As was to be expected, some negative press is coming out regarding the recent meeting of the NH Commission on the Status of Men. Yesterday's Concord Monitor editorial negatively portrayed the fact that father's rights issues were so overrepresented by the public testimony, and called the meeting "a vehicle to bash women and gripe about life's inequities." An even worse letter to the editor took the typical "men don't have problems and no real man is a victim" attitude and mocked the commission futher. What we need are some focused, rational rebuttals to these attacks. You know what to do: send your letters to letters@cmonitor.com. Don't forget to include your contact info so they can confirm and print these replies. We need to show the Concord Monitor the level of support that this commission has!

Anonymous User writes "Check this out. This very site is being mocked over at the democratic underground. They are calling us wimps and saying we're scared of female equality. Not only that but they then go on and list the various feminist lies to try and justify themselves. Very sickening stuff."



I think its good every now and then to link to what our critics have to say about us. This helps ensure that our visitors have a chance to hear from those who oppose us as well as our devotees, and this thread in particular has quite a few of our detractors explaining why they dislike this site and father's rights supporters in general. As it turns out, I happen to have been banned from that forum after one week of participation last spring, for questioning Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men", being overly critical of Hillary Clinton, and defending Wendy McElroy and the IWF.

Dave K writes "Here's a link to a good article... positive news on the educational front:

"Richard Fletcher, of Newcastle University, is part of a team commissioned to redraft the gender equity framework designed to support the particular needs of boys and girls in schools.""

Anonymous writes "What is up with the New York Times? They publish a story debunking the feminist myth of the glass ceiling and then they published this article.
The woman disseminating (or is it oviating?) [*groan* - Hombre] this article is on California Governor Schwarzenegger's transition team. One can only wonder what new persecutions await California's collegiate men as well as males in California's work force."


Perhaps someone here might volunteer to contact Schwartzenegger and advise him as to the men's activist view of this?

Raymond Cuttill writes "Newly added to the Men's Hour Blog



Spiderman Tower Bridge Protest ends - Fathers-4-Justice on Channel 5 November 5th



Spiderman ended his protest today about 4pm.

BBC - "The police have been criticised about their handling of this."

Channel 5 - "He claims his action was to highlight the problem when they are refused access to their children" (Claims? Maybe he went up there sight-seeing?).

Video from the BBC and Channel 5 discussion with Matt O'Connor, Fathers 4 Justice"

Roy writes "Excellent brief commentary by Cathy Young examines the “glass ceiling” theory and concludes it may in fact be that women have far greater choices to exercise than do men, partly due to women’s reliance on their male partners’ lack of the same choices, dedication to earning maximum bucks, and social stigmas against men who “opt out” of the high-earning fast track."

Garth writes "Carline VandenElsen was acquitted of kidnapping her children from their father and taking them to Mexico, and was initially given liberal unsupervised access to them, while the father had custody. The courts have finally decided that this is not a good idea and have revoked all access by the mother. I find it very surprising that they even considered giving her unsupervised access in the first place."

Roy writes "
Excellent essay by Melanie Phillips in London’s Daily Mail (linked from MND site) following the “Spiderman” incident of civil disobedience to bring attention to legal injustices against men and fathers.

While the context is the U.K., the same tyranny in the courts is evident here in the Land o’ the Free.

(Excerpts) -

“The whole justice system is institutionally biased against men and marriage. It is driven by an extreme feminist agenda, which stretches from the humblest family lawyer through the politically correct Law Commission to reach all the way up to government and the senior reaches of the judiciary.



How else can one explain the extraordinary proposal by the Law Commission -- which is expected to be backed by the government -- that women who commit premeditated murder of their menfolk may be charged merely with manslaughter if they have been abused?



…through a combination of moral cowardice and extreme feminism, family lawyers have been writing personal responsibility out of the script for decades. First, they removed the idea that behaviour mattered, so that eventually divorce law became so meaningless that fault was removed from it altogether.
And now, they actually reward bad behaviour. Despite the fact that women have been becoming increasingly unfaithful and predatory, they are now mainly awarded the lion’s share of divorce settlements.”"

CJ writes "Hats off to a true patriot - David Chick. Unbelievable, but Boston Globe online gave men's (fathers) rights a little
homepage exposure with the story of the 36-year-old father who has sat atop a 120-foot crane beside London's Tower Bridge, dressed as Spiderman, in a bid to draw attention to the plight of dads denied access to their children. The area around Tower Bridge draws men who say they have not seen their children in several years and who resent a legal system they believe is biased in favor of women.
''It's like a ritual humiliation,'' said divorced dad Harrison, 45, who said he has not seen his 12-year-old daughter in two years. ''You're taken into court, stripped absolutely bare."

Garth writes "Widely read advice columnist Dan Savage this week repeated long accepted yet false facts to defend his claim that women are victims of violence much more often than men. I think the reason is simple ignorance, not malice, and that if people were to write clear, rational (not heated and confrontational) emails to him pointing out his factual errors (with references), the truth might get some exposure in his column. Note: his advice often deals with touchy issues not for the squeamish or very conservative, so be warned. His email is mail@savagelove.net."



I'm not extremely familiar with Savage, but I believe he has taken stands against feminists in the past and agree with Garth that a confrontational approach would be ill-advised. I'd encourage sending letters with a respectful tone with some good links to information on DV statistics.

Anonymous User writes "Check out the home page of NCFM's Washington chapter for a great laugh. They've nominated Joe Farah of World Net Daily as "Female Apologist of the Year", for his incredibly offensive articles and stupid position defending Clara Harris, the Texas woman who ran over her husband in her Mercedes. Joe Farah deserves our contempt, and NCFM-DC deserves praise for directly exposing and confronting this dumb SOB. (The page uses a pop-up, so if you use a pop-up blocker, you'll need to temporarily turn it off.)

Note to NCFM-DC: A suggestion - why not add Farah's email address, so people can send him email and complain about his dumb articles and his anti-male bias?"

Actually you can leave the pop-up blocker turned on and still see it by clicking here.

Member2k3 writes "This Welfare to Work Study and

this article

refute the myth, promoted by the traditional family lobby, that the increase in working women has had a negative effect on childrens behaviour . I also thought this bit in the second piece was interesting from a mans perspective "Most fathers felt that the mother's work was beneficial and facilitated family life. They talked about it enhancing the quality of their relationship together, and recognised the way in which work enabled their partner to develop and express different aspects of her identity. They also appreciated having help in supplementing the financial costs of raising a family." There are many fantastic mothers who go out to work, and many dreadful mothers you wouldn't trust to look after your hamster who stay at home, usually on benefits."

Mbwuto writes "What happened to freedom? Our government may be once again preparing to institute the draft. Why is it that only men are forced into slavery? Write your politicians and let them know that the draft boards should be destroyed outright, not expanded.

Advertisement recruiting draft board workers
Article (requires commercial view)"

I attended the first official meeting of the NH Commission on the Status of Men last Friday, and the following two articles described the event pretty well. The purpose of the first meeting was to obtain some input from the public on issues that the commission should address, and father's issues were overwhelmingly represented by the public testimony. DV against men and the lack of services for them was also a topic discussed. Overall, the commission members were very supportive and didn't flinch during some of the strongly-worded accusations of bias that were made by the divorced fathers. Foster's has a good article here, and the Concord Monitor has a another one here.

Ray writes "Friends: Here is a great article, written by a retired cop, about domestic violence. This article was a great read, because it backs up everything it says with hard facts, supported by statistics.
It's too bad for men that the truth about domestic violence doesn't play well on talk shows, or Presidential podiums!"