Talk:Fathers' rights movement/Archive 1

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I didn't understand "Some see the establishment of this movement to precompensate for biased treatment for mothers." Might be reworded? Humanist

Contents

Usage of "criticism"

Criticisms, however, have been made to the actual number of women in divorce proceedings who falsibly make claims of violence against the father of the children.

We are not talking about a comparison between actual stated numbers, but a comparison with "the magnitude of claims made by fathers' rights proponents".

By the way, the description of "regardless" isn't quite accurate, say someone makes a claim against the father and it has been disproved before the father has made his counter-argumnt to the claim's falsity, then the father need not make the counter-argument since it has been disproved.

Dysprosia 03:12, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"Criticisms ... to the number" is not English. How can one criticise a number? You might want to put "There is no consensus about the size of the problem that false allegations represent" or some such, which would be NPV. Stan 03:27, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)


How about "Criticisms, however, have been made to the validity of the conjectured number of women in divorce proceedings who falsibly make claims of violence against the father of the children." Dysprosia 03:31, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You're still trying to criticise a number. My objection is entirely pedantic. Stan 03:34, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand what is abhorrently wrong with such a sentence: "John said that several buses went past his house that day, but Chris, who was driving them, criticised that number". There may be a grammatical issue as to criticising the number in a direct way (as in the absurdity of criticising the number 32 for instance), but I thought I had removed this problem in criticising the validity of the number that was proposed, and not the number itself. Dysprosia 03:39, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If you mean critize in the sense of find fault with then you owe it to NPV to indicate what you are finding fault with and what that fault is. If you meant critize in the sense of Pass judgement, esp. unfavourably then again the justification of the judgement should be given; otherwise it may be construed as an ill-informed opinion. I do not think I made any exagerated claims in my original piece, though I appreciate some of the adjustments you made, just not the grammar elsewhere ;-) Stan 12:08, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Matthew, would you mind changing your sig?, only I keep confusing you with User:Stan Shebs who also uses Stan to sign off. Mintguy (T) 12:13, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)~~

My intention was to indicate what I was finding fault with by means of the juxtaposition of that paragraph against others - this disputed paragraph is meant (for flow) to introduce the subsequent two or so paragraphs which discusses criticisms of the reporting that there is somehow a large number of women who falsify domestic violence claims. Dysprosia 12:53, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

False allegations

For a while I used a form at one of the charity's public weekly meetings in central London on which we asked attendees to indicate whether they had been subject to false allegations. About half the people ticked this box on average. We get 10-20 people at this meeting each week, about half of whom are new. A quick mental calculation gives an average of three (obviously unconfirmed - though there's generally no reason why people would make up most of the stories I hear) instances of false allegation per week, or 150 per year - in one area of London. FNF has two other branches in London as well as a scattering around England, Wales, Scotland and one in Northern Ireland, and is the largest and longest establshed such self-help group in Europe. But I would say that if just one child's relationship was affected with a parent who had been falsely accused and put in the position I described, that should be sufficient to cause alarm, so the size of the statistic is irrelevant to the argument. The fact is there are thousands of parents who find themselves in this situation every year.Stan 13:14, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Make the point in the article, if you feel you need to. The point of what exactly constitutes a "false" allegation may need to be clarified if you do: is a false allegation termed such if: it has been independantly assessed as being false (eg police), by the victim of the allegation asserting that the allegation is false, or that the maker of the allegation has confessed that the allegation is false. In any case, this thread is deviating from the original topic... Dysprosia

Anyone who has had to defend against a false allegation, usually made via a solicitor's letter, is put in the position at the point that the allegation is first made. By their efforts, they might manage to have the allegation thrown out as not proven, but in the mean time, it is usual for all contact to cease between the children and the parent against whom the false allegation has been made. A common false allegation is that of sexual abuse, which is in fact extremely rare between natural fathers and their own children, but once the allegation is made then the damage is done. The system does not operate to discourage false accusations, since, even when they are subsequently shown to be false, there is generally no come-back against the accuser, who can shrug the whole thing off with "Well, I must have been wrong, then." Stan 13:37, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure in what way this deviating from topic. You (Dysprosia) started by indicating that unspecified claims by fathers' rights groups were unfounded. I have replied here with particular claims, based on my own experience. I could put them in the main page, you're right, but they would be anecdotal. I think it is better to accept that the claims of fathers' rights campaigners are made in good faith, unless you have evidence to the contrary. Matt Stan 15:38, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, the topic was the issue of whether the paragraph before was grammatically correct or not - now we are discussing whether the paragraph is factually correct or not. I have not claimed, by doing so, that the claims are unfounded, but that there has been criticism by others of the magnitude of the claims by some FR groups. Whether what I have been contributing is correct or not should ideally be argued in the article unless you have a very serious problem with what I am writing in the article. Dysprosia 22:55, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think, incidentally, that the notion that there should be some real initiatives, perhaps in the form of social engineering, to reduce the incidence of domestic violence in society can only be welcomed. The question that should perhaps be debated then is whether a whole generation of children should unwittingly be used as instruments in that social engineering project. I would say, categorically no. The ends don't justify the means in this case. Matt Stan 15:38, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)


The content in this article appears to have become doubled up. It also needs a lot of editing for NPOV, as a tone of passionate advocacy is present in the current version. -- The Anome 19:29, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

NPOV (1)

I've reverted a change made by Dysprosia under the Adversarial Court System header because it was wrong, and I've added an example to illustrate. Matt Stan 00:58, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I've also put comments at User talk:Dysprosia which perhaps would have better placed here. Matt Stan 00:58, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Getting the impression that doing the obligatory NPV thing is making this piece very clumsy. Is there no simpler expedient? Do I either have to say 'it is claimed that' before everything or provide evidence in each and every instance for what is being claimed? Surely the sub-culture of family law can simply be described here as it is, contributed by someone who knows? Or is it a too tabboo subject for most people to come to terms with without total denial? Matt Stan 00:58, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)


No, you don't need to say that "it is claimed that" verbatim, but you can vary the phrase. You need to however distance the position in the article away from taking a certain line because there always exists another side to the view who may disagree with you - no matter what appears to be "true" or not - this is how NPOV works. Dysprosia 02:43, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
When I am expressing a view, yes, when I'm stating what I consider to be fact? If other people don't care to believe then there need to be means of verification, e.g. searching the internet in the first instance. I understand that there can always be another point of view, and I would like to hear any that contradict my own views in order that I should change them if they're wrong. But to change an article to indicate that there is an alternative point of view without saying what that point of view is or providing evidence to support it is tiresome ;-) Matt Stan 03:01, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
It's not a matter of what others care to believe, but what NPOV guarantees is that the reader is given all sides of the story, whether they be correct or not.
By saying "It is claimed that", the point that there may be an alternative view is made without saying it, and it can be placed there afterward if need be. Without saying it, the article presumes that what it is saying is fact: compare "It is claimed by some that wholemeal bread is better for you" with "Wholemeal bread is better for you".
Dysprosia 03:07, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Structure

Matthew, isn't it about time you chopped up the page into subsections? It has reached a point where it is too big to read or edit.

--John Foley 01:11, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Kafkaesque and Dysprosia's removal of that term twice from this piece

Perhaps you haven't read The Trial. The reason why The Trial is a classic is because it really drives home the message about how state bureaucracy can alter people's lives in a non-totaliotarian context, and the family court system really is like that. I had hoped that, through the stuff and the links I've been putting into this article, you might see that. Having read the book I can testify from personal experience of having helped many fathers through my charity work that what fathers have to go through in this circumstance is very similar, and Kafkaesque is the only correct term. Many people use this term in the context of family law and I would expect people using an encyclopedia easily to be able to look it up. Please would you put it back. Matt Stan 22:00, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A further point about Kafkaesque - it is slightly rhetorical as you suggest but in the context of drawing people's attention to the fact that it is the system that is at fault. One might be drawn otherwise to assume that the witch-hunt was a personal vendetta. Perhaps it is also, but it is pointless from a fathers' rights perspective to reduce their cause to one of people being beastly to each other. Their point is that it is the system being beastly by being utterly bureaucratic and not dealing with the underlying human causes. Drawing an allusion with Kafka's classic is surely salient in this context. Matt Stan 22:12, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I missed that point you were trying to make. Perhaps you should explain in the article the reference you are trying to make in with the reference to the book, since not all would have read The Trial? Dysprosia 23:04, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I think Kafkaesque is widely understood and needs no more than the link Kafkaesque in explanation. Paul Beardsell 03:59, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
If that's the way you want it, then I'd suggest a removal of the word "proportion", and say something like "a Kafkaesque witch-hunt" instead. Dysprosia 04:29, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

News

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1173919,00.html
Belfast Telegraph 19 March 2004

Supporters

The following is a quote, 19 March 2004 Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks on Thought For the Day on Radio 4:

It’s actually fatherhood that makes humanity different from most primate species. Usually it’s the females who look after the young, while a few weeks after birth many males don’t even recognise their own children. Motherhood is biological and almost always strong. Fatherhood is cultural and almost always in need of support. Matt Stan 08:17, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The father's rights in regards to abortion

What I was looking for in this article, and was disappointed not to find, is something on the father's rights if the mother wishes to have an abortion. So much is said about a woman's right to "choose;" does the father get any say in such situations? Garrett Albright 12:04, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It's a contentious issue, but I'm not aware of anywhere where a father has any rights over an unborn child; not even here in Ireland where the only option available to women who wish to have an abortion is to travel to the UK. That said, an unmarried father by default (in Ireland) has only the right to be informed if another man wishes to adopt his children, so it'd be reaching a bit far to expect any rights to veto an abortion. -- Jim Regan 00:01, 15 May 2004 (UTC)
If one accepts that a woman should not have the right to terminate a child arbitrarily - in other words, if one accepts that she should not have the right to end a life just, say, because she finds it inconvenient to be pregnant or doesn't want the responsibility of parenthood - then one can start to enumerate what constitute valid reasons for a termination, and these will exclusively be medical reasons. If one introduces the father into the decision-making process, and says that there must be unanimity between the partners in deciding the outcome when the question of abortion arises, then there are still difficult questions of precedence. One could hold that only if both partners agree that there should be a termination then it can take place. From the anti-abortionists' perspective, this is like saying that the father must become party to the 'murder' of the unborn child in order for it to take place. Alternatively one could take the opposite stance and say that if either partner wants the abortion then it must occur, so a father could demand an abortion even though the mother didn't want it (and vice versa). I think both these alternatives create difficulties, the latter more than the former. For those who hold that abortion should not occur except for valid medical reasons, such questions do not arise: abortion is held simply to be wrong and any perpertators of it or collaborators in bringing it about are criminals. Because this is such a difficult area, there hasn't been any clamour amongst fathers' rights campaigners for any increase in fathers' rights when it comes to decisions about abortion. Opinion is generally divided between those who believe abortion is wrong (the anti-abortionists) and those who accept that a woman should have the exclusive right to decide what to do with her own body (and, by extension, with those who grow within it) without anyone one else, e.g. the father, having any overriding right to interfere in her decision. A commonsense argument against giving fathers the right to demand an abortion is that if he didn't want a child then he shouldn't have impregnated the mother, i.e. the pregnancy was the result of a voluntary action on his part and therefore he should have no right stop it having started it. It is less easy, I think, to provide good reasons why a father shouldn't demand that a woman does not abort his child, but if fathers were ever given such a right then there would be obvious problems of enforcement. Matt Stan 10:14, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

The time has come to internationalise the page by separating out the general issues from the country specific issues. I have made some initial bold edits but a lot still needs to be done. JPF 20:06, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Underlying the issue of rights

I think it would help to get at some of the underlying assumptions, often not stated in debates, to understrand the issues of 'rights' in a family law context. Here are my initial thoughts/questions:

  • Does a mother have the right to choose her child's social father?
If the answer is yes, then the fathers' rights angle goes away because it is established that there is an inequality right at the start. This, however, is effectively the status quo in that a mother will often assert this right, and then it is for the father to try to get that assertion overturned in a court of law. Is this the root of the issue of inequality in this context?
If the answer is no, then who has precedence when it comes to being that social father? Some suggest that the natural father should invariably have first call - that the biological relationship is sacred and that it is of paramount interest to the child to have that relationship preserved.

It seems that political debates have missed this point which, if my assumptions are correct, goes some way to link the polarised positions of the UK political parties on this issue. Essentially there are those who, it seems, believe that "a woman's right to choose" should be extended in Single Parent Household situations, and those who wish to assert the "equality argument" and allow that choice also to be exercised by men. Matt Stan 10:24, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

NPOV (2)

While much of this article is well-written and informative, the fact that it contains no criticism of certain anti-feminist subsets of the Fathers' Rights movement renders it biased. Many prominant figures and groups have attacked some Fathers' Rights activists, arguing that they simply want to roll back feminism and return to a more partriarchal way of doing things. Whether one agrees or disagrees with such critiques is not germane here -- but until these matters are treated, this article is biased by omission.Zantastik 08:08, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If there is information about criticism of such anti-feminist subsets then why not at least provide a link? In fact 'father's rights' as it has come to be known might better be classified as a sub-set of men's rights rather than vice versa. There may well be subsets of the men's rights movement that fall into the category identified by Zantastic. Matt Stan 16:38, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zantastic raises a more interesting point, though, I think. It could be argued that men's rights movement is opposition to what ensues when the feminist notion of empowering women to make their own decisions includes the decision to exclude the father from their children's lives. So, yes the critic above is right that the article doesn't dwell on this erstwhile anti-feminist sentiment underpinning the fathers' rights movement. Perhaps it should. On the other hand, I never thought that feminism was about replacing patriarchy with matriarchy. So whatever should be getting opposed here is not feminism as it is usually portrayed, rather what one of the UK judiciary has described as a "group of obdurate women" mentioned in the context of literature obtained from Women's Aid which has inflamed family disputes over children. Matt Stan 16:38, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)


Strong Bias towards the UK-based "Fathers Rights" movement

This article, while containing a good deal of useful information about the Fathers Rights movement, is extremely biased in support of it. This article has serious neutrality problems, and needs to be throughly re-written. I cannot do this myself, because I am not an expert on the movement. This article is nothing but a tract for the movement, and wikipedia does not tolerate such issue advocacy in lieu of encyclopaedic articles.Zantastik 06:23, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)