Britain will re-write child laws in first major blow for father's rights

Hm, I skipped a bit on international developments for father's / men's rights. But will do so in the future with the new label of "Success" (and maybe tag along some of my older posts (as usual, maybe here means probably not)).

Children’s Minister Tim Loughton will announce that the Children Act 19879, which states that the child comes first in law courts, will be rewritten.

Henceforth the preferred option for the courts will be “the presumption that a child’s welfare is likely to furthered through safe involvement with both parents.” That is, in the absence of abuse, equal parenting, exactly the template we have been patiently awaiting in Canada, will be the default for splitting couples. Furthermore, mothers who refuse to permit access to the children may lose their passports, their driving licences or even their freedom of movement if they fail to comply.

- Source

Stories of abused men...

A collection of experiences from abused men via reddit. Obvious trigger warning:

Male Redditors who have been abused or assaulted (sexually or otherwise) Did you seek help/support and were you able to find it?, [2], [3]

Another link I had floating around is about men suspected to be pedophiles:

Parents/Adults of reddit, why is a guy an instant pedo on sight?, [2]

IAmA former Rape Crisis Advocate who provided support to Male victims of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence. I worked at one of only two centers nationally who provides shelter to male victims. AMA!

Some people almost get it...

This will be the day of tidbit informations. The relationship between feminism and male DV / rape victims has been problematic. In a piece about privilege, rape culture and nice guys:

The stereotypical images of rapists and batterers hurts victims. If a person’s rapist or batterer doesn’t fit the stereotype, why come forward at all? For this reason, feminists have worked for years to tell the truth. Rapists and batterers often present quite well in public, while committing violence in private.

This just describes the experiences of male victims so well, I had to include this. Now this was not an article about male victims / female perpetrators, but I really wish we as society and of course feminists would take female perpetrators more seriously.

Incoming hiatus.....or not?

I rarely talk about myself here, this however is one of the times it is appropriate. This blog, although it does not seem to be that way, is quite a bit of work. On average I have about 30-50 links I check on a daily basis, 200+ unpublished posts and the "Short Fact List" which means also digging through the 600+ posts there already are...enough to keep me busy. You might have noticed that I was not that active recently. Well, the reason, we are having a baby, soon. It is the last month of pregnancy, stress is building up and afterwards I am going to take a month off and take 2 additional "father-months" (3 days at work, 2 at home) after that.

Do I stop posting entirely? Well not sure, it all depends on how stressful the time will actually be. Maybe we are in a good routine soon, maybe things are not going that well. Fact is, blogging is currently not a priority here, so do not be surprised. Going to be back to normal in a few months (I hope).

A woman candidate is not the same thing as a woman’s candidate.

As seen on feministing. This also means that

A male candidate is not the same thing as a man’s candidate.

Just saying...

Ticketing....

Stolen straight from reddit (and science daily):

When compared with men, women were 23 percent less likely to be ticketed, 55 percent less likely to be arrested and 76 percent less likely to be searched when stopped by police. Women were more likely to only receive a warning or have no outcome when stopped by police during a traffic stop.

Black and Hispanic drivers were significantly more likely to be searched, ticketed and arrested than white drivers when stopped by police. For example, black drivers were more than twice as likely to be searched or arrested when compared with white drivers. Hispanic drivers were almost three times as likely to be searched when compared with white drivers.

By combining data dealing with race and gender, Briggs found the differences between men and women do not hold up for all races. Out of all racial and ethnic categories of male and female drivers, white women were most likely to receive a perceived benefit in a traffic stop, such as receiving only a warning or no outcome at all. But the same is not true for black and Hispanic women, who were just as likely as white men to be ticketed, arrested or searched instead of receiving a warning or no outcome.

Black and Hispanic men were the most likely to be ticketed, arrested or searched during a traffic stop. Black men were 2.5 times as likely as white men to be arrested and twice as likely to be searched. Hispanic men were 1.5 times as likely as white men to receive a ticket and more than three times as likely to be searched.

"We can't make sense of racial differences without also considering sex and gender," Briggs said. "We have to look at sex and gender at the same time as race and ethnicity because they're connected in important ways. What I found in the case of traffic stops was that racial differences are deeply gendered as well. This connection should be a part of the larger racial profiling discussion."

Ozy on Objectification

I always struggled a bit with the feminist definition of objectification. Ozy had some thoughts on that term that cleared that up a bit (nice take I think):

1) Sexual desire =/= objectification.
2) Erotic or sexualized imagery =/= objectification.
3) Objectification =/= necessarily bad.
4) Objectification = treating people like objects instead of people.

More on that topic here.