Mothers, fathers, children and the family heirarchy

I think there's quite a lot we can do, much of which feminists and other groups are campaigning for. The main trouble is that we're meeting with a lot of resistance from the patriarchy.

In cases of abuse, the law needs to be changed. Actual violence needs to be treated as seriously as stranger assault is. Most men never get reported, but those who do usually just get a caution. A woman usually has to be beaten up quite severely before a prosecution results. In fairness to the police, this is down to the law rather than them not taking it seriously.

Governments could run campaigns about abuse and sexism, showing the full spectrum rather than just physical violence. I see many women who are treated dreadfully by their partners but don't see it as abusive because they haven't been punched. Abuse affects far more people than smoking related diseases and traffic accidents and money is spent on campaigns about those. I think the social cost of abuse is far higher than both these things so it is just as worthy. I have no truck with the argument that this is telling people how to conduct their lives and government should but out. We don't say that about child abuse do we. Abuse is wrong, at whatever end of the spectrum, and we should not be afraid to come out and condemn it.

In cases of physical abuse I'd like to see changes so a woman is not scared of SS involvement but sees them as supportive. I'd like to see a system where instead of SS taking the children from the woman and blaming her for failure to protect, SS could forcibly eject the man and have the power to keep him away - with him ending up in prison if he flouts it. I'd like men to be removed from the house rather than women having to run to refuges.

Oh, and we could run classes in school teaching about healthy relationship dynamics to reach those kids in houses where sexism and abuse are rampant that there is another, better way.

Re self esteem, self confidence etc., yyy to scallops' post.

Even if you have really loving parents, a good home, good role modelling, life can shit on you. Being bullied, being raped, having a bad academic experience, falling in with an unfortunate friend or boyf.... there are so many things that can damage the good work good parents do and as a society, we support the damage, rather than backing up the good work.

Yes, of course men shouldn't behave like abusive pricks, but if they get away with it they'll go on doing it.

So - how can we stop them getting away with it? I know very little about the police/court system in this respect, are there concrete things we can change so that men come up against the consequences of their behaviour?

God I am a slow typist - x-post with a number there!

I always fail to understand in these arguments why the woman's behaviour and reaction to bad behaviour on the part of a man is held up for scrutiny. Why should the onus be on the woman to spot and police the "red flags", get out of a bad relationship etc when it is the man behaving badly. Why is the onus not on the man to stop behaving like an abusive prick? Why is their behaviour not tackled properly from parents to school to the police? Why is the man not removed from the relationship?

Messages are sent out everywhere via media, peers, police, courts etc that it is the woman's job to please the man and a man's bad behaviour is excusable so it is up to women to gatekeep. This is a hard myth to break.

Spotting red flags, recognising abusive behaviour early on is a useful tool, unfortunately not one that many have (despite the assertion by many women that it wouldn't happen to them). If it were that simple, why do women find themselves in these relationships?

Exotic - you mentioned confidence. I agree, a confident woman is less likely to end up in an abusive relationship. But confidence is fluid, it isn't constant. Things happen to us in life which knock our confidence, which leave us vulnerable. Can you really not see that? You probably have confidence because you have a good relationship, lovely children, had a great childhood etc. Some people aren't blessed with having being brought up with self-worth and even if they are that can be eroded by things that happen to them e.g. unemployment, being attacked, bullying at school, being receptive to the mass of misogynist messages out there etc.

The problem of tackling abusive behaviour lies with the perpetrator not the victim.

But how can you expect women to stop putting up with crapness when society and the law is loaded against them? It wouldn't be so bad if the legal framework was in place to foster a cultural shift about attitudes. But it's not.

If a woman throws out her partner for DV, the police can do very little to prevent him coming back and continually making a nuisance of himself.

Courts tell women all the time that the man's right to see his children trumps her right to live a life free from harassment. It's all dressed up as being in the children's best interests but how can it possibly be in the children's best interests for them to see their mother abused and harassed by their father?

If a woman talks about how pissed off she is about her partners refusal to do his fair share around the house, so much so that she's thinking of leaving him, she if usually told not to over-react and that to break up a marriage because of housework is ridiculous. I see that played out on MN time and time again, let alone in real life.

I agree that the best people to bring about this change is parents. Good, non-sexist parents will do it anyway. But for those children born in less than ideal relationships, don't we have a responsibility as a society to try to teach them the skills they are not getting at home? And shouldn't the law be encouraging good behaviour by cracking down on bad behaviour?

sunshine - yes. Changing men's behaviour is the most important thing, although the easiest way to do that is for women to stop putting up with crapness/horribleness, so it all becomes a bit circular.

I wonder if 'good' men should also be a bit more explicit about what they see as decent behaviour - I get the impression (perhaps wrongly?) that even nice men tend to be quite forgiving of other men's limited parenting commitment/lack of consideration to their partners.

The culture aspect is also very relevant as there are clearly masses of people who are terrified of not being in a relationship so put up with lots of shit. This really does need to change.

"Of course it should all be discussed in PSHE but discussed, not told that all men are shits and how to avoid them."

Where has anyone suggested that that's a sensible approach? Point to it on this thread. You can't, because no-one has said that. Why do you feel the need to set up Aunt Sally's?

"Women have free choice. The woman is bringing up a DC from birth-they should be the one changing the cycle-even if they have the 'wrong' partner."

That is an extraordinary assertion. Men have free choice too. They too can choose not to be abusive or to continue the cycle, or to be the wrong partner. Why are you so anxious to absolve men of any responsibility whatsoever, for child rearing, while at the same time saying that the only right way of having children, is to have them with a man with whom you live? What is that about?

It is a fact of life that many, many children will not learn the skills to choose the right partner from their home-life and childhood. I am not for one minute suggesting that all marriages are bad, but a lot are and it is simply ridiculous to deny that. Look at the stats, check out the threads on MN. In a sexist marriage children will grow up far more likely to repeat the patterns they have learned, not break them. It's self-perpetuating.

Placing responsibility on the woman or the child to break that pattern is victim-blaming IMO. I see a big difference between 'taking responsibility' and 'empowering/educating'. The former implies blame, whereas the latter suggests opportunities IYSWIM.

Exotic you said yourself that life has shades of grey. Why does education have to be about telling people what to do? I see education as a bit like parenting - you equip people with the tools they need to be able to do things for themselves. It's not about learning by rote. We all have to learn skills. We go to school to learn about the world and so we can learn the skills necessary to get a job. The job is not given to us but we are given the skills to go out and get it ourselves. I don't see why this is any different.

'It's interesting that in countries where women now actually do have alternative careers outside of marriage and prostitution the culture insists that pair-bonding and the love match between men and women not only exists but is the route to happiness.'

Interesting point sakura - I had assumed that the (insanely tedious) cultural obsession with pair-bonding/marriage was partly a result of the decline of religion, meaning that we needed something else to fetishise. But you have made me think again!

The statistics show pretty clearly that, as a group, men benefit much more from marriage than women do. And women initiate two-thirds of divorces. So why is it that women usually seem keener to get into marriage than men do?

I'm confused. What makes 2 people having a child because they want to have one any less selfish than one person doing it?

Surely it's always a self-centred decision to have child, no less so just because there are 2 of you making it?

Good-I begin to think that I live in a plastic bubble with friends and family! My DSs live in student lodgings with both sexes-they are just people-'the good the bad and the ugly'. They have friends who are girls. Life isn't all about sex and exploitation. There are many women out there who I wouldn't want them hitched up with, men are not the only 'baddies'.I don't warn them about them and how to avoid them-I assume that they have been brought up with self worth, the ability to go against the crowd and if the worst comes to the worst they will learn by their own mistakes. The same if I had DDs. I once had a boyfriend that my mother didn't like, I got deeply resentful of her 'stopping me making a mistake'-she admitted wanting to 'wrap me in cotton wool'-to which I said 'if I got hurt, I got hurt-I didn't want the cotton wool'. As it turned out she was right but I found it out myself, before it got very far and that was far more valuable than being 'told what to do'.
People can work these things out-it takes some longer than others-but other people sorting it doesn't work IMO (or not with me) . DS had a girlfriend I didn't think suited him-I kept quiet and friendly and it fizzled out. He worked it out for himself.

'I don't want a casual lover.My DH is lover, best friend and someone that I intend to go into old age with. Most people I know are like that. '

Totally agree with this to including people married 20/30/40/50+ years I know.

Agree again with everything you have wrote in that post exotic.

Totally agree with everything exotic is said. I dont think most women would say their marriage is shit at all, that is a ridiculous thing to say.

I really think some of you live in a parallel universe! Men are just people.
I don't want a casual lover.My DH is lover, best friend and someone that I intend to go into old age with. Most people I know are like that. I have 3 DSs who pick girls that they like and are friends with, before anything else. They have girls who are just friends. DS1 is still friends with his ex girlfriends. It really isn't this this them/us warefare that people seem to see.
I can't imagine who anyone would want a DC if you can't find the right man-I would have missed out if I hadn't found one. It isn't a woman's right to have a DC. It is a DCs right to have 2 loving parents. It is very selfish to have a DC 'because I want one'. I have been in that position and didn't do it. A DC is a precious gift-not a right where someone decides to wipe out a whole half of their makeup so that they will never meet a set of grandparents, cousins etc.
Of course it should all be discussed in PSHE but discussed, not told that all men are shits and how to avoid them.
What we need to do is raise the self esteem of all women so that they don't think they have to have a man, they don't have to have DCs and they don't have to put up with anything they don't like.
Women have free choice. The woman is bringing up a DC from birth-they should be the one changing the cycle-even if they have the 'wrong' partner. A woman isn't forced into having a particular partner. They are not forced to stay with him.
I don't believe that any DC follows 'do as I say' they always follow 'do as I do'. My mother was my role model. Women need to make sure that they are living life the way they want-it is useless to tell the DC to do something they are not doing themselves.
I don't mind debates-it is why I started in the first place. I do however think that everyone is different, sometimes you have to agree to differ. I dislike intensely being told what I should think and it makes me do the opposite. If you want people to follow you need to lead by example-not 'educate' unless it is a two way thing. Life is never black and white, it is shades of grey.

I don't think Exotics arguments have been torn to pieces.

It's her experiences and opinion so to me it's valid.

And what about 'ask any women on the street and she'll tell you marriage is shit' Is that a valid argument?

but ask any woman on the street

"I don't know how you get women to choose the right man-"

Why do women need to choose a man at all? Why not just have a lover who pops by now and again? You're more likely to be murdered by your husband/spouse than a random man on the street. I think that bears repeating.

Just look at the patriarchal brainwashing, it's literally everywhere. Kate and Wills' wedding was a good example. It's interesting that in countries where women now actually do have alternative careers outside of marriage and protitution the culture insists that pair-bonding and the love match between men and women not only exists but is the route to happiness. I think this happens because women can't be coerced economically into pairing with men anymore so they've had to pull out all the stops.

In Asia, where I live, they don't bother dressing marriage up as anything but what it is: a nest to raise children coupled with economic and social interdependance.

Women get to choose their husbands, yes, but as any woman on the street and she will tell you that marriage is shit, basically. Plenty of women don't get married here, but most of them lose out on the chance of having kids, which is fine if that's what they want, but I think it's a shame that that was the price they had to pay.

But sorry to harangue you Exotic, I know it's tough to have your arguments torn to bits if you're not used to that and especially if your arguments are normally seen as mainstream and common sense. I hope you're not feeling victimised, I'm not going to stop arguing with you but it's in a spirit of discovery rather than attacking.