Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, December 21st, 2007 - 60 comments
Categories: International -
Tags: International
Yesterday we saw a report from Police Deputy Commissioner Rob Pope saying claims that the repeal of section 59 would lead to the prosecution of parents and the removal of children from their homes have been proven wrong.
This follows another report which indicates that the law change has not led to a big rise in child abuse notifications to protection agencies.
Now we see Spain moving in the same direction:
“Until now parents have been allowed to “reasonably and moderately correct” their children, but deputies deleted that clause and rewrote Spain’s civil code to make clear that a child’s physical and psychological integrity should be respected.
Spain’s Socialist government, which pushed through the change, has often been accused by the conservative Popular Party opposition of undermining traditional values and the family with policies such as legalising gay marriage.
Popular Party deputies, who voted against the change, said the measure would leave parents powerless, but Socialists said the law shut the door to any chance of misunderstanding.
Around 16 European countries have already banned smacking at school and in the home…”
All this makes is harder for those who preached against the law changes here.
Not only has the law had minimal impact for most Kiwi parents, we are part of the growing international movement that supports the principal that children have a fundamental right to be free from violence in the home.
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Scoopit!
Jum wrote:
“If I am the ultimate man hater you are surely the ultimate woman hater.”
Yeah, I’m familiar with that argument. Any woman who refuses to line up behind radical feminist misandry is a benighted individual imprisononed under a false consciousness implanted by her hetero-patriarchalist oppressors.
Bollocks!
“If men had accepted women and their unique talents of management and teamwork …”
Are you saying that those talents are unique to woman? What a crock of sexist gob shite (but that’s OK cos you are female, right?)
What about the “uniquely male” traits of logic and organisation? Do you have a problem with the foregoing description? I’m sure you will.
“We have macho men putting down the nanny state when it seeks to make society a fairer one that considers everyone.”
We also have completely feminine women such as myself putting down something that involves stealing the property and income of those who work and save to pork barrel those who dont work and don’t save. There’s nothing “fair” about theft, it remains theft, irrespective of whether it is individually of collectively perpetrated.
“I’ll probably be quite happy with one of the firewomen rescuing me, Michele.”
So would I, as long as I’m removed expeditiously from the burning building. However, the fact remains that despite the feminist insistence that gender [a bogus academic construct at the best of times] is merely a function of social conditioning, the number of women physically equipped to carry a 60kg woman ten stories down a fire ladder remains infinitismal compared to the men able to accomplish it.
You can burn up waiting for a butch female fire fighter to play Sir Galahad [a Freudian revelation on your part] if you like, I’ll take my chances with the male one.
“There is absolutely no way you will convince me that women are just as violent as men.”
Amazing how people can internalise a particular world view and then hold such a strong emotional resistance to having it questioned that they are prepared to ignore a huge weight of countervailing evidence. Click on the link provided and check it out for yourself.
Contrary to leftist dogma that all opinions are subjective and the product of social conditioning, if someone wishes to elevate their opinion above mine, they are obliged to produce a superior standard of argument and/or evidence. Waving away facts simply because changing your world view is intellectually challenging doesn’t cut it here.
Research into child sexual abuse by women is not a priority of the radical feminists and their honorary women fellow travellers who do most of the academic research in this area. The few studies that have been carried out (one in Australia springs to mind) disclose an incidence of around 33% of such acts as being perpetrated by women. Female researcher, Alix Kirsta’s “Deadlier Than the Male” engages with this issue at some length and is well worth a read.
Kimble wrote:
“NZ:
4.0 million people
2.0 million men
1.4 million men between the ages of 15 and 75
ergo 140,000 rapists in New Zealand.”
That means one in 10 men have raped someone. Do you think that’s accurate, Jum?
I, for one don’t. Sure, all men possess a penis. Simply possessing a penis (the smoking gun) is not evidence of guilt. To rape also requires the inclination. As I have already pointed out, the vast majority of men prefer loving, consensual sexual relations with women.
What makes sex good for most men I know is how much she gets off on him, and if she hates every minute of it, why would he want to run the risk of jail and social opprobrium, when to produce an orgasm for him all that’s required is “one off the wrist”?
“[F]rom what I gather, a feminist was a person who objected to being treated like a doormat and enduring anything else that was delivered behind closed doors.”
The first wave feminist movement included as many men as women. Susannah Hoff Sommers describes this as “equity feminism.” It was dedicated to securing for women the same legal rights and opportunities as men.
Second wave feminism is described by Sommers as “gender feminism.” Based on revolutionary Marxism, it sees gender relations as a zero-sum game, in which more for one sex means less for another. It views men and women as being pitted against one another in an ongoing gender war in which women must smash their “class enemy” and “patriarchal oppressor.”
Adherents are typically sour, ugly women with a pre-existing chip on their shoulder that comes from being losers in the genetic lottery, and unable to live up to the standards of beauty of their more genetically favoured sisters.
They perceive that power, prestige, and control over one’s life are conferred by having a dick. Because they’ve tried without success to grow one, they’re determined that men won’t have one either.
Infact psycho milt – I will make sure your callous comment is spread around blogosphere you sadist creep !!
No worries mate. Just as long as when you repeat it, you retain the context – ie, quote the whole sentence. If you do that, I’ve no problem with you spreading it as far as you like – but taking snips of quotes out of context is just another form of lying.
D4J, ask yourself. What separates us from the animals?
Do new born babies exhibit these traits?
Michele Cabiling
Just when I was thinking you were genuinely putting your asexual view of men and women you make a statement saying women firefighters are butch. tsk tsk.
You also say that most women aren’t strong enough to be firefighters and there is a point to that, but then you tell me that women are just as violent as men – make up your mind gal.
Jum, ??? You dont have to be strong to be violent.
Do you equate physical strength with violence? That would explain why you think only men can be violent.
Michele doesnt need to make up her mind, you just need to engage yours.
Kimble
Michele says women are just as violent as men. That is not possible. Their lower strength (in the average woman) would not be able to inflict the injuries that men can. You both also forget the fear factor where strength is used to grab control. Just the fear of violence gives the stronger person power. I also never said only men are violent. I said that Michele is wrong in saying women are more violent than men. Any studies that have been done use words like smacking or pushing. When a woman pushes often the man won’t even be moved. When a man pushes a woman he can usually push her over. Yet in the studies they are said to both push each other. Get your own mind engaged Kimble. The strength factor is never taken into account, only the number of pushes or smacks.
Which again when you smack a child – a man more especially could injure a child because he does not know his own strength. Therefore it is always better to avoid hitting at all.
Also, don’t imagine I am ignoring the fact that women do attack, incest, their children. The numbers however are much smaller especially when looked at in proportion to the amount of time women spend with children, another little fact that is never accounted for.
No doubt men would be annoyed when women are said to be better drivers because they have fewer accidents and yet more men drive more. Same thing.
Jum, you lost when you said,
“There is absolutely no way you will convince me that women are just as violent as men.”
You obviously dont know what a smack is.
Jum said:
“Michele says women are just as violent as men. That is not possible. Their lower strength (in the average woman) would not be able to inflict the injuries that men can.”
If you read the studies, you’ll find that the most violent women even up the size difference by using weapons and/or attacking their male partners while they slept.
You also ignore the moral dimension of physical violence: if my husband hit me as hard as he could, he’d break my jaw. If I hit him as hard as I could, I’d hurt him considerably, but he’d probably not suffer a permanent physical injury. The fact remains, however, that both of us would have been trying to knock the others’ block off, so are just as morally culpable in our actions.
I’ve heard the bullshit argument before from women that it’s OK for a woman to lose her temper, hit a big strong man, and expect him not to retaliate, because she “can’t do much damage anyway.”
What do we call such a person? I’d call her a child. Adults are expected to control themselves in times of stress, not lash out at others. This ought to be true both for women and for men.
Many women who hit their menfolk do so because they are well aware he’s been socialised not to hit them back, so they know they can do this with impunity. Neither my husband nor I solve our marital disputes violently, but he told me when we were first dating that he was not a punch bag for any women, and if I hit him first and it hurt, he reserved the right to hit back, but wih an open hand.
Neither of us have ever hit the other, and I know what his bottom line is should I ever be tempted to do so.
Michele Cabiling
I’d definitely like the numbers on the using weapons while partners/husbands are asleep please. Does that not cry out to prove that women are too afraid to do that while their partners are awake? Numbers of the most violent women and the most violent men too please. Not statistics Michele – numbers.
Meanwhile
Statistics/SchMYSTICS
Statistics were formulated by people to prove what they wanted to prove and to be used by people who wanted to believe them to use in persuading others. That’s where you came in Michele.
The numbers are………and remember the children in all of these facts
- half of all murders in NZ are domestic related
- a NZ woman is killed by her (ex) partner/husband every 2.5 weeks
- over Xmas 2005-6, mothers of 19 children were killed
- 33% of NZers physically/sexually abused by spouse in lifetime
- 6000 families helped by Preventing Violence in the Home in 2006
- 55,000 children present during the 46,682 family violence incidents attended by police in NZ in 2002/3
As you can see, whatever you say about women and men being equally violent the end results say otherwise.
1 woman murdered by her (ex) partner/husband every 2.5 weeks
Now give me the numbers of men killed by their partners/wives in that time.
That means that those men believed those women were nothing and that they had the right to kill those women because they belonged to those men. Behind those men come many more men who would like to rape/murder women but risk too much to do so. Behind those men are the male chauvinists. Behind those men are the ‘Billys’ who like John Stuart Mill can see that in subjecting women to dependence upon men, it places men in chains also.
You got me on the ‘uniqueness’ of women with management and team work skills. What I should have said is that women have just as many skills as men, be they logic or management skills, but up until the 70s that has not been recognised and women had been forced into homemaking roles. Now we have religion coming in to tell us to go back there again.
Rapes – not all rapes are reported Michele – that is a given. Women still feel they are to blame. False rape reports make me very angry with those women who make it harder for other women to report.
About beauty Michele and your sexist view of women who have views different to you – I haven’t been told I’m beautiful, but I have been told I’m elegant and kind. I open doors for old people, men with parcels, pregnant women. In other words, Michele, I like the person I am and you inferring with your
“Adherents are typically sour, ugly women with a pre-existing chip on their shoulder that comes from being losers in the genetic lottery, and unable to live up to the standards of beauty of their more genetically favoured sisters.
They perceive that power, prestige, and control over one’s life are conferred by having a dick. Because they’ve tried without success to grow one, they’re determined that men won’t have one either.” is very hurtful.
The trouble with beauty Michele is that women begin to realise that that is what they are judged on and know that when it starts to fade, their allure will fade also, unless they have inside stuff that really counts. So they do the botox and they do the facelifts and they can’t stop until one day they realise the mole on their bum is now a beauty spot on their face and the perfect eyebrows they had tatooed on are now receding into their foreheads.
I like men with dicks. One of them helped me have two beautiful children and he’s still here with this ‘sour ugly bitter old woman’. The reason he is still here is because I refused to be treated like a doormat and he respects that even tho’ he won’t admit it. I also intend to make sure my daughter and son (I put her first here because she was born first Michele, in case you’re wondering) know that both my husband and I are entitled to be treated equally, just as they are. My husband won’t stop trying to achieve control over me of course but that’s the fun of marriage. Men like control over women, Michele. Unfortunately some of them don’t know when to stop.
Back to children – which is what we’re all here for I hope. I’ll tell you a little story, Michele, in part 2, after I’ve got my wonderful son up to get ready for his part time job.
Kimble
Now who is the retard
A smack by the average man and a smack by the average woman are quite different.
“Now who is the retard”
Res ispa loquitur
Michele Cabiling………Part 2
I’m not a goody goody. I used to smack my daughter on the fingers when she had done something naughty. It would have produced a light stinging sensation. She’d have been about three. One day she was really naughty. With a wooden spoon I tapped her even more lightly on the back of her leg – not even a sting as I just wanted her to think about what she was doing by smacking her brother. She looked at me and said nothing. I went down the hall to collect something and when I came back she was tapping her brother on his trousered leg (she was copying me in both cases). I asked for the spoon, put it back in the drawer and told my children I would never use the spoon or my hand again. I never have.
Once before that I tapped my son on the leg (tapping is lighter than a smack Kimble)when he wouldn’t keep still for me to change his nappy. The look in his eyes stays with me 15 years later. It registered back then but I was too busy to get the hint that I had actually hurt my child not just physically but in his attitude towards me. He was meant to feel safe with me Michele.
If my husband had tapped either of the children the tap would have been harder because of his overall strength.
That is why Section 59 had to be repealed.
Deep down also if I knew it was against the law to use my hand or anything else on my children I would have thought twice about that too. If we don’t try to improve ourselves how can our society improve?
No one can explain completely the intricate differences between tapping and smacking and hitting and knocking and pushing and bashing with hand or fist or whip or 4 x 2 wood, et cetera, and also the differences between the diverse women sizes and men sizes strengthwise.
That is why Section 59 had to be repealed.
While you’re gathering these numbers on violent women and violent men, Michele, please also supply the weights of these men and women and their muscle strength if you can. That would be great thanks.
“A smack by the average man and a smack by the average woman are quite different.”
No, the average man is stronger than the average woman, but that doesnt mean they are going to smack harder.
Given that the the child being smacked is loved, it could easily be argued that the man would be more careful to keep control of his actions than a woman.
Kimble
Given that a smack is often the hand thinking before the mind, no matter how loved the child is the smack is often given in anger.
Billy
Exactly – Res ipsa loquitur (not ispa)
‘whether or not the defendant had exclusive control over the instrumentality that caused the accident.’
i.e. the use of the hand ahead of the intellect.
Jum,
I really hope that if I am ever on trial for a violent crime, the jury is made up of people like you… your softness and sentimentality would be money-for-jam to a half decent defence lawyer playing the “it’s not Phil’s fault, society made him this way” card…
… Seriously though, your argument of relative strength (M vs F) is, at best, misguidedly irrelevant, and at worst, deliberately deceptive.
I have no doubt that an abusive mother/caregiver is EQUALLY capable of doing serious damage to her children just as easily as her male counterpart – children are very easy to damage when treated incorrectly, as I’m sure you are well aware.
Kimble
I do agree with you about men being conscious of their strength – my husband has only ever (now which word should I use) ‘smacked’ my daughter once. I saw it and it was not with his full strength.
As far as I know that is the only time he has smacked one of his children. He does not need to. There is respect.
Phil,
As an adult male on trial for a violent crime (especially if it involves rape or murder and even more especially against a woman) you better wish I am not on your jury.
I agree that women are just as capable of hurting their children badly.
That is why Section 59 had to be repealed, to stop any of us using it as a defence for our actions against children.
Scroll back a bit and read Part 1 and 2 to Michele Cabiling 10.03 and 10.34
“Given that the the child being smacked is loved, it could easily be argued that the man would be more careful to keep control of his actions than a woman.”
This got me thinking (I’m not critiquing Kimbles statement here, just explaining my train of though with regards to teh following).
I’d love to see a decent study on smacking (for the purposes here I’m happy to accept the delineation between smacking in a corrective context as opposed to physical correction consistent with child abuse). What I would like such a study to investigate is:
1 – when the child was smacked, had you done so instinctively
2 – when the child was smacked, had you (in your perception) lost your temper
3 – when you smack, is it always as a result of a single action by the child that requires discipline
4 – have you ever smacked as a result of a series of compounding actions by the child
5 – after the action, do you ever regret the use of physical discipline
6 – after the action, have you considered the use of non-physical discipline.
Family First and co always speak of a ‘loving smack’, but I imagine this is not always the case. The child may indeed be loved, but is the action purely based upon love for the child? And not an adverse reaction by harried parents…
“I imagine this is not always the case.”
And it is not always the opposite. Children are violently abused, but they are also lovingly disciplined. They are more often lovingly disciplined than violently abused.
Section 59 did not allow or excuse bashing of children, but its repeal does prohibit physical discipline.
The fact that Family First are a bunch of tossers is of no more relevance to the argument than is the fact that a lot of the pro-repeal types are annoying, sentimental hand-wringers.
Family First has cottoned on to the Section 59 bill to further its own agenda – ie the family made up of father as head of the family, no matter how violent, stupid, loving, caring, useless with money, a drunk, a batterer, (sigh yes Michele and Kimble that could apply to a woman as well) a good father, a wonderful husband; and of course the woman secondary to him as in all religions; and the children as not quite human. They want the right to control the children and the woman, just like the good old days.
They cannot see that the best family of all is decision making by the appropriate partner whether it is money, or childcare or whatever and with all family members having a say in their own futures and children being respected by their parents as human beings. That is happening more I’m pleased to say, but we’ve got a long way to go.
Family First’s christian base is against abortion, no matter what the reason is and is based on a set of rules from an American group, which you can find on the internet. The rules they don’t want you to see have been removed from their NZ website.
Family First is just another group of people who with Brian Tamaki Ian Wishart Exclusive Brethren and other christian parties who started appearing on our radar when Helen Clark was voted in on her own merit against a male opposition leader around 2002. They do not believe a women should be allowed to lead our country.
When you’ve all debated Matthew Pilott’s study, please give me some views on Family First. As if I could stop you!!!
Jum,
This has been a really fascinating insight into the workings of your relationship and family. Please do keep us updated periodically.
“And it is not always the opposite. Children are violently abused, but they are also lovingly disciplined. They are more often lovingly disciplined than violently abused.
Section 59 did not allow or excuse bashing of children, but its repeal does prohibit physical discipline.”
There are points on a spectrum between violent abuse and loving discipline, it is these I was interested in. To be blunt: how often is a child smacked after thoughtful consideration by a parent, in deciding that their child’s behaviour had passed a threshold of their choosing based upon their values, consistently applied, so as to give the child the right message.
And how often is a child smacked because they’ve been naughty and pissed their parents off too much for that day?
I don’t think there are that many ‘loving smacks’ going around.
One effect of the repeal of S59 is that police are now more likely to report what they consider to be child abuse, so the correct authorities can take action. In the past, police were hesitant to report cases of what they considered child abuse, as they knew S59 would make a convenient escape for the parents. At least now, the correct authorities can decide.
This was based upon several articles I read during the passing of the bill. Unless these stories were lies, it illustrates how S59 allowed child abuse by proxy.
Billy
You’re gorgeous, I will forever hold you close to my heart as a man who reminded me that there are some men who think. Not too close tho. My husband might be watching…