An incredibly incisive and intelligent piece, with a brilliant perspective, as always! Here in New York the legislature just keeps pouring money into a broken family court system that grants abusive fathers visitation and dismisses domestic abuse claims by women- as “parental alienation” and “mental illness”. Hundreds of children (around 800) have been killed by abusive fathers, and many more harmed and seriously traumatized as a result. The failure to curb domestic abuse also translates into law enforcement fatalities, domestic dispute calls being the most deadly to police offers. With almost half of our representatives being subjected to threats of one sort or another (See NYU’s Brennan Center poll) it is unsurprising that our legislators are failing to do their jobs by introducing changes in court procedures and introducing laws to protect women. They fear for their lives and their families...
NY - the first state in the US to introduce a coercive control bill in 2018 - has failed to pass any law criminalizing non-physical forms of domestic abuse. In fact “egregious fault” is required under NY state law to prevent an abusive spouse from obtaining 50% of the marital estate following divorce. This means you can abuse your wife and still walk away with half of the marital estate. The standard for “egregious fault” to reduce this one-half share is unusually high. The oft-cited case is one in which the husband broke his wife’s jaw with a pipe, in front of the children. This goes to your point about states’ reluctance to hold men fully responsible for domestic abuse of women…
After a full day hearing held in Nov 2023 to address the crises in the family courts, attended by the Chief Justice of the NY courts himself, and during which many women and experts testified, all that has been done to redress the situation is to allocate 120m to victims services, and more court-appointed experts and lawyers, and a handful of judges. A bandage effort that mostly supports those in the divorce industry, and does nothing to protect women from domestic abuse. It is a disgrace.
This is so true and one of the best articles you have ever written. It gets to the crux. It’s not profitable for the aust gov to actually address the reality of mens violence publicly and with any meaning. This is why women and children are continually fobbed off and silenced by the systems so called designed to protect them, ie child safety, police and family courts. Politicians regularly state they cannot help women whose children have been removed ala the family court for reporting male violence bc it is a ‘private matter’. It’s not a private matter when the court order is made in a public domain funded by the Australian taxpayer. The government need men to ‘work’ in the economy, completely overlooking the fact that womens unpaid domestic labour holds up the GDP. Like the scales, men get to profit financially off the oppression and violence against women, who do not profit, yet both contribute to the economy. The aust gov needs violence against women to appease and deflect any violence against them for holding violent men accountable for their violence. These abusive mens voices get heard over everything else. I’m so sick of living in Australia.
An incredibly incisive and intelligent piece, with a brilliant perspective, as always! Here in New York the legislature just keeps pouring money into a broken family court system that grants abusive fathers visitation and dismisses domestic abuse claims by women- as “parental alienation” and “mental illness”. Hundreds of children (around 800) have been killed by abusive fathers, and many more harmed and seriously traumatized as a result. The failure to curb domestic abuse also translates into law enforcement fatalities, domestic dispute calls being the most deadly to police offers. With almost half of our representatives being subjected to threats of one sort or another (See NYU’s Brennan Center poll) it is unsurprising that our legislators are failing to do their jobs by introducing changes in court procedures and introducing laws to protect women. They fear for their lives and their families...
NY - the first state in the US to introduce a coercive control bill in 2018 - has failed to pass any law criminalizing non-physical forms of domestic abuse. In fact “egregious fault” is required under NY state law to prevent an abusive spouse from obtaining 50% of the marital estate following divorce. This means you can abuse your wife and still walk away with half of the marital estate. The standard for “egregious fault” to reduce this one-half share is unusually high. The oft-cited case is one in which the husband broke his wife’s jaw with a pipe, in front of the children. This goes to your point about states’ reluctance to hold men fully responsible for domestic abuse of women…
After a full day hearing held in Nov 2023 to address the crises in the family courts, attended by the Chief Justice of the NY courts himself, and during which many women and experts testified, all that has been done to redress the situation is to allocate 120m to victims services, and more court-appointed experts and lawyers, and a handful of judges. A bandage effort that mostly supports those in the divorce industry, and does nothing to protect women from domestic abuse. It is a disgrace.
This is so true and one of the best articles you have ever written. It gets to the crux. It’s not profitable for the aust gov to actually address the reality of mens violence publicly and with any meaning. This is why women and children are continually fobbed off and silenced by the systems so called designed to protect them, ie child safety, police and family courts. Politicians regularly state they cannot help women whose children have been removed ala the family court for reporting male violence bc it is a ‘private matter’. It’s not a private matter when the court order is made in a public domain funded by the Australian taxpayer. The government need men to ‘work’ in the economy, completely overlooking the fact that womens unpaid domestic labour holds up the GDP. Like the scales, men get to profit financially off the oppression and violence against women, who do not profit, yet both contribute to the economy. The aust gov needs violence against women to appease and deflect any violence against them for holding violent men accountable for their violence. These abusive mens voices get heard over everything else. I’m so sick of living in Australia.