SOME men have recently started to organise themselves into groups which exchange information and advice and are gradually working up a head of steam to bring the marginalisation of fatherhood to more widespread attention.
It is estimated that every year some 10,000 fathers find themselves, in effect, banished from the company of their children. Up to 20,000 children are added to the statistics every year. Because of the in camera rule in family courts, this remains an invisible epidemic.
An hour spent talking to a group of such men yields countless stories of discrimination and bias which would be federal issues if the victims were women. Separated men tell of being dragged through the courts by their former partners, firstly to fleece them of any remaining economic resources and secondly to make it as difficult as possible for them to see their children. They tell, too, of a legal system which seems to see its role as the punishment of men and the veneration of women.
But it would be wrong to see the situation as simply one of women keeping fathers away from their children. It would be very stupid of the father of a beautiful little girl like myself to paint women as the villains of the piece. The society, through its culture, is what contrives to do so. Lazy thinking has led us to presume that female emancipation would result in equality, unity and universal harmony. Although for the moment women appear to win and men to lose, the truth is that both are losing out, though not as much as their children.