Woman to woman

Does feminism fail women?


By Mark Richardson, posted on Dads on the Air

The January 2007 Marie Claire featured the heartfelt life story of Danielle. She knew as a girl that she always wanted marriage and children:

The eldest of five, I'd loved kids from an early age and knew, with an unwavering certainty that I would have at least two. I would live with my children and their father ...

It was not, however, until age 35 that she met Rob, a man she wanted to start a family with. Conception proved more difficult than expected and she subjected herself to four years of IVF.

Finally, she fell pregnant but the child had Down syndrome and she decided to undergo an abortion. Eight months later she was pregnant again, but this baby died in the womb. She was shocked by this turn of events, being unaware of the difficulties of childbirth in later life. She tells us:

Although I'd just turned 40 I'd never even considered this risk. After all, my mother had given birth to my little brother at 44. I assumed - naively - that, having finally managed to conceive, I'd go on to have a normal healthy baby, just like she did. But it wasn't to be.

Her partner Rob was now in his 50s and was understandably reluctant to keep pursuing fertility treatment. She now had to choose between him and further attempts at IVF. She thought at first she might be strong enough to leave him but then decided not to:

How could I give up the love of my life to become a single mother in her 40s? How could I put that pressure on a child?

But things didn't go well for her:

Life became hellish. Grief was transforming me into a woman I didn't know. I had such a loving, caring, supportive partner and yet I wouldn't allow him to touch me. He had fallen in love with a happy, slim, successful, creative woman and now found himself relegated to the role of carer to a weeping, empty vessel, who had ballooned from a size 12 to a size 20 through lack of self-care ...

Although Rob's behaviour was never anything other than selfless and loyal, I felt that I had “denatured” our relationship.

The relationship ended soon after, leaving Danielle feeling that she would "die with the pain". She moved in with her sister and her children. Her lost dream of motherhood is still with her:

These days, I indulge myself occasionally in the fantasy of who my lost daughters would have become ... I imagine that I'm getting ready to drive to the school gates to pick them up. I don't want to lose touch with these phantom children growing up inside me. I feel like a better human being for loving them.

My lost motherhood will always be with me. It's like a dull ache that every so often, at unexpected moments, sharpens into jolting pain - like when I see the ecstatic face of a new mother as she looks at her baby.

So what went wrong? Why did Danielle end up in such unhappy circumstances? The men of my generation won't be surprised by her answer:

The trouble was, throughout my 20s and early 30s, my relationships with men were short-lived and problematic. I was always attracted to exciting, but emotionally unavailable men, who were anything but suitable husband - let alone father - material.

So Danielle, along with so many other young women, encouraged and rewarded the wrong sort of men. The family type man was bypassed. What conclusion does Danielle draw from this mistake? She writes:

I still bitterly regret not having had children much sooner. I wasted precious time in my 20s and 30s waiting for the love of my life, when I should have just got on with it - whether or not the right man was by my side. He could have come later.

So she still doesn't get it. Even with the benefit of hindsight, when things are already too late, she isn't aware of the possibility of a culture in which men and women prepare themselves for marriage and parenthood at a reasonable age.

Her "solution", if generally adopted, would only drive the wedge between men and women more deeply, making things even more difficult for future generations.

What this illustrates is that individuals won't always figure out for themselves what to do, even in securing the most important things in their life. It helps if individuals are guided by a supportive culture or tradition.

But what is there to help modern women? You would think that modern women have all the support they need, as a whole feminist infrastructure has been set up for them. But feminism has proven itself to be an inadequate support for women. It doesn't matter how many "women's officers" there are in government, academia and business, if all that feminism aims at is autonomy and careers.

Feminists have never seriously interested themselves in questions of how women might successfully marry and become mothers (only with how motherhood might be made less of an impediment to careers).

When my generation of women were delaying marriage and motherhood to some vague point of time in their late 30s, where were the feminists warning against such an obviously unwise move? Where were the feminists who were concerned about the unhappiness that such a life course would inevitably bring to many thousands of women?

As I recall, it was a couple of male obstetricians who first sounded the alarm bells. And when an Australian journalist, Virginia Haussegger, found herself among the ranks of reluctantly childless women, and criticised feminism for focusing only on careers and not relationships, she was met with a harshly unsympathetic response from feminists and labelled an ingrate.

Unfortunately it seems likely that women will continue to suffer for as long as feminism remains their official support. What is needed is for more women to conclude, as Virginia Haussegger did, that feminism is "an inadequate structure from which to build a life".

First published at Oz Conservative on January 22, 2008.
http://forum.dadsontheair.com/viewtopic.php?t=28583

Mother of the Year?

BBC News

Girl 'home alone for six weeks'

The girl said she missed her mother, the court was told

A woman abandoned her 14-year-old daughter for six weeks with just £100 and a fridge full of food while she travelled abroad, a court has heard.

The woman, who cannot be identified, was visiting her boyfriend in 2007.

She told Welshpool magistrates she had arranged for a neighbour and her ex-husband to look after her daughter.

The woman denies wilfully causing her daughter to be neglected and abandoned. The case was adjourned until 8 February.

The court heard the woman had stocked her fridge and freezer with pizza, oven chips and microwave meals before she went abroad between April and June.

Of her £100 allowance, £60 was spent almost immediately on school dinners for the period her mother was away.

She spent most of the remaining £40 on clothes and CDs, magistrates were told.

I should never have done it - she should have gone to her father's (home) The girl's mother

Social services were alerted to the girl's situation after only two days and arranged for her father, also the woman's ex-husband, to look after her for the remainder of her mother's holiday.

He said he was unaware his daughter had been left home alone.

Shaun Spencer, prosecuting, said the mother was interviewed by police three days after her return and she "apportioned blame for the situation on everybody else apart from herself".

"She accepted no responsibility. She stated that she left the country for six weeks, stating that it was cheaper to do that than go for four weeks.

"She confirmed that she didn't want her daughter to stay with her father because she was concerned about his drinking.

"It is noteworthy that later during the interview she went back on this and said she had, in her mind, made arrangements for the father to look after her daughter for three of the six weeks.

"She went on to state that for the other three weeks her neighbour was to look after her daughter."

"Maintenance"

The teenager's father and neighbour both denied knowledge of such arrangements during their evidence in court.

Referring to the teenager's interview with specially trained police officers, Mr Spencer said the girl felt she should not have been left alone by her mother.

"She also confessed that she missed her mother," he told the court.

Giving evidence her mother said the girl could cook and had moved back in with her after she returned to Britain.

When asked why she left only £100 for her daughter, she said: "I said to her 'If you want any more money, you go and see your father because he doesn't pay any maintenance'."

Mr Spencer asked her: "Do you accept you opened up your daughter to potential dangers?"

She replied: "Yes, I think I did when I look back on it.

"I should never have done it - she should have gone to her father's (home)."

She added: "I'm not very good with rules and regulations."

Poruka od očeva iz Australije

THE GROWTH OF A SOCIETAL CANCER

By: Peter van de Voorde. Jan 2008

The Family Justice System has become a societal cancer, a place to be avoided at all cost. Like any cancer, if left unchecked, it will continue to grow, gaining momentum and eventually destroying its host victims and subsequently the culture which supports and feeds this malignant growth. It has removed parental rights and replaced them with parental responsibilities. However without rights, parents are denied their human right and duty to responsibly protect and share the love and care of their own biological children.

We are now looking at a 35 year old cancer that has been allowed to grow unchecked and is by far the most dangerous place for men, women and children, to come into contact with, in the event of relationship breakdown.

It has become a law unto itself, a dictatorship within a democracy. Secret and seemingly untouchable, it has been allowed to grow into a multi billion dollar industry, with many poisonous tentacles which have gradually and unnoticeably crept into many of our institutions and bureaucracies. These in turn have each spawned their own agencies and pseudo expert organizations and bodies, who play host to a variety of so called professional expert specialist advisers, who keep feeding the cancer with a continuous supply of misinformation and dodgy statistical data, which flows into the system, thereby guaranteeing malignant growth.

Each tentacle of this cancer is pushing its own immoral agenda, while at the same time comfortably feathering their nests with billions of dollars of taxpayer funded handouts, bolstered by the funds plundered from the hard earned family wealth of unsuspecting separating parents.

All of this is made possible because society has unsuspectingly and unquestionably accepted the deliberately deceptive and misleading "Best Interest of the Child" principle. It is an obscene act of deception to suggest that the "Best Interest of a Child" is best served by giving children rights, when in fact they lack the autonomy and physical ability to enact those rights and while their young developing brains are so vulnerable to emotional, and psychological manipulation and control.

Without question the most dangerous situation for a child to find itself in, is when its parents are coerced into entering the Family Court system. This ensures them being infected by this obnoxious Family Justice cancer, which in fact will guarantee that most of them will have their ties of kinship with many of their much loved biological family members severed.

This cancerous industry, which hides behind the spurious "Best Interest of the Child" principle, in order to justify the removal of these vulnerable children from perfectly loving and responsible family members, is a curse on the health and wellbeing of our society. To remove those who wish to protect and play a part in the healthy physical and emotional development of their biological family, is universally unacceptable to a civil society.

To allow this dangerous cancer to flourish will eventually destroy our society. We owe it to the children of today, who are the parents of tomorrow, to relieve them of the burden of being forcibly removed by this malignant societal cancer. If we fail to do so, history will judge us harshly. "Parental rebellion is not a crime, it is our obligation."

Do we ignore violence against men?

Lost fathers

Losing a father in war or to death is tragic. Having him taken away by the mother, the Court or social workers has the same tragic consequences on the child, but cannot be explained away by any reasonable necessity: it is mean and cannot be justified.

Children of the Great War

By Denise Winterman BBC News Magazine

World War I saw the biggest loss of fathers in modern British history and those that did return carried the mental and physical scars. But what of the children haunted by the heroism of dads they barely knew?

"She told me my father was dead and I would have to be the man of the house. I thought 'mum, I'm only five years old'. But I had to stand up and be counted - and I did."

To this day being told the news of his father's death is still vivid in Donald Overall's memory. Over 500,000 children lost their father in World War I. It was the biggest loss of fathers in modern British history. Those who did return carried the mental and physical scars.

Donald Overall, then and now, became the man of the house... aged five

The impact on their sons and daughters was devastating and never forgotten by them. For 90 years many have been haunted by the heroism of fathers they barely knew and in some cases never even met.

Remembrance of the 750,000 British soldiers who lost their lives has long been one of the nation's most important rituals and will be marked on Sunday, along with Armistice Day.

But the impact on their children is an aspect of the tragedy that's rarely explored. So how did they cope? And for those who did get their dad back, could home life ever return to normality after the horror of what their fathers had been through?

When war began in 1914 more than two million men dutifully volunteered to serve King and country. Fathers enlisted alongside young, single men in a wave of patriotic fervour.

Treasured memories

As the pressure on the British forces increased, the government was forced to introduce conscription and raise the upper age limit for service from 38 to 41. It meant even more fathers went to war.

Back home families waited anxiously for news. Home leave was unpredictable and was generally granted around once a year. It usually only lasted three days, but could be every bit as good as the propaganda films suggested.

Home leave meant Mr Overall's father could put him to bed for the first time ever and it remains one of his most treasured memories.

"To me he was everything, he was a man that I wanted to be like," he says. "He carried me upstairs on his left shoulder... my head was against his face and I can remember seeing his ears, and smelling his khaki and smelling his tobacco."

But many fathers were virtual strangers to their children and had to work hard to win the trust of a young child who they had yet to establish a bond with.

Returning to the front after was hard. The awful carnage of trench warfare was often left out of letters home. The men chose to deny the horror by putting on a brave face and clinging to comforting events at home, like birthdays.

Lost for words

"My mother had told my dad that my second birthday was coming along and I wanted an engine," says George Musgrave. "He'd been injured at the time and somehow... he drew me an engine and that is an engine that's remained vividly in my mind and has always linked me to him."

From 1916 onwards the numbers killed on the Western Front increased dramatically. The bad news arrived by telegram or by letter and the impact was devastating.

"Mother opened it, she read the telegram and collapsed on the floor... I was holding on to her skirt," recalls Mr Overall.

Fathers were scarred by the war

Some mothers found it impossible to tell their children of their father's death and they were left to find out elsewhere. Fathers themselves were also lost for words when it came to telling their families they were close to death. Last letters home often remained stoic and cheerful despite the hopelessness of the situation.

But for children with no, or little, memory of their fathers, the effect of their deaths was incomprehensible.

"I boasted about it to my friends I'm afraid," says Charles Chilton. "I didn't know my father, I didn't have any feeling for him, he was a photograph hanging on the wall. I'd never seen him, never touched him."

The worst news of all for a family was to learn that their father had been shot for cowardice. It was the fate of 306 British soldiers to be shot at dawn.

'Hard to cry'

Harry Farr was shot at dawn on 18 October 1916. For his daughter Gertrude Harris, and her mother, the tragedy was compounded by shame. Her father's war pension was stopped and they were asked to leave their rented accommodation. They were homeless and penniless.

They went to work for a wealthy family in Hampstead, and were treated well. But their situation always felt precarious and Gertrude was told to behave and never to cry in case she was heard.

Photos were often all children to remind them

"Now as an adult I find it very, very hard to cry," says Mrs Harris. "I think that was something that was suppressed in me when I was little."

When the war ended in 1918 the soldiers who returned home were feted as heroes. But carrying the scars of fighting in the trenches often made their reintegration into normal family life difficult. The full horror of their ordeal often remained unspoken.

"I remember asking my mother why my father slept in the way he did," says Mabel McCoy. "I don't know how he managed but he wrapped the sheet and the blanket completely round his head... covering his eyes with just his nose sticking out.

"My mother's answer was that he had to sleep like that in the war because he was very afraid of rats.

"It was very difficult for me as a small child to understand why my father never spoke about his experiences in the war."

The returning soldiers had been promised homes fit for heroes, but with the post-war economy in turmoil many had to endure further hardship and poverty.

New breadwinners

It was most difficult of all for war widows, who had to get by on a meagre army pension. Some remarried, often for the sake of the children. But the loss of so many men in the war meant that competition for their hand in marriage was fierce.

Even when a woman was successful in finding a new breadwinner it was often difficult for the children to accept their new father, as Mabel Howatt's mother discovered.

Letters were a lifeline for soldiers

"From now on we are a family and he's your dad and he's the breadwinner, so you've got to be thankful that we have somebody to look after us," she told her daughter.

For some the battles continued. Gertrude Harris campaigned for the pardon of the 306 men shot by firing squad for cowardice. It took 15 years to win the case.

"I was so happy for it to be proven that my father was not a coward and he was a brave soldier as my mother said," she says. "Every year when she watched the Armistice she used to see the veterans walking along and say 'my Harry should have been amongst them'."

For others, they are still mourning the loss of their father and always will.

"I miss him, I missed him when I was a boy and now I miss him as an old man," says Mr Overall. "I've never forgotten, I never will, never will."

Fathers Pride

Fathers' Pride

We are all dealing with the same problems and fighting for our children's right to be with and freely love both parents. Unfortunately, most of us have to work in secret, confined to our own country, city or even our home. Standing up for fathers' rights today seems to be a straight to prison path rather than one to contact with one's child.

The United Nations recently declared family to be „the smallest democracy at the heart of society". In most countries this statement could not be further form the truth – while gender equality in public sphere has been talked about and pretty much achieved, home has been forgotten and left in tatters. While feminists did no favours to anyone and mothers complained about double burden for ages, something strange is happening as fathers are trying to realise their rights within family.
Gender issues these days have come to mean women's issues.

The problems fathers and children face only become apparent during and after divorce. All the secrets that hide behind closed family doors and inside family courts need to come out into the open. Family door has to be opened to individual human rights and gender equality.

In order to achieve this I believe that the idea of father's rights requires a global stage. Women fought a long time to get to where they are today – no woman would ever end up in prison today for actively standing up for her rights or against domestic violence. Fathers need to take their fight, for themselves and for their children, to the next level.

Our friends in Italy are organising their second annual Daddy's Pride www.daddyspride.it and this could be a perfect opportunity to create a global platform for our fight. I would suggest that we look into possibilites of organising similar gatherings in our countries/cities on the same day, 16 March 2008.

Together we can do a lot more.

Keep up the fight!

ps Balkan fathers' network is celebrating World Day against Child Abuse (19 November) with a joint campaign.

Two faces of gender equality battle

In an article on BBC news Cherie Blair talks of gender inequality:

"Culture and religion cannot be used as an excuse for discriminating against women, Cherie Blair has argued.

Mrs Blair, ex-PM Tony Blair's wife and high-flying human rights lawyer, told the BBC: "Women and men are equal human beings and deserving of equal respect."

But she said there was a "long way to go" internationally, citing issues like divorce law in countries like Egypt.

'Fallible' interpretation

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mrs Blair said: "Religion, like everything else, is subject to interpretation. Religion is only as good as the people who operate the religion.

In her speech she will also mention orthodox Jewish communities, but asked whether gender inequality was a particular problem in Islamic countries, she replied: "I think the facts speak for themselves."

She said divorce law and laws relating to custody of children were "unfavourable to women" in many Islamic countries.

However, although in complete agreement with Mrs Blair when it comes to Islamic countries and women's rights, on her home turf, gender equality needs to address different issues. In Great Britain, as in many other countries, fathers and children are those who are in unfavorable position when it comes to divorce laws and custody. Also form an article on BBC news:

Courts 'fail fathers' says judge

A High Court judge has attacked the family justice system for wrongly penalising fathers.

Mr Justice Munby spoke out after he dealt with a man who had not seen his daughter for two-and-a-half years.

The Family Division judge said when the system fails, "and fail it does", it was more often fathers, not mothers, who were the "victims".

The father abandoned his battle for contact with his daughter, seven, after unfounded allegations by his ex-wife.

The ex-wife had not complied with court orders, said the judge. None of the parties involved in the case can be identified.

The judge said he was speaking out because public opinion over system failings had to be taken into account by the judiciary.

"There is much wrong with our system and the time has come for us to recognise that fact and to face up to it honestly.

"If we do not we risk forfeiting public confidence."

In his judgment, the judge apologised to the child and the father, who was said to be a warm and caring man.

"Whether an improved system would have provided a better outcome for this child and this father is now almost impossible to know.

"But they were denied the chance of a better outcome and for that they deserve a public, albeit necessarily anonymous, apology.

"We failed them. The system failed them."

Measure my love/Vrijednost ljubavi

How big is your love?

Even those who support the fight for father's rights make statements such as "mother's love is special". This statement falls in the same category as "women should not vote" or "woman's place is in the kitchen". When a child is born two people become parents: mother and father. If neither of them gives up their parental rights and duties how is it possible to decide who is a better parent? Do women just love better? How does one measure a parent's love?
Definately not according to their gender. The best interest of the child does not translate into "mother is mother and therefore special". The best interest of the child puts the child and its needs first. The only love that should be considered is the love a child feels. Child has two parents and equally loves, needs and has a right to both of them.


Čak i oni koji podržavaju borbu za prava očeva često izjave da je „majka ipak majka a njena ljubav posebna“. Ta izreka je poput izreka kao što su „žene ne trebaju imati pravo na glas“ ili „ženi je mjesto u kuhinji“.

Kad se dijete rodi dvoje ljudi u tom trenutku postanu roditelji: majka i otac. Ako se nijedno od njih svojevoljno ne odrekne tog djeteta i svojih roditeljkih prava i dužnosti kako je moguće napraviti razliku ko je bolji roditelj? Definitivno ne na osnovu njihovog spola. Koliko ljudi toliko ćudi. Kako se može izmjeriti roditeljska ljubav? Šta je sa djetetovom ljubavi? Da li onda žene uopšte bolje vole?

Najbolji interes djeteta ne znači „majka je majka i samim tim posebna“. Najbolji interes djeteta znači dijete u fokusu i djetetove potrebe u fokusu. Polazno stanovište ne može biti „majka je majka“. Polazno stanovište je dijete. Dijete je dijete i ono ima dva roditelja. Jedina ljubav koju treba uzeti u obzir je ona koju dijete osjeća. Dijete voli,treba i ima pravo na oba roditelja.

Prejudice rules

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

John Stuart Mill

When questioned why they almost always give custody to the mother social workers in the Balkans have a number of creative, ready prepared excuses. The most common one is that fathers who want to care for their children are rare and exceptional. If they do not leave their children, Centres for social work take their children away. Let me get this straight: assuming that for every 100 divorce cases 99 fathers abandon their children as well as their wives; the one who wants to be involved in the upbringing of his children is told that he must lose his kids because other 99 fathers did so. To prove that ALL men are evil? To make sure that we all believe that there are no good fathers out there? It would be unacceptable for this one father to ruin the image of a bad father we worked so hard to create in the first place.

Centri za socijalni rad na Balkanu imaju bezbroj pripremljenih izgovora i izmišljenih razloga zašto djecu dodjeljuju majci. Očevi koji se bore da učestvuju u odrastanju i odgoju svog djeteta su obeshrabreni tako što im kažu da su oni izuzeci. A pošto su izuzeci i neće sami da ostave djecu, onda im Centri svojom odlukom oduzmu djecu. Zar im ne bi trebali pružiti punu podršku i pomoć kao takvima? Ni slučajno. Ako od 100 razvedenih brakova 99 muškaraca ostavi svoju djecu i suprugu, onom jednom ocu koji želi biti sa svojom djecom je to pravo uskraćeno jer je ostalih 99 postupilo drugačije. Izvinite momci, moramo potvrditi da su svi očevi loši. Jednostavno, bilo bi neprihvatljivo da jedan od vas pokvari predrasudu o lošem ocu na kojoj smo tako dugo i naporno radile.

Izuzeci protiv predrasuda:

Bosna i Hercegovina: www.otac.ba

Hrvatska:

• www.otac-hr.com
  
• www.pateros.hr

Crna Gora: www.otac-cg.com

Slovenija: www.drustvo-ostrzek.si


Vrijeme je za promjene, zajedno to možemo.

If you love your child you will let them be free to love

The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent.
Erich Fromm

Ako volite svoje dijete onda ćete ga osloboditi da i ono voli
Majka mora ne samo tolerisati, već mora željeti i potpomagati djetetovo odvajanje. Tek u toj fazi majčinska ljubav postaje tako težak zadatak da zahtijeva nesebičnost, sposobnost da se da sve, a da se ne želi ništa osim sreće ljubljenog djeteta. Upravo u toj fazi mnoge majke ne uspijevaju u svom zadatku majčinske ljubavi. Žena narcističkih sklonosti, željna dominacije i posjedovanja, može „voljeti“ dok je dijete maleno. Samo žena stvarno sposobna za ljubav, žena koja je sretnija kad daje nego kad uzima, koja stoji čvrsto na vlastitim nogama, može voljeti kad se dijete nalazi u procesu odvajanja.
Erich Fromm

Human Rights Musical Chairs

I was in a police station recently (will post the whole story soon) asking for their help and assistance as i was being harassed and threatened by a person who had already assaulted me before. Policeman took my statement and after finding out I worked in a human rights institution he proudly told me:
"I can't help you. Because of you I cannot do my work properly, like I used to. Its because of your human rights that I cannot work. In 1989 I could have gone to this person's home and made sure they never bother you again, you know what I mean. I have men who would have made sure she never comes near you. Now my hands are tied. Its all because of your European Convention. Its the Article 3 that particularly bothers me, but i have found a way to work around it." He seemed really pleased with himself.

High representative in BiH Miroslav Lajcak criticized the Bosnian Minister for human rights Safet Halilovic last week, stating that he has done nothing since starting this post a year ago.

Ombudsman for human rights in BiH, Vitomir Popovic, was caught threatening a journalist last week saying that "he should be shot".

Unfortunately, human rights have not been taken or implemented seriously in BiH. Most people working in human rights in BiH today, be it in education, NGOs or governmental institutions, were born and bread in the old communist system which was not built on democratic principles. Just like the policeman, most of these people are finding ways to work around human rights, rather than implementing them. Worse still, rather than dealing with real problems, great majority are donor driven, thus doing only the work international donors will finance. The platform for human rights is only seen as an extra job market and not actually as a platform for making sure citizens feel safe, respected and empowered. The same faces keep swapping places, round and round. Its become a farce, like a game of musical chairs. Each round sees less faces, only more desperate to hold on. As the international money is drying up so is the will (or care?) of Bosnians to keep fighting for their human rights.

It is really sad to see that in Bosnia they never learned to care for human rights because ultimately, people who do not care about human rights do not care about their own dignity.

Balkan network

Fathers' rights campaigners from Croatia and Bosnia meeting in Zagreb in September 2007. I am thrilled to be part of the movement! Keep up the good work.

Why Fathers' Rights?

Losers appropriately punished

Very simply: because after divorce they have none. They are discriminated against, marginalised, not allowed to see their children or participate in their upbringing.

More importantly: because children need them as much as they need their mothers.

Growing up I admired a number of people fighting for equal rights of us all. Most of all I admired Clara Zetkin and her efforts to empower women. I always knew that I wanted to contribute this fight for a more equal world.

Children are one of the most marginalised groups and completely dependent on adults to make this world a better place for them and this is why as a human rights graduate I decided to add my voice to children's rights campaign. However, until recently, I did not envisage how unconventional a fight this would become.

Since coming to Bosnia three years ago I have become aware of the very difficult situation fathers are in throughout the country, but also in neighbouring states. Social workers, lawyers and judges through their prejudiced practices maintain the beliefs in the society that fathers are disposable, uncaring, not needed, cold and incapable of providing their children with relevant and positive influence, guidance and love.

Mothers rule the roost and in case of divorce are awarded everything by the social services and courts: children, maintenance, homes, dignity and support.

More often than not, fathers are punished: their children are taken away from them as well as their money, homes and dignity. They are marginalised, assumed and branded guilty for life before and without ever having a chance to prove themselves innocent.

This is how divorce is dealt with in the Balkans. Conflict settlement where winner takes it all and losers are appropriately punished.

And children?

Completely forgotten. Well, not completely: They are part of the property division deal. They are thrown in as the necessary possession of a divorced woman along maintenance, furniture and homes.

They are the invisible casualties of divorce.

They lose their fathers and they witness their fathers lose everything. They learn about discrimination, marginalisation, control, blame, hate and disrespect.

This is why it is of utmpost importance to open the family door and let the secrets, pain and disrespect that hide behind it into light. This is why the battle for fathers rights is all about the children's needs. The battle for father’s rights is the last battle for equality that will, hopefully, bring democracy into the family.

Expectations

One of the major factors affecting father's rights in BiH are general expectations, by both the father, as well as the mother. It is conventional wisdom in BiH that custody of children should be given to the mother, and the father should be allowed to see them every second weekend, usually for 24 hours, and sometimes less.

Where did this "standard" come from? Nowhere.

As long as both parents live in the same city, and the child can have an otherwise uninterrupted life outside of the home (regular attendance at the same school, contact with the same group of friends, ect.), all the scientific evidence points towards the fact that shared parenting is in the best interest of the child.

Have you ever asked yourself why a child shouldn't be allowed, to, say, spend a Tuesday night with a father? As long as the father can take him to school the next day why is that a problem?

Have you ever asked yourself why, for example, a child couldn't spend every weekend with the father? The whole weekend? Both days?

The only real answer as to why fathers accept to see their child every other weekend, is because "that's the way it is".

Claiming the earth was round used to guarantee you were burned on a stake. It was an accepted fact that owning slaves was a reasonable and efficient way to run a business. It used to be acceptable that women shouldn't vote.

So why is it OK to deny children access to their father?

"Because that's the way we do things" is not an acceptable answer.

If you ever find yourself in the unfortunate situation that your marriage is at an end, don't accept conventional wisdom. Don't accept that it is "normal' to see your children every fifteen days.

Your children will be forever greatful that you were there, after school, helping them with their homework.

They will never forget the times you took them to buy a new pair of shoes.

Make a habit of giving your children a bath, cook them a special dinner, read them a book, or play a game with them (my son loves chess).

Show them that you are capable, and willing, to help them grow into happy adults.

Tell your ex that you expect to share the burdens, and pleasures, of raising the children. Tell her that your children deserve to be with both parents. Tell the same thing to the social services. Tell the same thing to the judge. Keep repeating this over and over again.

They will listen, because the world is no longer flat.

Current Objectives

As a relatively new phenomenon in the Balkans, at first we plan to collect and analyze information related to fathers separated from their children. Informal evidence shows that the problem is endemic. We plan to formalize the evidence and prepare a report for the social services.

We also plan to:

1: Join forces with all other fathers facing the same problem.
2: Inform and empower fathers to make better choices, and get fairer access to their children from the courts and social services.
3: Put pressure on the courts and social services to drop their prejudices against fathers.
4: Help make the system more transparent.

It's time for change, together we can make it happen.

Rights, biology and children in focus

We fought hard to prove we can do anything men can.
How long before they prove they are equally good parents?

Otac - kolac is a saying everyone is familiar with in the Balkans. It means that a father is very much like a plank of wood: tough, emotionless and lacking warmth. More recently, social workers in Bosnia's capitol have used similarly simple description of mother's role and status in the country and the reason why in majority of custody recommendations mother is given preference: mother is mother. They mean that since women carry the babies this somehow makes us biologically predetermined to better care for them. This is where I get confused.

For the past hundred years some of us have fought so hard to escape our proper biological place which we claimed was assigned to us by men; the kitchen, the children and any other home chore. We fought so hard to prove we can do anything men can. We fought for our rights and independence. But have we gone too far? Was it necessary to turn men into enemies? Was it necessary to assume masculine traits and lose our femininity in the process? Today, women fight juts as aggressively as men when it comes to maintaining their control over children and home. And absurdly, we call upon biology as proof of our differences and our primacy when it comes to parenting.

It seems that we got slightly sidetracked in our battle for equality, mistaking same for equal, turning men into enemies and forgetting, actually, to care for our children. It seems that today, what a lot of women are fighting for is to prevent fathers from exercising and enjoying their full rights within family, especially when it comes to enjoying time with their children. And state institutions fully support and justify this sort of behaviour.

There is no joint custody in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was suggested but turned down as an option by the social services. It is definately easier to just give the children to the mother after divorce and get the father to pay maintenance, while being allowed to see his children twice a month for a few hours. This in itself is more of a punishment than a reasonable and just way of dealing with family conflict. When facing a divorce, women are quietly calculating how much money they will be awarded by the social services and men are terrified at the prospect of knowing that they will almost certainly lose contact with their children and be made to pay half of their wages to the mother. Somehow, this is considered normal and has not been questioned until recently. In order to provide for joint custody social services would have to do a lot more work: allow each child fair and equal access to both parents, calculate how much if any the father would have to provide (in case of sharing 50/50 he would not be eligible to pay anything). But this is too complicated as it would be more time consuming, puts children in focus and more importantly there is no one to blame.

We have indoctrinated ourselves into believing that men are aggressive, incapable of caring for their own children or showing love and affection and will not help with household chores. Recent events bring hope. Hundreds of desperate fathers have stood up for their rights across the Balkans and women have found themselves confused and angry. Sooner or later we will have to admit that we cannot label fathers as planks of wood. Just as we deserved to be allowed to work, earn a living for ourselves and control our bodies, men deserve to be allowed to care for their children after divorce. I am extremely happy to see the recent changes and am proud to participate in them.

Family: New Arena of Gender Equality Battle

Who's the daddy?

Women have fought a long and hard battle for gender equality. Western democracies, founded hundreds of years ago on the premise of "equality", were "equal" for white males only.

Thanks to the brave struggle of the feminist movements, industrialization, and general social change driven by advances in technology and the mass media, most democracies today enjoy ever better levels of gender equality. While it is undeniable that "glass ceilings" still exists (usually perpetuated by an older, self-serving, generation), these are the exceptions, rather than the rule.

However, the struggle for gender equality has usually been focused on matters within the public arena. Education and the workplace are where the battle has been fought, and won.

On the home front efforts have focused on the need to free women from the duties of housework, allowing them equal access to the rewards of a professional career. However, while immense strides have been taken in this area, it is leaving behind a vacuum, the final piece of an unfinished puzzle.

Human rights, women's rights, children's rights. As society progresses towards true equality, we need to address the fact that fathers increasingly share the burdens, and pleasures, of raising children.