Hateful and Harmful: Gender Activists Must Cease Negative Stereotypes of Fathers

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Mike Buchanan

Telephone: +44 7967 026163

Hateful and Harmful: Gender Activists Must Cease Negative Stereotypes of Fathers

May 22, 2023 – Mothers commit 72% of all infant homicides, according to an international study by Heidi Stockl (1). Country-level surveys conducted in the United Kingdom (2), Austria, and Finland (3) confirm these findings.

Recent incidents underscore the 72% maternal homicide number:

England: One-year-old Star Hobson suffered ‘utterly catastrophic’ injuries inflicted by her mother Frankie Smith and partner Savannah Brockhill (4).
Northern Ireland: In what the judge described as a “savage attack,” a 42-year-old mother stabbed her two-year-old son to death (5).
Greece: Roula Pispirigkou was charged with the murder of her daughter, Georgina, after medical tests revealed the presence of ketamine in the 9-year-old girl (6).
Croatia: A woman gave birth in the family home, but attempted to keep the birth a secret from doctors. When the police went to search her house, they found the dead body of a newborn baby (7).
Spain: Noemí Martín Lago, 48, was arrested and sentenced for the murder of her six-year-old daughter, Olivia (8).

But ignoring the research and deplorable incidents listed above, Women’s Aid has launched a campaign that seeks to stereotype fathers. Relying on emotional appeals, its “Child First” campaign calls on the government to make family courts safer for “women and children survivors of domestic abuse” (9). In particular, Women’s Aid seeks to curb shared parenting policies, dismissively referred to as the “pro-contact culture of family courts.” (10)

The EU Istanbul Convention endorses a similar negative stereotype of men. The controversial treaty uses the phrase, “violence against women” 56 times, while “violence against men” is not mentioned once (11).

By ignoring female perpetrators and male victims, domestic violence programs serve to stereotype, vilify, and marginalize fathers from their families. This one-sided depiction also allows the long-ignored problem of maternal homicides to continue unchecked.

The Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance – DAVIA — consists of 88 member organizations from 33 countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. DAVIA seeks to ensure that domestic violence and abuse polices are science-based, family-affirming, and sex-inclusive. https://endtodv.org/davia/

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