David Flynn disparages fatherhood

Australia’s White Ribbon Campaign has continued it’s tradition of feminist inspired male loathing by targeting the release of its latest research paper Fathers, Fathering and Preventing Violence Against Women[1] to coincide with, well naturally, Fathers Day. What better time to blame and shame this tiny minority of men than the day designed to celebrate the positive contribution to their families and society made by the vast majority of good and decent fathers?

Perhaps they were just following the lead of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s notorious 2011 Fathers Day speech where he claimed absent fathers should be “stigmatized” by society in the same way as drink-drivers.[2] Note that in the UK an “absent parent” is a legal term with the same meaning as “non custodial parent” or “non resident parent” in other jurisdictions, so Cameron chose to engage in the ubiquitously popular western sport of male bashing by targeting absent fathers rather than absent parents, with the implication that all such fathers were absent by choice — which is a gross misrepresentation of the situation.

To write their latest feminist propaganda White Ribbon Australia engaged yet another “F” word, in the personage of David Flynn, who now competes with Flood and Fischer for prime status within in the elite ideological feminist enclave that is the Victorian DV Services and Academia. You can see Flynn in action spruiking[3] his misandric nonsense for Vic Health on YouTube. [4]

Here are just a few of the false premises on which this paper bases its necessarily false conclusions.

It adopts a social constructionist’s viewpoint.

While the nature versus nurture debate will no doubt continue for a long time to come, it seems to be only feminists who continue to assert the extreme polar view of social constructionism of maleness and femaleness. Most non- ideologically motivated scholars will agree that both contribute significantly to the human condition and the conflict revolves around the relative contributions of each.

Flynn states “fatherhood is socially constructed, not biologically determined” and that  “gender inequalities in the family are maintained and reinforced and any power inequalities are ignored or dismissed as ‘natural’. The prevention of men’s violence against women, however, requires us to name these power inequalities for what they are.”

No mention is made of the “natural” position of power within the family domain, traditionally and still assumed by women, or the sexual, economic (spending) and emotional power they wield over men in relationships.

It is based on the sex based Duluth paradigm

As with all feminist dogma this paper only focuses on “violence against women” and ignores the fact the reciprocal violence has been repeatedly shown to be the most common form of intimate partner violence. Respected researcher Donald Dutton was prompted to call his 2007 paper on the subject “The Duluth model: A data-impervious paradigm and a failed strategy.” [5]  Feminists have ignored repeated calls for a sex inclusive approach. One such call was put forward in the excellent recent paper by UK researchers Louise Dixon and Nicola Graham-Kevan in their paper Understanding the nature and etiology of intimate partner violence and implications for practice and policy published in the Clinical Psychology Review in 2011[6].

Flynn however demonstrates a shameful lack of inclusivity that extends beyond ignoring mere male victims, to female victims of abusive same sex partners. Only female victims of male perpetrators are afforded care and consideration under this comprehensively repudiated model.

Flynn maintains, “Most importantly gendered[sic] power inequalities are a key underlying cause of men’s violence against women.” He then of goes on to cite the “gender” pay gap, unequal division of domestic labor, men’s access to power in status in the world of work outside the home and other feminist myths to argue for the so called male privilege and entitlement that is supposedly genetically transmitted on the y chromosome.

“Male privilege’ refers to the benefits and advantages that men receive, purely as a result of being a member of the dominant gender[sic].”

and

“If men have an expectation and belief that they will be dominant over women – a sense of entitlement – then they are likely to choose behaviors that are violent or abusive in order to obtain and maintain dominance, power and control.”

The paper attacks masculinity as inherently evil and denies a need for male role modeling.  Flynn falsely states that “Masculine culture rewards men who are solid economic providers,” when he should be stating the majority of women are hypergamous and sexually select such males. Indeed, the need for men or fathers in family life is portrayed as redundant.

“The concept of a ‘male role model,’ therefore, is built on the assumption that femininity is subordinate to masculinity and by implication, that women are inferior to men.”

And

“[…]ideas about masculinity are intimately connected to both physical and non-physical forms of violence against women.”

And

“Some fathers are physically violent to their partners and ex-partners. Many are emotionally abusive and controlling. Many more continue to enjoy the privileges that come with being the dominant gender,”

Flynn would get on well with biology professor Greg Hampikian author of a recent misandric opinion piece in the New York Times, “Men, Who Needs Them?”[7] Which asserted men will soon be unnecessary for the continuation of womanity and concluded that women are only likely to “keep men around” because they are “entertaining.”

Flynn argues for androgynous parenting rather than mothering and fathering.  Conjuring up images of socialist utopias where the state is responsible for child rearing with the nature being nurtured out of children both in the home and via state controlled childcare and education centers, creating a willing, complicit and docile populace.

“There is no ‘one way’ to father and no special ‘male role’ for fathers in the family.”

It goes on:

“Cultural ideas of gender and parenting tend to assume that women and men are naturally, fundamentally and inalterably different from one another.”

“The widespread belief among men, that we do make a unique contribution to parenting, says a lot about us, our sense of entitlement, and our desire to feel ‘important.”

“Perhaps it is a reaction to the unique contribution that mothers are able to make to children – through pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding – that we feel impelled to demand our own comparable uniqueness.”  

So women, it appears, are biologically unique but men are a needless optional extra.

It falsely links “violence against women” with child abuse, despite the evidence that violence between parents is most commonly bidirectional and that any violence witnessed by children is detrimental.  Suffice it to say that no mention is made of protecting male or female children from the predominant child abusers, women, or the protective value of biological fathers in intact families.

“But by deliberately targeting a woman’s mothering, men are being violent, not just to the women themselves but to their children as well.”

“Exposure to domestic violence is increasingly considered a form of child abuse”

One would have to search far and wide to find a more grotesque and comprehensively demeaning piece of misandric nonsense than this discussion paper, perhaps not unsurprisingly White Ribbon Keeps coming up with such goods at taxpayer’s expense.  I call that shameful.  So in order to bring some balance to the situation, I suggest White Ribbon also make the following recommendations for women and mothers.