PhantomWolf
Penultimate Amazing
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Please show where I said this, or apologise for putting words in my mouth.
Aus. Expert says men should have mandatory mental assessment after divorces
- Thread starter cullennz
- Start date
Please show where I said this, or apologise for putting words in my mouth.
Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
My point in those statistics is that we have a serious problem with domestic violence. I am glad that that we have experts looking for solutions. As, already stated my interest is in the reaction to and framing of these stories.
applecorped
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Don't get your panties in a bunch
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Rhetorical you. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
So... What *is* your take on this proposal? Misandrist? Rational?
applecorped
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I have no opinion on that
Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
That sweet spot where satire and irony meet.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Waaay better than the sour spot where misandry and state intrusion meet.
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Some women murder their children.
Therefore, to mitigate this risk, all women should report their pregnancies to the government, and submit to psychological counseling. Can we go so far as to say they should be required to abort, if the counseling isn't working? I think we can. Women being what they are.
Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
The comment was congratulatory. It is art.
PhantomWolf
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Thank you for that.
It has a kind of logic, but in essence is a totally dumb way to try and resolve the issue of some men who kill their partners/ex-partners.
I don't consider it Misandry because men do commit most domestic murders (in the UK between 2014 and 2017 women accounted for just 13.3% of all killings but 82% of the victims) and they also need to be more aware of their mental health and how that effects their actions towards partners and breakups, but compulsory anything causes resentment, and likely the ones that are in most need are likely to be the less willing to partake in it, meaning that any such attempt is destined to fail, and thus is dumb.
I'd rather see restraining orders get more teeth. Too often we see cases of restraining orders being repetitively broken without action, of watered down till they at not even effective. Of course this goes both ways, men should be able to get and enforce protection orders against crazy women who want to do them and their property harm (and women against women and men against men and... add all other possible combinations of gender relationship here.) I could also see room for a court ordered assessment where there is sufficient evidence that one ex-partner means to do harm to the other of the children.
The fact that the guy in the OP actually kidnapped the son at one point and yet was able to get the protection order reduced to 20m is insane to me. The murder should never have happened because the guy should have been in jail long before it happened.
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Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
I agree with all this. Something should be done. Not a "one-size-fits-all" policy that treats all men as problems, but one specifically targeted at domestic abusers (of any sex or gender).
Never going to happen as long as groups like White Ribbon are *the* mainstream when it comes to framing of domestic violence. The largest organizations in the world explicitly frame domestic violence as an exclusively (or so close that other types are negligible negligible) male-on-female problem. In other words, they're sexist liars.
to preemptively address some concerns:
Yes, you can focus your activism or address problems that are more narrow in scope than "all" victims. But, if you frame the problem in general as "all or nearly all victims are of type X", internationally, for decades. . . you're lying by omission at the very least.
Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
Much need for men”s shelters?
According to the woman who started the entire women's shelters idea yes there is.
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
Cpunswlif sounds like a better idea than many.
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
On the actual subject (perish the thought) I can see some point to the whole issue, but I think we should remember there is a big difference between an assessment and a course of action. I am not sure it's such a bad idea for someone, somewhere, to evaluate the parties to a divorce and the relationship they are ending, so as to prevent the horrific consequences that occasionally occur. And of course, I don't think it should be limited to men, just because the majority of the worst cases we hear about involve men. It should be an evaluation of the whole circumstance.
But with that said, I would imagine that such evaluation would be pretty short and inconsequential in most cases. In this day and age, a lot of divorces happen just because they can, and because people no longer feel the kind of binding permanence that marriage once implied.
My first wife divorced me largely because she decided she was a lesbian and that she really didn't like me much. We got some counseling for the sake of the kids, and our lives went on. End of story. My current wife divorced her first spouse because he was a cheating bastard. End of story. Sure some hearts got bruised along the way, but you don't need a shrink when a bottle of beer and a sad song on the radio will serve. On the other hand if I now sought a divorce it would be crazy and it would be prudent to find out what's going on.
But with that said, I would imagine that such evaluation would be pretty short and inconsequential in most cases. In this day and age, a lot of divorces happen just because they can, and because people no longer feel the kind of binding permanence that marriage once implied.
My first wife divorced me largely because she decided she was a lesbian and that she really didn't like me much. We got some counseling for the sake of the kids, and our lives went on. End of story. My current wife divorced her first spouse because he was a cheating bastard. End of story. Sure some hearts got bruised along the way, but you don't need a shrink when a bottle of beer and a sad song on the radio will serve. On the other hand if I now sought a divorce it would be crazy and it would be prudent to find out what's going on.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
You do recognize the distinction between assessment and course of action, but then you go on to propose a remedy that does both: "evaluate the parties" and "prevent the horrific consequences". We're not just talking about mandated assessment.
You go on to say that it shouldn't just be men, which is reasonable enough as far as it goes.
What I'm wondering is, what's the reasoning for not taking it much further? Why don't we mandate psychological assessment for anyone who receives any kind of setback in life? Some people react badly to divorce, sure. But some people react badly to a simple breakup. Some people react badly to losing their job, or their dog, or their house.
If the state is supposed to be responsible for doing safety inspections of people's inner lives because they're going through a divorce, shouldn't the state also be responsible for doing safety inspections of people's inner lives following any traumatic or distressing event?
Traditionally, we expect that the state will stay out of our heads unless there's an immediate risk from a specific individual, or if there's a due-process-proven history of dangerous thought from a specific individual.
This proposal seeks to expand that mandate to cover not just those individuals how have specifically cleared a high bar for state intrusion, but also to cover any individual in similar circumstances whether they warrant it or not. Just in case. Because you never know. And having the state inside everyone's head all the time is better than someone getting killed because they state wasn't adequately stopping and frisking people's heads looking for thought crime.
And by "people" of course I mean "men". You removed the sexism from the proposal, but the original author certainly didn't.
Loss Leader
I would save the receptionist., Moderator
Let us not forget violence in homosexual marriages, male and female. They can be as horrific but the victims are even less likely to report it (due to stigma) than heterosexuals.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Hell, some women react horribly to having children. Should we mandate head inspections for anyone who becomes pregnant? Maybe we should just mandate abortion, for anyone who can't get approval from their court appointed psychologist to have a baby.
PhantomWolf
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I'm not adverse to the idea of requiring businesses to arrange for counselling for employees who have been terminated, checking on their mental well-being and working with them to make sure that they have the skills to re-enter the job market.
If people start going on shooting rampages when their dog dies, let me know.
Again, I have no issues with banks being required to provide for counselling on people who have their homes foreclosed on, or landlords when they evict a tenant, and also state provided counselling for those that lose their homes due to disasters or fire.
I'm also not adverse to parenting classes and counselling for first time parents, as well as classes and counselling for mothers post birth to help with any issues and a watch for Post-Natal depression. Here we have the Plunket Society who does a lot of this with new parents and mothers.
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bruto
Penultimate Amazing
Perhaps my wording was ambiguous. I think it's reasonable to evaluate, with hope of preventing worse consequences. I presume that in cases where an evaluation shows some clear conclusion (such as threats and violence and abuse) some further action could be possible. No doubt there would be situations when no threat was recognized as meeting the criteria and something bad happened anyway, because people are pretty unpredictable, but perhaps not quite as often, and maybe resources would be not so late in arriving.
And I do think that there might be a middle ground, in which persons being divorced might be informed if concerns arise and offered counseling without the obligation to take it.
Of course it's always a slippery slope, if you want it to be. If you do something when one thing happens, why not another, and so forth down the line, and sure enough, it's pretty unlikely no solution to one set of mankind's ills will occur without introducing another. The price for not being herded is that some of us go astray.
Still, I think if a particular set of circumstances seems to lead to a particularly bad set of consequences, it's reasonable at least to consider how that might be mitigated. Thinking about it further, I'm not convinced that divorce meets that standard, separated from marriage and other relationships. Around here, at least, it seems there is more violence, murder, abuse, and whatnot in relationships before there is a divorce. e.t.a. In fact, I think in some circumstances the act of divorcing, which usually includes hiring lawyers and going to court and testifying, etc., may already be an event that helps to resolve some of the worst situations, rather than creating them. I suspect it works both ways at different times. But I leave it to others to do the statistics, and to decide whether they think the benefit outweighs the burden.
But I think it's worth thinking about, because a divorce is an unusual instance in which a relationship and the people in it subject themselves to a legal context, in which they have less grounds to complain that the involvement of outside parties is gratuitous or intrusive.
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