and Feminist lines, and thereby corrupting the Legal system with Leftist/Feminist
prejudices. The Law Society should be stripped of any official functions
within the Legal system (the same applies -- for similar reasons --
mutatis mutandis, to professional bodies in other sectors, such as the
Post Primary Teachers' Association in the Education sector).
5. The Institute of Judicial Studies
The Institute of Judicial Studies is run jointly by the judges, who
have a slight majority on the Governing Board, and the Department of
Courts. The Director was adamant (when I spoke to him on the phone)
that Women's Refuge and Rape Crisis won't have input into educating
judges, but there is plenty of scope for that to happen -- directly
or indirectly -- in future, e.g. in the course of their published Strategy:
"2.6 Work with and assist co-operating groups in the development of
programmes to meet the needs of the Judiciary and the overall goals
of judicial education."
And, in fact, I have since availed myself of the Ombudsmen's Office
and the Official Information Act, in order to extract from the Institute
the information that one of the people teaching the judges "gender equity",
Maria Bradshaw, has the same name as a Spokeswoman for the Women's Refuge
movement, according to the webpage: http://www.massey.ac.nz/~kbirks/gender/viol/insight.htm
Not only that, but:
" Two of the three judge presenters are female;
" Three of the five non-judge presenters are female; and
" The male non-judge presenters are from the Police -- an organisation
which I can testify (having been frequently harassed by them when working
in the Police National Headquarters building, and having had other experiences
of Police anti-male bias) has a large degree of anti-male bias. This,
indeed, is built-in by their recruitment policies, which reject male
applicants who only achieve the physical standards which suffice to
allow entry to female applicants;
" Joy Liddicoat (a non-judge presenter) received a grant from the
NZ Law Foundation to publish the "Feminist Law Review", according to:
http://www.lawfoundation.org.nz/grants/research-legal.htm
.
I realise that "gender equity" is a term that arose in a Feminist
context, and that Feminists never apply gender equity to the process
of defining that term (or, indeed, to anything else). Nevertheless,
the Institute of Judicial Studies should not just be teaching judges
to toe a Feminist party line, but should be interested in practising
gender equity itself, and -- more importantly -- teaching judges to
practise gender equity where this would benefit males, as well as where
this benefits females.
6. Judges
The 1996 study "Gender Equity in the New Zealand Judicial System:
Judges' Perceptions of Gender Issues" states that Family Court judges
were more likely to think that gender bias against women is "widespread
but subtle" than were other judges. Since the Men's/Fathers' Movement
finds Family Court judges to be biased against men, we may suspect that
judges who assume the existence of widespread bias against women are
themselves influenced by Feminist doctrine and are likely to be biased
against men. This is not to say that this bias against women does not
exist, but any belief in its existence is likely to arise as a result
of reading Feminist research which itself is biased against men and
instils, or reinforces, an anti-male mindset.
I am not against Family Court judges being specialists, but the requirement
that they be "temperamentally suited" to this kind of work should be
done away with, as it probably does little more, in practice, than to
allow the selection panel to choose whomsoever they happen to like -
e.g. a candidate who was a firm believer in Feminist doctrines, or one
would tend to favour the mother.
Judges should not be allowed - let alone required - to attend courses
run by the Law Society, because of the anti-male bias of this organization
(see above). Any training programmes for judges on "gender awareness"
should include Men's/Fathers' Rights Awareness.
Nothing even approaching the "one-judge-one-family" or "one-team-one-family"
method of case-management should be tolerated. This is because it would
be very difficult, in present circumstances, for a male litigant to
convince the relevant authorities that a judge was biased against them.
The justice system seems to have no real concept of gender bias against
men and fathers. I am aware of allegations of severe anti-male bias
having been leveled against least one judge who is using such a model,
and I must therefore be highly suspicious of any case-management system
that this judge is in favour of.
7. The Best Interests of the Child and the Rights of Parents
Where the correct course of action is not obvious on the basis of
the principle of the best interests of the child (and I believe this
would be the situation in most cases before the Family Court), I consider
that the relevant principle of Natural Justice is the equal rights of
both parents.
8. Counsel for the Child
I don't agree that there should even be a "Counsel for the Child",
I don't agree that "the best interests of the child" is a principle
that can be sensibly interpreted in practice, and I don't agree that
the Counsel for the Child should be appointed by the Court, since the
Court no doubt tends to appoint lawyers who have the approved, anti-male,
Feminist attitudes.
Since those issues are probably outside the scope of the current review
process, I will make the following suggestions:
" The Practice Note on Selection and Appointment of Counsel for the
Child should make it clear that "sensitivity and awareness of gender
issues" includes "sensitivity and awareness of Men's/Fathers' issues".
" Any reference in the Practice Note to "personal qualities compatible
with … working cooperatively with other professionals" should be
struck out, because that may be used to exclude lawyers who have the
gall not to be anti-male, which would put them off-side with other -
mostly anti-male, professionals.
" The Best Practice Guidelines for the Counsel for the Child should
be removed from the ambit of the Law Society and rewritten by a committee
including both Men's/Fathers' representatives and Women's representatives.
" Counsel for the Child should not have the power to override the
expressed wishes of a child for the supposed reason that they are against
the "best interests of the child".
" It should be stated in relevant official documents, however, that
the expressed interests of the child may be influenced by Parental Alienation
- especially when one parent has been excluded from playing a normal
part in his child's life by gross abuses such as ex parte Protection
Orders.
" Counsel for the Child should be barred from expressing a preference
for custody by one parent over custody by the other, because such a
stated preference permits the judge to "cop out" of exercising their
own judgement. This is one of the main reasons why the principle of
"the best interests of the child" is so flawed. Such a lawyer, who has
been chosen by a Feminist Court, is free to interpret this wooly principle
in a way that is consistent with their anti-male tendencies, and the
judge can then wash their hands of the matter and rely on the biased
guidance of this Counsel for the Child.
9. Specialist Report Writers
The selection panel for Specialist Report Writers should not include
a "representative of the tangata whenua", because there is no such thing
as 'tangata whenua' of New Zealand as a whole, because the very concept
is incoherent and a violation of human rights, the notion of "tangata
whenua of New Zealand" (as opposed to hapu or iwi tangata whenua status
in their own area) is racist, and it is a breach of the principles of
the Treaty of Waitangi. However, I will not argue that in detail here,
since this is probably not the appropriate place to do it.
10. Second Opinions
Second opinions of psychologists' reports should be routine, and the
original psychologist's report should be released immediately upon demand
by any party to Family Court proceedings. The psychologist preparing
the second opinion should routinely have access to all relevant parties.
11. Information
Providing more statistical and other information is one way that the
Family Court can be opened up and the potential for anti-male bias decreased.
Preliminary Paper 47 should be commended for looking positively at this
issue.
It is crucial that statistics about the sex of parties to Family Court
proceedings be made available once again - including information about
the sex of those awarded day-to-day physical custody and of those representing
themselves, of those appearing repeatedly before the Court, of those
seeking and obtaining Legal Aid, and of those seeking and obtaining
Protection Orders ex parte and otherwise. Judge Mahoney was obviously
moved to cease publication of some of these statistics by a feeling
that they would create a false impression of gender bias in the Family
Court. The point is that they would probably create a true impression
of gender/sex bias in the Family Court !
Part III: Conclusion
The New Zealand Legal System - in fact, the World as a whole - needs
to realize consciously that Feminism is a thought-system or ideology
like any other. It is not just "God's Truth", as the New Zealand Legal
System is increasingly treating it at the moment. Unless and until New
Zealand adopts a written constitution which enshrines Feminism as the
State Ideology, the "Diversity" which is such a buzzword these days
must be applied to thought-systems, as well as to types of people. Specifically,
Masculism must be taught to Judges, Lawyers, and Court Officials on
an equal basis with Feminism through the Institute of Judicial Studies,
the Law Society, the Department for Courts, and the Ministry of Justice.
The Law Society, being a non-government body, must be deprived of the
right to train legal professionals on Government-recognized courses,
unless it agrees to implement this gender equity measure. All these
points apply to the Family Court, as well as to other branches of the
Legal System.
Bibliography
Barwick, Helena, Janice Burns and Alison Gray (1996):
"Gender Equity in the New Zealand Judicial System: Judges' Perceptions
of Gender Issues." Judicial Working Group on Gender Equity
Law Commission (2002):
"Preliminary Paper 47: Family Court Dispute Resolution: A Discussion
Paper"
Smart, Carol (2001):
"Changing Family Relationships" (Law Conference 2001, Christchurch,
New Zealand, 4-8 October 2001)
