This post looks at a number of stories from around the world to illustrate the work being done by men’s groups and their supporters. What is striking is the similarity of experiences shared by these groups.
The Men’s Rights Agency in Australia aims to promote equal rights and a level playing field for all men across a whole range of issues. The following key issues for MRA are all familiar:
Domestic Violence, False Allegations, Family Law, Government Inquiries, Hot Topics, War on Men.
For 27 years, the primary focus of Men’s Rights Agency has been to support the essential role fathers have in their children’s lives.
Senate Committee Inquiry into the proposed changes to Family Law
This very month the group is opposing a change to Family Law which the government is putting forward.
The 2006 changes to bring in the shared parenting responsibility, shared parenting time, substantial contact, penalties for lying or contravening orders were welcomed.
Men’s Rights Agency is endeavouring to stop a proposal by the Labour Government to remove the Family Law provisions for shared parental responsibility and the inclusion of fathers in children’s lives; they want instead to restore shared parenting. They have managed to bring about a Senate inquiry into the matter. In the words of Sue Price of MRA. “I am not sure if you are aware that the Senate inquiry came about after we were able to make contact with the Shadow Attorney General Michaelia Cash. She agreed with me that the proposed changes to the Family Law Act were a very backward step. So she took our information to the Liberal Party Committee and they approved sending the problem to the Senate”.
“As you can imagine the female journalists had a field day , the Australian, Adelaide Advertiser, Melbourne Herald Sun, Brisbane Courier Mail accusing Men’s Rights Agency of being a right wing controversial group.
It appears that the Senate will now decide the future of the Family Law Act.
Why Men’s Rights Agency Exists
In today’s world, no matter where one lives, men and boys face increasing hostility just because they are male. Fairness and equal treatment for both genders, the original aim of the women’s movement has been lost as society is encouraged to view men as perpetrators of evil and women as only victims. Feminist jurisprudence, the perversion of legislation to provide advantages to one gender over the other, contrary to human rights considerations is creating a two tier society, with men and boys relegated to second class citizen status.
Resignation of public prosecutor involved in Brittany Higgins case
Bettina Arndt has been a redoubtable campaigner for men’s rights in Australia for decades and has featured several times on this website. In a piece in her blog earlier this month headed Brittany Higgins prosecutor bites the dust Bettina writes:
We’ve had good news this week with the resignation of the public prosecutor involved in our notorious Brittany Higgins case – where a parliamentary staffer was found drunk and half naked asleep in Parliament House, on the Minister’s couch. She then claimed she had been raped when she realised she was about to be fired from her job.
The prosecutor, a zealot, was determined to bring the accused man, Bruce Lehrmann, to trial and behaved disgracefully, denying the defence access to exculpatory evidence and lying to the Chief Justice. This has all now been exposed as a result of an inquiry into the way the case was handled and the prosecutor Shane Drumgold was forced to resign. Arndt quotes from The Australian newspaper:
“ACT chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold knowingly lied to the Supreme Court, engaged in serious malpractice and grossly unethical conduct, ‘preyed on a junior lawyer’s inexperience’, betrayed that junior lawyer who trusted him, and treated criminal litigation as ‘a poker game in which a prosecutor can hide the cards.’”
But Arndt does reserve some criticism for the author of the inquiry on the ground that he ignored the feminist capture of the justice system which has removed any real role for police in determining which rape cases go to trial; that he let Heidi Yates, the Victims of Crime Commissioner, totally off the hook, claiming she was simply doing her job, ignoring the way she overstepped her role to manipulate the Higgins case as part of her broader goal of remaking the way the justice system handles sexual assault.
Male Support Group in Manchester
We Are Survivors in Manchester, England has just been awarded a major grant of £746,843 by the Ministry of Justice to assist male survivors of sexual assault.
Its Mission Statement reads: To break the silence of the sexual abuse, rape and exploitation of boys and men and support them and their loved ones to engage in positive healing, free from the impact of abuse.