Article here. Excerpt:

'US government statistics show that women in 35 per cent of professional dual-income homes are now making more than their husbands. That proportion was only 28 per cent five years ago.

Maddy Dychtwald, a Californian demographer, attributed the trend – affecting professions such as lawyers and doctors - to a combination of employers being more amenable towards women staff, declining birth rates and the US recession's comparatively light impact on female workers.
...
She said: "It's role reinvention. It's a full-blown paradigm shift, one that gives both men and women more options when it comes to pursuing their careers, providing for their families and expressing their own talents and strengths."'

From an ACFC email, here. [As an aside, also therein mentioned was an article written by a young woman who blogged on the effects of feminism on society here.] Excerpt:

'Sunday is Father's Day.

Ever wonder how it began? Although many think it's a holiday made up by Hallmark, it actually has roots in Spokane, Washington dating back to 1909.

That's when 27-year-old Sonora Smart Dodd was listening to a Sunday church sermon about mothers and honoring them.

Dodd was just 16 hen her father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, was left to raise his six children alone after their mother died in childbirth.

Smart ran a farm in rural eastern Washington state.

After the sermon, Dodd began her campaign believing the entire nation should show more respect to fathers.

She persuaded the local ministerial association and YMCA to pass a resolution in support of Father's Day and the first local holiday was observed on June 19th, 1910.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Every night when 98-year-old Lily Barron goes to bed, she looks at the large framed photographs that line her bedroom wall and says a prayer for her father, "the most important man in my life. I loved every inch of him."

Lily's dad was a miner who lived with his wife and four young children in the town of Blackwood in south Wales. In his attitudes to his children, he was in some ways surprisingly modern. He never smacked them, he read bedtime stories, and he cuddled and kissed them every day. Twice-married Lily remembers him as "the loveliest and gentlest man I ever knew".

This image of the gentle and loving Edwardian working class father is at odds with our general perception of fathers in the past. We tend to picture them as tyrannical patriarchs whose children were seen and not heard and lived in fear of father's punishments. It is only in recent decades - or so we imagine - that dads have become approachable, caring and committed to the wellbeing of their children. Nothing could be further from the truth.'

Article here from The Huffington Post about a domestic dispute over what to watch on TV that turned deadly. Excerpt:

'JOHANNESBURG -- Police say a South African man who wanted to watch a World Cup match nstead of a religious program was beaten to death by his family in the northeastern part of the country.

David Makoeya, a 61-year-old man from the small village of Makweya, Limpopo province, fought with his wife and two children for the remote control on Sunday because he wanted to watch Germany play Australia in the World Cup. The others, however, wanted to watch a gospel show.

"He said, 'No, I want to watch soccer,'" police spokesman Mothemane Malefo said Thursday"That is when the argument came about.

"In that argument, they started assaulting him."
...
"He was always a happy man, never violent," Makoeya's nieces, Miriam and Anna, told the Daily Sun newspaper. "On Saturday, we saw him the last time at a funeral.""

By Ulf Andersson, PappaRättsGruppen
http://www.dads-r-us.se/

International Press Release

Swedish Father Rights Action targeting politicians in the Riksdag (Parliament) launched

In a joint co-operation action for the upcoming election in Sweden on September 19th these groups:

PappaManualen, http://www.pappamanualen.se/
PappaOmbudsmannen, http://www.pappaombudsmannen.se/
Daddys-Sverige, http://www.daddys-sverige.se/
PappaRättsGruppen, http://www.dads-r-us.se/

have sent 10 questions about fatherhood in PDF format, to the politicians in the Riksdag (Parliament) and politicians in the 290 municipalities and additionally 130 authorities.

With the support of modern research and statistics we hope that common sense and a humble attitude will apply.

Article here. Excerpt:

Article here. Excerpt:

"Young people who said they talked seriously to their dads "most days" gave themselves an 87 per cent score on a happiness scale compared with 79 per cent for those who said they hardly ever spoke to their fathers in this way.

The findings, from an analysis of research from the British Household Panel survey into 1,200 young people in Britain aged between 11 and 15, were released by the Children's Society to coincide with Father's Day this weekend.

Nearly half of young people - 46 per cent - said they "hardly ever" spoke to their fathers about important topics compared with 28 per cent who hardly ever spoke to their mothers about the things that matter most.

Only 13 per cent confided in their father "most days", according to the analysis.

The study, commissioned by the Children's Society and undertaken by the University of York, showed that young people talk less to their fathers about important issues as they get older."

Article here. Excerpt:

"Dads – do you feel a bit of a spare part? Do you see yourself in relation to your kids as about as useful as a stick of furniture – one of the lesser used pieces, like the side table in the guest bedroom? Well, the good news, delivered in a BBC documentary just in time for Father's Day, is that those traditional dad activities, such as talking over your children's head with long words and complex sentences, or swinging them around so that their shoulders threaten to come out of their sockets, are biologically useful. Fathers make evolutionary sense – and not just as reconstructed pseudo-mummies, or "new dads".

Story here. Excerpt:

'Dozens of Israeli men were in jail on Friday a day after ultra-Orthodox Jews staged their largest protest in 10 years in support of parents who defied a supreme court ruling on school integration.

But 22 mothers of pupils at an ultra-Orthodox girls' school in a West Bank settlement were given a stay of arrest while the court considered a plea to let them stay at home to care for their young families.

Settlers' news website Channel 7 and public radio said Judge Edmund Levy decided that the court would reconvene on Sunday to discuss the request.

Israeli media said that some of the mothers were pregnant, while others had children with special needs. Ultra-Orthodox families generally have large families, far above the average of the secular Israeli population.'

Writing for Slate, anti-male author Katherine Reynolds Lewis transforms a positive Boston College study (.pdf file) on the expanding role of fathers into a defamation of fatherhood entitled "Why Do Dads Lie on Surveys About Fatherhood?"

After making an inappropriate comparison between the self reported parenting time of the fathers in the study to Census Bureau statistics, Lewis falsely concludes: "The answer, it turns out, is that the men in the Boston College study were probably lying about how they spend their time."

Story here. Excerpt:

'EDMONTON -- A man found dead in his Edmonton home Sunday was stabbed to death, say police, who've now charged his common-law wife with second-degree murder.

Results of an autopsy completed Tuesday revealed that Rodney Petryk, 44, was fatally stabbed.

Police were called to Petryk's 12245 93 St. house just before midnight Sunday and found him dead.

Neighbours said officers had been to the residence several times before.'

From Abusegate Bob:

All -

An important hearing is being held today on Capitol Hill on ways to promote parental involvement. As we know, false allegations of domestic violence are a commonly-used tactic to deprive fathers of their parental rights.

Each year, 2-3 million restraining orders are issued in this country. So submit your testimony on the need to curb evidence-free restraining orders! The deadline to receive your thoughtful and polite testimony is July 1.

Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support of the Committee on Ways and Means, announced today that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing to evaluate the effectiveness of responsible fatherhood programs. The hearing will take place on Thursday, June 17, 2010, at 10:00 a.m. in B-318 Rayburn House Office Building. In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only. However, any individual or organization not scheduled to appear may submit a written statement for consideration by the Subcommittee and for inclusion in the record of the hearing.

Story here.

'A Seattle police officer is under investigation after he was videotaped punching a 17-year-old girl after trying to ticket her and her friends for jaywalking.

The incident occurred on Monday afternoon when Officer Ian Walsh stopped four women who were jaywalking on a main road close to a pedestrian bridge in Seattle, Washington. According to a statement released by the police force, a 19-year-old woman began walking away when the officer asked the women to step over to his car. Things soon escalated with the 19-year-old yelling at the officer, the statement says. When the officer tried to arrest the 19-year-old, another 17-year-old woman got involved.

The statement:

"The second female subject placed her hands on the officer’s arm, causing the officer to believe she was attempting to physically affect the first subject’s escape. The officer pushed the second subject back, but she again came at the officer, at which time he punched her."

Article here. Excerpt:

"Mr Justice Moylan said the former couple never went through a civil partnership ceremony and as the law stands, the woman who did not have the child could not be defined as a ''parent''.

He said the woman, identified only as B, was a ''social and psychological'' parent of the child born in 2000.

But he said the law differentiates between ''natural'' parent and a legal one.

''I have come to the clear conclusion that those against whom orders can be made... are confined to those who are a parent in the legal meaning of that word.''

The judge said B had won an order in the courts for shared residence with the child and had therefore acquired parental responsibility.

''This might appear a persuasive point save for the fact that the mere obtaining of parental responsibility is clearly not intended to make someone a legal parent when they would not otherwise be such.''

The judge added: ''In some respects the outcome in this case may seem objectively surprising.

From http://www.interpaal.com/

INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE

INTERNATIONAL BOYCOTT OF FAMILY COURTS

Today 16th June 2010, sees the historic launch of a global human rights campaign by the ‘International Parents Alliance’ (INTERPAAL), calculated to bring to an end the crises in international family law, responsible for the destruction of millions of parent/child relationships worldwide. By presenting all past, current and future victims, with the opportunity to make a compelling personal statement, the voiceless have now been given a voice.

The attached ‘International Boycott of Family Courts’ campaign document (.pdf file) finally provides a historic global rallying point and valuable support, to all those demanding that governments uphold their human rights obligations, to effectively protect the parent/child relationships of their citizens.