Social Services punish mothers for DV

I wasn't responding to your post :) I just read it and thought "No, that's not right!"

Anyone reporting DV in a family should be listened to. Family/ friends/ neighbours might be more aware of it than a teacher who could be interpreting what a child tells them or does (see the post about perks of being a teacher). Basically we should all take responsibility to the children of the world, including reporting abuse when we see it, even if it's one parent abusing another.

I know, but it's back to evidence again, and emotional abuse is the hardest one to prove.
Teachers can flag up problems, collect what evidence is possible, but the other adult involved is best-placed to give a detailed and accurate account of what is occurring.

"If the police come out and there are children or the children's teachers"

I didn't mean it like that anyone can call social services and say that they know someone with children being abused.

Parents have a responsibility to protect their children. If one of them becomes abusive, the other has the responsibility of keeping the children and themselves safe.
If they chose not to, others must and will take on board the needs of the children, but the adult needs to be responsible for themselves.
They can choose to go, stay, seek help, accuse and follow through or accuse and then withdraw...all the different possible combinations of responses.
Children have much less power than adults of either sex.

"But where is the father/abuser's obligation to protect his children? That is my point. The children have a right not to witness abuse and he is the one jeapordizing that right"

Children being abused will generally be subject to investigations, courts and care orders. This is no different. Giving the victim chance to take the children themselves before they go down the road of having them taken into care.

I haven't read it all but skimming I think I'm going to repeat people.

You can not arrest someone without a crime, for there to be a crime there has to be a victim for there to be a victim you have to have a report. If a person (male or female, I'll call them victim now) is being abused by their partner there is nothing anyone can do to arrest that person until the victim reports it. You mention murder but you do have a victim in a murder and it doesn't need the victim to come forward. If you choose to live in a domestic violent home that's up to you. If your friend/ relative/ neighbour/ teacher complains to the police that you are being abused they can come out and speak to you but if you're not willing to press charges then they can't do much other than log it or go on what happens when they're there. For example we used to call the police regularly on our neighbour who we'd hear throw down the stairs and all sorts. It got to the point where we'd call 999 and say "Fred's beating his wife again" and there would be police there foot/ car/ riot van within two minutes. He would regularly be arrested because he was drunk and would try and fight the police, but unless Fred's wife made a complaint they couldn't do anything about the DV.

If the police come out and there are children or the children's teachers complain about it then social services will be involved because it is abusive to the children to witness it or even be in another room. They will be spoken to be social services, social services will offer help to the victim to allow them to withdraw from the situation but they can't force the victim to leave. The victim will be told that unless they remove the children from the situation social services must. Social services only have the children as their priority.

Who else should remove the children from the situation? The abuser? How likely are they to leave do you think? Would you want to leave your children with your abusive ex?

The children are being abused and unless someone takes the children away what do you expect them to do?

'I think you made a mistake by reducing my argument to academic pontificating...'

I had no intention of demeaning your argument, or implying that it was less valid in any way. If you read my post again, I was attempting to explain my lack of objectivity, and how that influences my opinions.

he does have an obligation santa and if teh father is tehre when SS come to visit he will be told that there is to be no more violence. but if he isn't there to be told, what can SS do?? they can't go round teh houses looking for him.

I'm sorry that you have Sackura, but from your post it was one specific situation?
I've been a primary teacher for over two decades, and the sheer helplessness of watching child after child, year after year in situations verging from mild to severe abuse, all different sorts has made me very wary of all the excuses I've heard from the parents.
No one wants to involve SS, but sometimes it's the only way that the child can be safe.
Being in care is not a satisfactory solution either.

"So is it generally understood that there is something not quite right about the way all of this works?"

of course it is. why do you think there is even a need for feminists? the law as a hwole is biased in favour of men. but teh specific issue you raised isn't a feminist issue. SS don't aim to punish women, they aim to protect children.

and NO, SS should not have the authority to evict people from tehir homes, teh police are stretched enough trying to get through all teh red tape taht requires, SS would need huge financial investment to be anywhere near the same position to be able to do it. and what would be teh point when they police are already equipped to do it?

You can remove an wife abuser from the home - but that requires the wife to get a restraining order. If the wife won't do this, then she is putting her children in a situation where they witness the abuse (psych abuse) or potentially even become physical abuse victims themselves. Either way, if she won't protect her children, someone has to.

Of course it is accepted that the system is not perfect - although you would be hard pressed to find a system that is perfect. By nature this is always going to be very hard to balance.

Sakura, I'm not looking for a fight, or to points score. I know you are a highly academic and passionate advocate of women's rights, but I have to ask.
Do you have regular, first-hand contact with victims of DV, women or children?
I find that having seen signs of abuse on children, listening to their stories, watching them flinch in class, handling outbursts of frustration and aggression all makes me less logical and more single-minded about the need for the protection and safety of children to be prioritised over the needs of the adults.
If I didn't have that long history of first-hand experience, I might be able to be more dispassionate and analytical.

It makes me shudder the idea of SS being able to force parents out of their homes. As others have said they have a very different remit. It would piss all over our justice system to remove parents without a trial or innocent until proven guilty or what have you.

A parents first duty is to their child. If you wont accept that duty because you would rather keep the abusive partner then yes your kids should be removed.

It can be a positive threat though. A friend of mine had a bad abusive relationship. Kids weren't ever touched but she was frequently. She always said she never understood women who stayed with abusive men and yet there she was being strangled and beaten in front of her children and felt unable to get rid of him. When did this change? When a policewoman sat her down and said "we are going to involve SS and they will take your children away as it is affecting (effecting??) their behavior."

He was out the house the next day.

"The system is flawed"

this has been known for a long time and people have been trying to change it for a long time.

But the way that our laws work is evidence-based. So you can't just throw someone out of their home without a good case.
And you can't build a good case without the full cooperation of the victim. Or if they retract claims.