European Update

With special guests:

• John Forsyth and
  
• Jiri Fiala.

John Forsyth is a journalist based in Scotland who worked for the BBC in London for 10 years before returning to Scotland to become Political Editor of Scotland on Sunday newspaper. He has recently resumed freelancing for newspapers. John has taken some interest in the Scottish Government’s persistence with a gender-based analysis of domestic abuse to provide 10s of millions of pounds in funding for support groups for female victims of domestic abuse and violence and zero for males in the same situation. The latest 2007-8 domestic abuse statistics were published recently with a government press release saying police reports of domestic abuse had gone up 2%. Somehow they managed to gloss over the fact that police reports of women as victims of men had fallen while incidents of males on the receiving end had gone up by 12%, as they have in each of the last 8 years.

Jiri Fiala is the founder and director of the Czech Republics’ fathers group K213. Jiri has been desperately trying to obtain contact with his two children, which the Czech Courts will not support. After taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights, who incidentally ruled in his favour, the Czech Family Court still refuses to act upon the directions of the European Court of Human Rights, and will not enforce his legal contact with his children.

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Renovations Required

Dr James Cumes

With Special Guests:

• Rainer Sonnenberger and
• Dr James Cumes.

First up we are joined by Rainer Sonnenberger from Germany. Rainer is a member of the board of directors of the largest organization for fathers and childrens’ rights in Germany Vateraufbruch Fur Kinder.

Next we speak to James Cumes, renaissance man and author of, amongst other things, America’s Suicidal Statecraft. James was one of the few commentators to predict the current global economic crisis. We speak to him from Vienna where he explains some of the causes of the global predicament and offers some sensible solutions to resuscitate the Australian and global economies.

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Two Sides to Every Story

With Special Guests:

• James Adams
• Sue Price and
• Warwick Marsh.

There are two sides to every story, but when it comes to gender issues including domestic violence and shared parenting, the Australian public are only hearing one side.

Much of the Australian media has completely neglected to point out that there is a great deal of debate academic and otherwise over the massive taxpayer-funded domestic violence industry and its portrayal of men and fathers as abusers and women as victims.

The Labor Party has now been in power for a year, and the anti-father anti-male propaganda machine is in full swing. The public has been inundated with horror stories of evil men bashing women and how the extremely modest reforms by the previous government to dilute the extreme anti-father bias of our family law system are allegedly placing women and children in danger.

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Resilience

With Special Guests:

• Maggie Dent and
• Michael Woods.

As always, Dads On The Air is covering a lot of ground this week. We begin by talking to author Maggie Dent about her new book, Real Kids in an Unreal World: Building Resilience and Self Esteem in Today’s Children. Then we talk with Michael Woods, Senior Lecturer with the Men’s Health Information and Resource Centre at the University of Western Sydney, on the controversy surrounding White Ribbon Day. Many critics are now expressing concern over the social consequences of the repeated linking of men with violence in taxpayer-funded public campaigns and the inflamed misuse of statistics to bolster an ideological position which paints men as violent patriarchs. We’ll also be taking a look at the demise of the Federal Magistrates Service in Australia, created in a sense as a counterbalance to the Family Court. While many questions remain over the failure of reactionary elements within family law to embrace shared parenting, the Magistgrates Service was generally seen as faster, fairer and less expensive.

We speak with Habib about his new book My Story - The Tale of a Terrorist Who Wasn’t, his experiences in Guantánamo, and how he has managed to adjust back to his life as an Australian father and husband.

We also present Maggie Hamilton’s inspirational keynote address from the MAN National Conference in Fremantle titled Capturing the public imagination: securing a better future for our men and boys.

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Rites of Passage

Dr Arne Rubenstein

With Special Guests:

• Arne Rubenstein and
• Ruedi Oswald.

At the Men’s Advisory Network’s Second National Conference back in August, in Fremantle, we recorded Dr Arne Rubenstein’s inspiring keynote address titled Creating contemporary Rites of Passage and the Pathways to Manhood Program. Dr Rubenstein is the co-founder and CEO of the Pathways Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that runs the national award winning Pathways to Manhood Program in schools and communities around Australia. This program for teenage boys and their fathers is a contemporary Rite of Passage that aims to inspire the boys to have a vision and reach their potential.

Ruedi Oswald, is a licensed Swiss social worker who is going to give us an insight into what happens to separated fathers in Switzerland, and how easily they can be separated from their children once one parent is allotted sole custody by the legal system. We’re going to try and find out what differences there are in the way that separation and divorce are dealt with by the Swiss Family Justice System compared to what happens in the rest of the western democracies. While his wife, who is a doctor, lives in the family home and he hasn’t seen his 3 kids for 10 years, he is forced to live out of the back of a converted van. Ruedi is looking for support and can be reached at swiss.socialwork@web.de.

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What Lies in the Hearts of Men

With Special Guests:

• John Simpson
• Sue Price
• Warwick Marsh
• Greg Andresen
• Robert Gordon.

This week we covered a great deal of territory, from a fascinating interview with the creative director of a powerful new movie Men’s Group, to International Men’s Day to the debate which has erupted over the potential jailing of men who dare to get a DNA sample of their children without the mother’s permission.

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Save the Males

With Special Guests:

• Kathleen Parker and
  
• Peter Burns

Author Kathleen Parker has created a furore around the world with her new book Save The Males. Don’t miss this fascinating interview. So disenfranchised have men become, that only a woman can state the bleeding obvious, that the extreme sexism of gender feminism has done a great deal of harm to men, women, children, and society as a whole.

One person who knows all about the brutality of the modern state is Peter Burns, one of the leading members of the fathers’ rights movement in NZ, he hosts a very successful website http://dad4justice.blogspot.com/ where he dispenses a wealth of information from around the world to do with fatherhood issues.

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Princesses and Pornstars - What's Happening to Our Girls?

With special guests:

• Emily Maguire, author of the new book Princesses and Pornstars
• Maggie Hamilton, author of the new book What’s Happening To Our Girls?

This week we are delighted to have two of the country’s leading women authors on the show discussing where gender relations have got to and what is happening to our girls.

Many dads are strugling to deal with feisty, determined and often headstrong young daughters, trying to encourage them to be independent and successful young women, while at the same time as hoping like hellthey don’t turn into man-haters.

Told from an early age they can do anything and be anything, young women today are very different to the women of only a few generations ago.

As any parent will tell you, teenage girls are difficult on a good day. How as a father to deal best with them and the many issues they face can be very perplexing indeed.

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Child Support: The Bitter Harvest

Matt Miller

With Special Guests:

• Matt Miller
• Sue Price
• John Flanagan
• Phillip York.

Nothing makes separated dads more upset or more angry than the Child Support Agency, with its constant and brutal intrusions into their lives and its systemic stripping of their income and assets. While the government has built an enormous and ruthless bureaucratic empire around child support, and will pursue fathers literally to the grave for a few dollars, the same government does absolutely nothing to ensure that kids get to see their dads.

This government is now overseeing complex and confusing changes to the child support system which is meant to make it fairer, but in fact will see many if not most fathers paying more, while stripping them of their family allowance.

While he heads the country’s most despised and destructive institution - and has rapidly become the country’s most disliked bureaucrat - at least Matt Miller has had the gumption to come on and attempt to justify the changes. Also on the show this week are John Flanagan from the Fairness in Child Support group, Sue Price from the Men’s Rights Agency and Phillip York from Dads In Distress.

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Social Justice: Think Twice

With Special Guests:

• Angela Conway
• Toni McLean
• Richar’ Farr
• John Flanagan.

The Australian Family Association is campaigning against the proposed changes to NSW legislation that would remove the word ‘father’ from birth certificates and get rid of the term ‘paternity leave’. We are pleased to have their spokeswoman Angela Conway on the program. “We oppose the change, it is part of the national and international picture of eroding the traditional family and the concept of a natural parent,” she said. “The social science evidence is pointing us in the other direction; that natural parents, both mothers and fathers, are vital to their children.

We are also delighted to have domestic violence counsellor and expert Toni McLean on the show. She has had the courage and integrity to genuinely think outside the square when it comes to violent couples and the best way to promote healthy relationships. Together with supportive and experienced group facilitators, her Think Twice program offers a complete range of options for individuals and couples experiencing difficulty in their relationships from normal conflict through to all forms of abuse, as well as physical violence.

We close the show with the ever entertaining Richar’ Farr, a leading figurehead in the international fatherhood movement. He is the founder of KRights Radio and the nationally syndicated program The Message. Richar’ describes his new internet radio station as “a town hall meeting on radio.” He calls it Kids’ Rights Radio - KRights for short. The unique station began its unusual and compelling broadcast on Aug 1, 2004, and is now on the air 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We also talk with John Flanagan about the upcoming Dads4Kids Rally at NSW Parliament House to protest the removal of the word ‘father’ from birth certificates.

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Exploding Gender Myths

With Special Guests:

• Professor Mark Wooden
• Warwick Marsh and
• Professor Richard B. Felson.

Prof Mark Wooden, social researcher at the University of Melbourne, is a very courageous man. Last week he was the only male taking part in a National Press Club panel discussion on the gender pay gap. Faced with a mostly female audience, he dared to challenge the myth that the pay gap between men and women in Australia is mainly due to discrimination, instead suggesting that it has “got a lot to do with the fact that women are not prepared to work longer hours.”

Other widespread myths concern the issue of domestic violence. One of them is that husbands engage in more marital violence than wives because they are more controlling. The other is that societal norms permit violence within marriage and that gender roles encourage violence by males moreso than females. Richard B. Felson, Professor of Crime, Law, Justice and Sociology at the Pennsylvania State University in the US, has published extensive research that challenges both of these myths.

Also on today’s show we speak to Warwick Marsh from the Fatherhood Foundation about the proposed laws in NSW that will remove the word ‘father’ from birth certifcates and consign the term ‘paternity leave’ to the dustbin of history.

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Are Our Sex Discrimination Laws Sexist?

Elizabeth Broderick

With special guest

• Elizabeth Broderick, the new Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner and Commissioner Responsible for Age Discrimination.

The Commissioner and her staff have spent the last few months undertaking a National Listening Tour to ascertain the views of Australians on three key themes: economic independence for women, work and family balance across the life cycle, and freedom from discrimination, harassment and violence.

To date the Commissioner and her staff have run men’s and women’s focus groups, spoken to men and women at workplaces, unions, business round-tables, academic round-tables, community groups and public consultations, in both city and regional areas. Information collected from this consultation will be used to inform the agenda for Ms Broderick’s five year term.

It will be a real honour to have the Commissioner on our program to discuss various issues of concern to men, boys and fathers. She is on the record as being very supportive of men and their issues, believing that “working towards gender equality is not about a battle of the sexes.” The question is whether her hands are tied by administering a sex discrimination act that defines discrimination as “discrimination against women”.

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Women Who Speak Out For Men

Barbara KayWith Special Guests:

• Barbara Kay and
• Malia Blom.

Barbara Kay is a columnist for the National Post, Canada and the author of such courageous and widely-circulated male-friendly articles as On domestic violence, no one wants to hear the truth, The plight of divorced dads and The last white ribbon.

Malia Blom is executive director of the Boys and Schools program in the USA. Boys and Schools is dedicated to improving the lives and futures of boys. Their outreach efforts focus on raising public awareness regarding issues related to boys’ health and achievement. The Boys and Schools program is a project of the Men’s Health Network, a non-profit educational organization committed to improving the health and well-being of men and boys.

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Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men?

With Special Guests:

• Dr Warren Farrell
• Warwick Marsh and
• Kay Knight

This week we interview Dr Warren Farrell, world renowned author of countless books on gender, including The Myth of Male Power, Why Men Earn More and Father and Child Reunion. With women’s and gender studies courses dominating our universities; where the next generation of leaders learns contempt for men and their traditional roles and are taught to hate males and fathers and the so-called patriarchy, Warren Farrell has set out to address exactly this audience with his new book, produced by leading academic publishers Oxford University Press, Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men? A Debate.

Next up we will talk with Warwick Marsh from the Fatherhood Foundation and Greg Andresen (from DOTA), who organised the recent Men and Fathers’ Health Forum in Canberra. We close today’s show by talking with Kay Knight from the Thanks Dad Photos competition, run by a group called Community Connections on the NSW North Coast.

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Dad Stories

With special guests:

• Doug Doran and
• Ann Bressington MLC.

Doug Doran is the editor of a sterling new book Dad Stories. What happens when you ask twenty of your mates to tell you a story about their dad? You get Dad Stories. Dad Stories covers vast emotional territory. While these stories remember many of the good times, they never shy away from the sad or the tragic. Ultimately, they reveal that our fathers are much like us; sharing the same passions, hopes, fears, strengths, joys and disappointments—qualities that can pass from father to son across generations. Dad Stories is a totally self-funded, non-profit venture. The book costs $20 and all proceeds will be distributed throughout the Central Victorian community to support men’s health.

Ann Bressington, is a South Australian MLC, and one of the few politicians in this country with the courage and decency to speak out on behalf of men, no matter that their cause is presently unfashionable or even politically incorrect. She speaks out against proposed South Australian rape laws, which while purporting to protect women, may well do many of them great harm by falsely demonising their sons, their brothers and their lovers. If a woman goes home with a man and sleeps in his bed, this Bill will assume he has raped her if at the time of intercourse, she was “intoxicated” or “asleep”; she is not satisfied that he was entirely honest about his identity; she withdraws her consent for any reason and at any time but does not state so; there was any miscommunication about his or her intentions. A man may spend a life in jail as as consequence of a one night stand if the woman changes her mind afterwards, even if she doesn’t tell him so.

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The Woman Racket

With special guests:

• Steve Moxon and
• Sue Price.

Steve Moxon is the English author of a new book called “The Woman Racket - the new science explaining how the sexes relate at work, at play and in society”. Notwithstanding its provocative title, The Woman Racket is a serious scientific investigation into one of the key myths of our age - that women are oppressed by the “patriarchal” traditions of Western societies. Drawing on the latest developments in evolutionary psychology, Moxon finds that the opposite is true - men, or at least the majority of low-status males - have always been the victims of deep-rooted prejudice. As the prejudice is biologically derived, it is unconscious and can only be uncovered with the tools of scientific psychology. The book reveals this prejudice in fields as diverse as healthcare, employment, family policy and politics: compared to the long and bloody struggle for universal male suffrage, women were given the vote “in an historical blink of the eye”

Also Sue Price, from the Men’s Rights Agency joins us to talk about the new Child Support Agency scheme to go through old income tax records in an attempt to bring some additional pennies into its coffers.

Plus the 5th and final instalment of the radio drama Hero Joe, produced especially for Dads on the Air.

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Men's Sheds and Private Spaces

With special guests:

• Professor Barry Golding, University of Ballarat. With men’s voices almost eliminated from the public debate on gender - and certainly from the formation of public policy - the importance of private spaces where men can simply be themselves is more important than ever [more info]
• Simon Hunt, Family Law Maverick. Simon’s propositions are very much solution based, are well thought through and need to be considered seriously, as an intregal part of the debate to bring about much needed changes to a hopelessly flawed Family Justice System

Plus the next instalment of the radio drama Hero Joe, produced especially for Dads on the Air.

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The Best of 2007 - Part 2

With special guests:

• Dr Warren Farrell, famous social commentator and author of best selling books including Father and Child Reunion: How to Bring the Dads We Need to the Children We Love
• Dr. Amy J.L. Baker, US author of Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome: Breaking the Ties that Bind. The world’s first study of child victims of Parental Alienation Syndrome
• Terry Hicks, a special father who loves his child unconditionally, and has dedicated his life to help protect his son, David Hicks from harm and appeals for “a fair go” for his child
• Christina Hoff Sommers, author of Who Stole Feminism and The War Against Boys interviewed at the Boys and the Boy Crisis conference in Washington DC
• Eric Burch, US serviceman and musician

Plus the Dads on the Air speech given at the Lone Fathers National Convention at Parliament House in Canberra in August 2007.

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The Best of 2007 - Part 1

With special guests:

• Sue Price: founder and spokesperson for the Men’s Rights Agency
• Dr Ludwig Lowenstein: world expert on Parental Alienation Syndrome
• Maggie Hamilton: author of What Men Don’t Talk About
• Andrew Denton: TV personality from many shows including Enough Rope
• Erin Pizzey: founder of the world’s first refuge for battered women
• Tony Coe: president of the UK’s Equal Parenting Council
• Ann Bressington: outspoken South Australian MP, who is calling for better Child Protection
• Mark Harris and Jolly Stansby: Fathers4Justice UK activists. Mark is also the author of Family Court Hell
• Jim Bailey: New Zealand father’s activist.

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International Comment

John Waters

With special guests:

• Dean Tong - internationally known family rights and forensic consultant on child abuse, domestic violence and child custody cases. He is also the author of a number of books including “Don’t blame me Daddy: false accusations of child sexual abuse - a hidden national tragedy” and “Elusive Innocence: survival guide for the falsely accused”
• John Waters - well known Irish journalist and social commentator, who calls a spade a spade. John speaks his mind at the Amen conference in Dublin, attacking the authorities for ignoring their duty of care to fathers and their children and refering to this scandal as being a gross violation of human rights

Plus the lastest news items from Australia and overseas affecting dads and their children.

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