The Dialogue of Rights

It's time to do a little more Myth Busting. Dr Michael Flood is more a propagandist than a social commentator. Fortunately, it isn't hard to see how much he has to stretch the truth to make his points.

From Michael Flood's Factsheet No 3:

Summary

Fathers’ rights groups have attempted to;

Wind back the legal protections available to victims of violence;
Wind back the legal sanctions imposed on perpetrators of violence.

While fathers’ rights groups often claim to speak on behalf of male victims of domestic violence, these efforts undermine the policies and services that would protect and gain justice for these same men.

Fathers’ rights advocates also;

Make excuses for perpetrators;
Act as direct advocates for perpetrators or alleged perpetrators of violence against women;
Use abusive strategies themselves;
Work to undermine and harass the services and institutions that work with the victims and survivors of violence.

As you can tell by this blog, I've been reading a lot about the Fathers' Rights Groups over the last couple of years. And in the literally thousands of articles I've read, people I've talked to face to face, and not once has anyone made excuses for perpetrators, or voiced a wish to be an advocate for perpetrators.
If asking for equal protections under the law -- beginning with the assumption of innocence until proven guilty -- is an abusive strategy or works to undermine or harass services and institutions that work with the (alleged, and more often shown to be false) victims and survivors of violence, then Mr Flood is right.
If these many discriminatory and prejudiced "the policies and services that would protect and gain justice for these same men" were in fact gaining justice for these men, then my own experience with these policies and services would not be reflected across hundreds of thousands of instances for men, women, and families across Australia.
These policies and services do not gain justice for these men, nor their children and new families -- or there would be no need for the rising tide of men's rights and family rights groups.

Otherwise, this is pure horse apples.

This is no "Factsheet"

This is no "Factsheet." It's a propaganda piece. It begins with disinformation, then builds on its own misrepresentations.

And Mr Flood has a mentor and guiding light in its form and strategy: Ross Irvine. You can find Mr Irvine's reproduced on Flood's other site under Newsletters, where he lays out how to use name-calling and disinformation along with Astroturfing.

They come up with: “Call them suicide bombers…make them all look like terrorists… tree-hugging, dope-smoking, bloody university graduate, anti-progress…”
and “Spot the flake. Find someone who would represent the enemy but clearly doesn’t know what the issue is… find a sixteen-year- old” and “distract the activist with side issues… and make enemies within the enemy camp so they spend all their time fighting and that helps to deepen their disorganisation.”

(from "Grassroots versus Astroturf - Discrediting Democracy", by Katherine Wilson -- edited and reproduced as "Activism: How to beat them at their own game" on Dr Flood's website in Newsletter No 4)

Mr Flood is a one-man Astroturfing machine. He has participated in the creation of numerous small organizations and websites portraying disinformation. Whereever you find his name associated with a report or website, the same intellectualization of discrimination against men will appear.
And he does a lot of the work himself. Flood has a growing number of websites and articles. He calls himself a "pro-feminist", yet his writing is not in line with the mainstream feminist goals of equality in society and under the law.

What is Astroturfing?

First, let's look at the attitude behind it:

The PRIA’s David Hawkins says, “The challenge, I think, from what Ross is saying, is… we need to work out how we can break the law to do these things”. ... “What Ross is saying is that we need to be activists too, expand our networks to actually change the legislation”
...
This could be done with what Bush flacks call ‘the firehose method’ — bombarding the media with issues, information and press conferences so they don’t have the resources to interview alternative sources.

This is Astroturfing:

We discuss Astroturfing. Named after a synthetic lawn, it’s the creation of bogus community groups or independent authorities who endorse (the goals of the disinformation strategy), recruit lesser-informed citizens, confuse the debate and make the real community groups appear extreme.

You can find these groups all over the Net.
It makes you wonder though, what will these sincere community activists and even feminists think when they realize they've been duped by false statistics and even funded by government to unfair and even inhumane ends?
You have to wonder how they'll feel when they find they were chosen because they were "lesser-informed citizens", or "flakes."

Mr Flood is asserting here that hundreds of thousands of Australians are seeking to protect "perpetrators" of domestic violence and abuse. Look at your neighbors and friends. Look to all the people you know. Can you find one that wants to do that?