BBC's Fiona Bruce

Fiona Bruce's comments on violence issues only shows her views are outdated when women's violence is excused on every level. The one thing Bruce seems to purposely forget, is that violence is not a gender issue it is a social issues that effect men and women, as anyone can commit violence, be it women or men and children. To excuse violence for one gender harms everyone.

For example, since people wish to excuse women's violence there are - "REFERENCES EXAMINING ASSAULTS BY WOMEN ON THEIR SPOUSES OR MALE PARTNERS: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY SUMMARY:" This bibliography examines 155 scholarly investigations: 126 empirical studies and 29 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 116,000. - Martin S. Fiebert, PhD

Now Mike Lewis, producer of the BBC1 documentary, has stated 'Fiona Bruce has no position on this personally or any official position with any charity or campaigning body working in this area - other, of course, than the position that domestic violence is a bad thing, which the BBC does not think is controversial,' he said.

Well ask yourself, if that is the case for these people, why hasn't, Mike Lewis and Fiona Bruce then done a documentary on ["Women's violence on children and violence on men".]

I can tell you if they did, every feminist groups going, would be screaming bloody murder over them doing that, but then, they at the BBC have no concerns about women's violence do they.. as they, the media's main concern is still to view women as victims and men as the abusers.

From Matthew O'Connor ... (Founder of F4J
Dads Get Beaten Up Over Domestic Violence

FQ Magazine November 2004

I recently got beaten up verbally by newsreader Fiona Bruce over the issue of Domestic Violence in an interview. What I learned from my hammering is that the phrase "domestic violence" is now synonymous with male on female violence and that we are becoming blind to other types of abuse as a result.

It didn't matter to Ms Bruce that according to the last available Home Office figures that 39 children were killed my their mums, 19 by mum's new partner and 19 by the natural father in that year or that 65% of abuse according to the NSPCC is mother on child.

Her axe to grind (which she did very firmly in my back) was that all women were Madonnas and all dads were demons. This stereotyping of men wouldn't happen to any minority group or if I happened to be gay, black or Jewish yet it is rife in society and in the media.

Prompted by a recent Daily Mirror hatchet job on Fathers 4 Justice (F4J), she painted us as violent, debaucherous individuals. Now I like to indulge in a little debauchery but to paint 12,000 people in this unfavourable light using a handful of cases beggars belief. F4J is like a slice of society, we have the good, the bad and the ugly. I can't answer for everybody's peccadilloes and predilections but I would guess that they are a lot healthier than those of your average Tory MP or Judge.

Recently another journalist (ex Tory Spin Doctor and female Commentator) lambasted Jason 'Batman at Buck Palace' Hatch as having loose morals - and this from a woman it turned out had been having an affair with a married man who had two kids for 6 years. People in glass houses...

Yet I can't help feeling that these prejudices also stereotype contemporary women as down trodden long suffering creatures. Yet the reality is that 21st century women are more financially independent, more likely to stay single, more predatory sexually and less likely to stay in a relationship that doesn't conform to their expectations to let alone one in which they are abused.

And what constitutes domestic violence? Well according to the Home Office definition it isn't just hitting or punching or shoving but also includes 'emotional and financial abuse'. So should you find yourself in the middle of a relationship breakdown and you shout at your partner to stop smacking little Johnny round the ear (which is still legal ironically) you yourself could find yourself hauled up in court for Domestic Violence. If this sounds totally unbelievable, take my word for it, it happens and it's going to happen a lot more.

From January 2005 a new form for divorcing parents will be introduced which will have a box for parents to tick if there has been any 'domestic violence' in the relationship. Should mum stop you seeing little Johnny and you wind up (god forbid) in the 'Family' Courts there will be no need for any evidence to be produced and your guilt will be established by a Judge on the basis of 'probability' rather than the normal 'beyond reasonable doubt' principle. So instead of a presumption of innocence there is a presumption of guilt and the onus is on the father to 'prove' his innocence.

And by the way, whilst any allegation is investigated you won't get to see your kids at all, you might get a non molestation order preventing you from returning to your home, you might not be able to get your belongings out of the property and if you try ringing the kids mum can have you charged with harassment. If you think this all sound like total bollocks then wake up. Next time you play Family Law Lotto it could be you.

Now what if you did throw a plate across a room, or pushed mum in an argument, or you hit her after she hit you? All right minded people will condemn any kind of violence but why is it that if mum hits you (or little Johnny for that matter) it is acceptable, but if you hit her or little Johnny you become a violent wife beating, child abusing man who can't ever see his kids again, and whilst we are at it mum can move in the next Peter Sutcliffe or Ian Huntley and nobody will raise an eyebrow. What sort of conditioning has made us view such a serious subject through warped glasses?

And if you apply this way of thinking to it's logical conclusion then all men should be risk assessed before having any contact with children. And if Dad raises any concerns about Mum's new partner nobody will take a blind bit of notice and in some tragic cases I know of some children have died as a result.

What we are seeing is a Salem like Witch Hunt against men the like we have never seen being led by Women's Aid, Refuge and the NSPCC, where to point a finger is to find you guilty, where every man is a bush lurking, wife beating, child abusing, dog kicking nutter. Why? Well according to the barking broomstick flying fanatical feminists, the Al Quieda of womankind, it's what thousands of years of war and violence has done to us. Apparently we can't help it.

What's worst is that this lethal cocktail of hypocrisy and prejudice is being used to deny good loving dads access to their kids and putting those children at genuine risk in even greater danger by spreading resources so thinly that they are not properly protected.

Far from criticising groups like Fathers 4 Justice women's groups should be applauding our proposals which are designed to reduce conflict in the Family Courts. But no we stagger on, blindly peddling myth's as facts and using ingrained prejudices to formulate more anti-male legislation.

And we have let this happen right under our noses as we have been seduced by a diet of wine, women and song. Guy's, your rights are going up in smoke and we are sounding the alarm. It's time to wake up and open your eyes.

Matt O'Connor F4J -UK

Fiona Bruce

Fiona Bruce, the BBC TV presenter, has become the latest target of the militant fathers movement in a furious row over a hard-hitting documentary on custody battles to be screened tomorrow.

Fathers4Justice, the pressure group which has run a controversial campaign for custody rights, accused her of having an 'axe to grind' against them because of her support for the campaign against domestic violence.

The allegations - angrily denied by the BBC - centre on a Real Story documentary fronted by Bruce, examining allegations that some activists protesting at being refused access to their children have histories of violence against their partners. It includes interviews with anonymous women whose former husbands are involved in the men's campaign.

Fathers4Justice has threatened to lodge a formal complaint against the BBC as soon as the programme is broadcast, arguing that Bruce's endorsement for campaigns run by the domestic violence charity Women's Aid mean the programme will be biased.

'My gut feeling is Fiona made it a programme about her views to do with domestic violence. I can't see how they can say she's impartial,' said Matthew O'Connor, founder of Fathers4Justice.

He claimed that after the cameras stopped, Bruce told him a close friend of hers had suffered a violent relationship and suggested he work more closely with Women's Aid. In comments on an internet forum on parenting, he goes further, claiming to have been 'verbally beaten up' by Bruce in the interview.

Speaking to The Observer, O'Connor insisted he did not count Bruce as a man-hater: 'She is married, to someone in the film industry. I don't think she is biased against men. Our concern is about the impartiality of the programme.'

The attack prompted a vigorous defence of Bruce from Mike Lewis, producer of the BBC1 documentary. 'Fiona Bruce has no position on this personally or any official position with any charity or campaigning body working in this area - other, of course, than the position that domestic violence is a bad thing, which the BBC does not think is controversial,' he said.

O'Connor said he agreed to take part in the programme after being told it would be about the family courts and the role Cafcass, of the children's guardian service, only to find himself questioned about domestic violence.

However Lewis said the programme had started out by looking at the family courts, then 'narrowed it down' to domestic violence issues and that Fathers4Justice were warned of this 24 hours before filming.

'We are not running any specific allegations about specific convictions in the programme, and anyway we go along with the Fathers4Justice line that a conviction does not mean someone could not go on to become a good and loving father,' he added.

Tensions between the fathers' movement and women's groups are growing partly because of changes due to be introduced in January under which all women involved in family court custody cases will be asked directly if their partner has been violent.

Ministers argue that putting the question will encourage frightened women to disclose abuse. Men's groups argue it may simply encourage malicious allegations, with O'Connor claiming men were now being subject to a 'Salem-like witch hunt'.

He said the group would expel anyone who brought it into disrepute, but admitted he could not guarantee none of the group's 12,000 members had violent pasts: 'We are a cross-section of society. We probably have the good the bad and the ugly. We can't do criminal record checks.

'But I am aware of people who have served time for acts of violence who now look after their children who are great fathers.'

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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Fathers Canada Commentary

Media Sexism, and Fatherhood as a Dirty Word

While the Media and Militant Feminist still promotes it's sexism and abuse these days, and if we as a society, insist on isolating victims for special interest concern based on their gender, then our concern should at least be based on the truth, not ancient codes of Feminism and political correct malice.

Over the past few years, many letters have been written to various media personalities, politicians, and Ministry officials in government on the topic of differences in the treatment of men vs. women.

Likewise the media still routinely substitutes the words "women" for "victim" and "men" for "abuser" whenever they cover this topic. Media that openly acknowledge men as a substantial number of victims are by far the exception than the rule, even today.

Of course none of this worries the women's groups fighting to keep the 'battered husband' in the closet, and absolve those women who do abuse. And media and government is hardly knocking down any doors to change this situation either. To one extent or another they are all co-conspirators to the silence and misinformation that plagues this entire issue. And while much of this may have been attributed to ignorance some ten years ago, it is very hard to come to that conclusion today.

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Does our justice system discriminate against men?
Monday, 25 October 2004
Terry O'Neill

Being roughed up by a woman is an embarrassment few men are anxious to disclose, even to family and close friends. Which makes it all the more remarkable that a Kamloops, B.C., man has willingly revealed to the general public the details of a March 2003 incident in which he alleges his smaller, common-law wife pushed him against a wall, threw a stack of CDs at him, then began to pummel him. But Scott Crockford maintains in a written account of the incident that when he defended himself, and in the process wrenched his wife's arm, RCMP officers later charged only him.

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Other Links on Violence issues

Other Side of Family Violence
www.fathers.ca/the_hidden_side_of_domestic_violence.htm

Give Back The Night
www.fathers.ca/give_back_the_night.htm

http://www.fathers.ca/gender_profiling_prevalent.htm

http://www.fathers.ca/behind_bars.htm

http://www.fathers.ca/sexism_and_fatherhood_on_the_ropes.htm

From the Canadian Children's Rights Council

HAPPY NATIONAL CHILD DAY, CANADA

What the Government of Canada wants you to believe about Canada on National Child Day

From the Government of Canada Website;

"This year’s theme, A Canada Fit for Children, celebrates Canada’s commitment to children. On May 10, 2004, the publication A Canada Fit for Children was released to show how Canada is moving forward with its commitments made on May 10, 2002 at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children. It highlights the Canadian government’s agenda and National Plan of Action for children in Canada. Celebrate National Child Day this year by showing how Canada is fit for children!"

THE TRUTH

Over 1 million children in Canada are being deprived of a relationship with 1 parent in violation of a family law court order or separation agreement and in violation of articles 7 and 8 of the U N Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Special Joint Committee on Custody and Access, a joint committee of members from both the House of Commons and the Senate held country wide hearings in 1998 regarding changes to family law. Their report "For the sake of the Children" has been virtually ignored by the Liberal government. No meaningful change to family law is even before Parliament. See our family law section for details.

- Over 3.2 million Canadians are denied their birthright

- Over 3.2 million Canadians are denied their birthright, their correct identification on their birth records. The Supreme Court of Canada decision regarding children's identity rights has not been properly implemented or in some provinces never been implemented. The father that won this case in the Supreme Court of Canada is suing the government of the province of British Columbia for $6.3 million.

See our section on children's identity rights

ALL members of the House of Commons agreed in 1989 to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. It still hasn't happened. Child poverty in Canada has increased. Food banks use has increased significantly. 400,000 more children are living in poverty than in 1989. see our section on child poverty.

AMERICAN BABIES BEING ADOPTED OUT IN CANADA

American babies are being adopted out in Alberta because that province allows adoptions without the child's father's consent. This means that mom beats 20+ years of child support and gets rid of her "mistake" that dad might want to raise in the same small town.

There's more see our National Child Day webpage for more at

http://www.canadiancrc.com/National_Child_Day.htm