Rush Limbaugh Covers Our Protest of Man-Bashing Virginia Health Department Billboards
June 28th, 2007 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & Families
In my recent blog post If You See a Father Holding His Child's Hand, Call the Cops!, I called attention to the man-bashing Virginia Department of Health poster pictured above. In calling on my readers to write and call the Virginia DoH to protest, I wrote:
"If dad goes for a walk with his daughter and holds her hand, apparently Virginia Department of Health officials wants you to pick up the phone and destroy his life by reporting him as a possible sexual abuser. I would've thought this article about this campaign was from the Onion or some satirical publication, but it's for real.
"One of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen is a picture of my father walking on the beach near sunset holding my daughter's little hand. The picture above of a man holding a child's hand--a touching little scene--is actually supposed to make us think he's sexually abusing the child. Unbelievable."
Rush Limbaugh saw my commentary on the issue (probably via www.MensNewsDaily.com), and covered it on his nationally-syndicated broadcast yesterday. To read the transcript of his comments or to listen to the radio archive, click here.
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June 28th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Is our society really coming to the point that fathers can no longer touch their own children for fear of being accused of sexually abusing them? When I was a little girl I WANTED to hold my father's hand; I wanted him to hug me and hold me on his lap. Just because a father holds his daughter's hand while walking down the street to keep her safe from traffic or other people doesn't mean he's touching her in places he shouldn't be. You might as well report every father in America.
June 29th, 2007 at 4:40 am
The level of contempt for men and especially fathers is growing at the same time as people are starting to fight back against contempt. I wonder which will win? Decency or hate?
June 29th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Wow... And to think, I sometimes put my daughter on my shoulders. ... Wonder what Virginia would think of that? Maybe I don't want to know...
June 29th, 2007 at 11:12 am
I remember reading a while back a letter to Dear Abby from a father wondering what to do when out alone with his little daughter and she had to go to the bathroom.
Abby advised him to hand her off to a complete stranger outside the ladies room and wait outside. Complete strangers are fine to toilet your child provided the complete stranger is a female, apparently.
I have a daughter too, and at six years old (with a bladder the size of a walnut) she's probably been in more men's bathrooms than many men. We have many funny stories around some of those situations!
June 29th, 2007 at 11:31 am
I recently had the "displeasure" of going to the Child Support Division of the Attorney General's office in Texas. I was amazed to see only two posters on the wall. They were both the same- basically telling men how to be fathers. There was no poster anywhere telling women how to be mothers.
Also, here in Texas where I live there are no barriers between you and the clerk at the bank, the post office, or even at the court house. There was however, a plexiglass barrier between the clerk and myself at the Child Support Division of the Attorney General's Office.
June 29th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
gwallen and Glenn,
I just added a post of possible interest to both of you at the end of the prior thread relating to this topic. It is self explanatory.
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:25 am
There are plexiglass barriers and a armed guard in the IL offices.
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:30 am
It amazes me not only how easily father's are minimized but how much encouragement that women (in Michigan anyway) get from the courts and the FOC system! There are everything but designated instructions on how to present yourself as "abused" and "victimized". An idiot could read the internet and get great instruction on how to become the victim in very few easy steps. I'm sorry but if you are a victim of domestic abuse YOU will know without reading the signs and symptoms. Getting HELP is one thing, getting instructions is something altogether different. Only ONE of those things is necessary!
My opinion as a woman is that the system to protect the truly battered has created a blanket to cover ALL women and nothing has been considerd about the impact of the kids and their relationships with their fathers.
I'm very glad I was raised in an environment where my dad was allowed to become my best friend! He was my buddy when I was little, he was my best friend, my confidante and my financial advisor when I became an adult! And YES I AM A WOMAN!
This stuff is just wrong!
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Yea, it is all about trusting your feeling when you can put someone elses neck on the line. Would like to know just how much they would trust their feelings if they knew that IF they were wrong they would be hung.
It cost women NOTHING to accuse a man, which can cause him to be social ostracized, financially ruin, and/or striped of his freedom.
Until women are held responsible for their actions what they feel is right or wrong has the exact same value, zero!
JT
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Becky,
Nothing to dispute with Becky's comments, however, I'd like to add this. Shelters often provide step by step instructions and with that hold a 'must follow or else' position. Much like the government - No victim = No funding. More 'victims' = More funding.
July 4th, 2007 at 8:18 am
I also live in TX. When you treat men as badly as the corrupt system does here it's no wonder they protect themselves in cages.
I've been fighting in the system for 4 years to have my parental rights enforced. My child and I were both victimized and abused by my ex. I produced proof of the abuse and neglect my child suffers at the hands of his mother and her drug buddies, yet I'm the one who is put through pure Hell by the corrupt system, as I continuously fight for every minute with my child.
The entire system is so corrupted by anti-male feminist laws (like VAWA) that men and children no longer have a chance. The family court system has caused much of the neglect and abuse of the very children they are suppose to protect. They operate on the assumption that females are all innocent victims, and men are all horrible abusers. Men quickly learn they have no equal rights in any area of the law.
I'm afraid of what men may be forced to do if things continue as they are. Having your basic civil and human rights eliminated without cause, and watching your child suffer due to a corrupt system, changes you deep in your soul.
July 4th, 2007 at 10:26 am
It is amazing the level of contempt for men and fathers in our country. However that contempt only seems to be in the mainstream media, special interest lobbying groups and do-good (read finance-my-campaign) politicians. The overwhelmingly evidence and support that fathers and mothers alike are equally important to children is ignored time and time again.
Did you read the latest? Children are 8th ont he list of waht makes a healthy marriage. Sharing chores ranked 1st. No wonder our society, family and the male/female relationship are slowly going down the toilet.
Thank God for people like Glenn Sacks that are slowly but positively maing the public aware of the abuse and mistreatment fathers receive. This ultimately affects children which affect society. We can only hope our society comes back to its senses, rights the wrong (not intent) of family and DV law. It can't come soon enough.
I love holding my daughters hand and am proud to do so.
July 4th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I am very disgusted at this billboard . I love my dad and I remember when I was a little girl, and he would take me by the hand to go to the park, etc. It bothers me and it's very sick that a father can be suspected of being a child abuser for simply being a great dad.
July 8th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I think there is heightened paranoia about whether a man is abusing kids he might be in contact with because there are more paedophiles around
than ever before and certainly more coverage and exposure.
Why are there more paedophiles around? Because the break down of our communities mean that there is no accountability between men. Men can sit
on a computer at home and nurture a lust giving it the chance to grow into something more twisted.
I think half the blame must lie with Mums who send their small daughters out in sexually provocative clothes - designed to elicit lustful attention.
Then the same Mums may feasibly front a lynch mob baying for the blood of someone who probably reacted to how she dressed her own daughter.
Its crazy.
July 8th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
http://tinyurl.com/3ddx5o
The bogeyman myth
July 8, 2007
In seeking to protect our children from pedophiles, we are also, sadly, undermining the healthy bonds between men and children.
AT MY local cafe, which is plain and daggy enough to be family-friendly, children often sidle up to where I'm reading the paper to say hello. They don't actually say hello, of course. They stare at me, seemingly fascinated, or say something random like, "I've got white shoes on", or they show me something they're holding in their sticky little hands.
Occasionally, if I'm on one of the couches, they'll climb on up, placing a steadying hand on my thigh as their feet sink into the cushions.
When I'm with my girlfriend, these moments are amiable and warm. The child's parents are at ease (as much as parents can be). When I'm on my own, though, it's different. Something darker enters the picture when it's just me, a man in his mid-30s alone, and there's a child who has wandered away from his or her parents in search of distraction. I sense the parents' apprehension, even as they try to fight it. Discomfort acts like a contagion: they feel it, I feel it, the child feels it. It's as if the moment can't quite bear the weight of all the things thought and not said.
I suspect most men know this dispiriting feeling. In an age haunted by the spectre of pedophilia, average men do pay a price for the sins of a few. It's in the wariness and suspicion that now attends their interactions with children. A clearly positive imperative — to protect children from a most repugnant crime — has a downside, in the way it has corrupted the informal, healthy bonds between men and children.
Many men today worry (and if you don't believe me, ask a few) about appearing to enjoy children too much, about innocently touching children, about picking children up from school, about photographing children. The natural has come to feel aberrant.
Men have every right to feel saddened by this, and even a little angry. It is not in any way to play down the crime of child sex abuse to point out that, in our response to it, the sensitivities of the majority of men are somewhat trampled because of the actions of a minority.
Nowhere is this sad fact better illustrated than in a policy now common in the aviation industry. On many major airlines, including Qantas, United Airlines and British Airways, men are banned from sitting next to a child travelling alone. News of this discriminatory policy came to light when average blokes began coming forward with stories of their humiliation at being shifted — with suspicious passengers looking on — away from children. (Qantas says it moves the children, not the men.)
British MP and journalist Boris Johnson recently revealed how he was asked to move on a British Airways flight. "We have very strict rules," the stewardess told a confused Johnson. "A man cannot sit with children." Johnson remained seated to allow the children next to him to say something. "But he's our father," they chimed.
Airlines have defended the policy by saying they're simply erring on the side of caution and reflecting the concerns and wishes of parents. But in their efforts to cover (presumably for legal reasons) what is surely a minuscule risk, they stamp all men potentially dodgy, and send a message to children that men aren't to be trusted.
A policy like this does more harm than good. It takes risk aversion to a phobic extreme. It insults men, and cottonwool-balls children. It views all interactions between men and children as somehow poisonous, which actually blurs the distinction between good and bad.
Some will say that if such a policy saves just one child from abuse, it will have been worthwhile. This sounds like common sense, but really isn't. What of the damage — impossible to measure — done to the fabric of society by practices that essentially presume guilt in all men, foster suspicion, collapse trust, and discourage casual bonding between men and children?
Given the social trend towards seeing male interaction with children as potentially suspect, it is hardly surprising that the number of men lining up to work with kids continues to fall. In the past decade, the proportion of male primary teachers in Australia dropped from 23.8 per cent to 20.6 per cent. The younger the children, the less likely a man will be within cooee: in Victoria, about 1 per cent of preschool teachers are male.
A culture of suspicion must also impact on the number of men willing to put their hand up to coach a sports team or help with a school camp. A recent study by a British children's charity found that 13 per cent of men wouldn't volunteer to work with children because they feared being judged a pedophile.
There is a terrible paradox here. Good men are staying away from supervising children for fear of how they will be perceived, and yet at the same time many parents — and particularly single mothers — desperately want their children, especially their sons, to be exposed to good male role models. No parent wants a child's schooling and play to be a male-free zone, and yet society looks with some wariness at men who are keen to mentor and coach children. Messages are mixed, instincts are in conflict.
The sadness of all this is trumped by the difficulty of knowing exactly what to do about it. There are pedophiles in the world, after all, and parents want to protect their children with every ounce of their beings.
But we mustn't allow a fear of pedophiles to turn into a phobia that undermines much more than it achieves. All phobias begin with a "what if" scenario that builds on its own logic, escalates in intensity, and turns an unlikely occurrence into something so terrifyingly real that it seems perfectly sensible and rational to shut out the world and bolt the door. It isn't. About 95 per cent of child sex abuse happens within families. The abuser is likely to be someone the parents and the child knows — not the creepy stranger at the park (or on the plane) who looms large in the collective imagination. We may like to think we can lock child abuse out, but the sad truth is we are more likely to lock it in.
Today, most people over 30 can't help but notice, usually with some wistfulness, that children don't play on suburban streets any more. We have become very protective of children, and fearful of neighbourhood threats that, on the evidence, are no greater than they ever were. Perhaps as our own lives feel busier and less certain in areas like work and housing, overprotecting children becomes a means of securing some sense of order and control.
Whatever the case, treating all men as potential predators will do nothing to stamp out child abuse. But it will give rise to horrors — not of bad men touching children in ways that revolt us, but of good men too scared to touch children at all.
Simon Castles is a Melbourne writer.