We have entered 2019 and I have been monitoring our newspapers and media sources and the story seems to still be the same. All men and fathers are perpetrators and abusers they seem to be focusing on the few and branding all men with the same brush. This narrative is a very dangerous one as the majority of men/fathers are very good and law abiding. Now if you look at demographics if there are more men than women, of course, it would seem like men are to blame for everything!

So, if the tables were turned and there were more women than men it would be exactly the same thing. What if we flipped the script and the media focused on all the bad mums, paedophile women and the women that caused domestic violence? How would the general public, courts and government agencies respond to them? Would it be unbiased or would this form of brainwashing produced by the media influence peoples decisions!

I would think the latter personally and I don’t blame women for behaving the way they do towards men as they can’t get away from it. It is literally forced down your throat as a woman on a daily basis and there is no escape from the DV and DA narrative. I am not taking anything away from the genuine cases at all but not EVERY single man is the same. Even as a woman you are not immune from it as if you have any boys within your family they will be tarnished with the same brush. It might be fine while they are babies and early teens but as soon as they come of age the rules will change.

As a mother you can say all day long I will bring up my son to be different he will not get involved with all the things that the media print. Unfortunately, it does not work like that as you have a son that is all that is needed for him to be tarnished with the same brush. He could be an excellent child and a very good man but at the end of the day, he is still a man. If you don’t believe me read the stories of fathers in family court, monitor the media and see how many stories are focused on men causing DV/DA and how many stories are on women causing DV/DA.

You will see practically none on women and this is for many reasons there is a myth around men not being capable of being in a relationship with DV/DA committed by a woman. If it is a man he will be embarrassed to come forward because of the stigma surrounding it and 9 times out of 10 he will probably be arrested himself for reporting. As it is not the norm for a man to report DV/DA to the police so it is easier to arrest him as the perpetrator and deal with the consequences later. The lack of support and safe havens for men is practically non-existent, so it will, in turn, be under-reported.

Trying to be a father over the last 10 years has gone from bad to worse and if you are a dad in a happy relationship you are still not immune to it. If anything should happen and hopefully it will never happen to you, but if it did you will see how the society you believed to be equal is far from it and your world will be turned upside down. It will be financially, emotionally and mentally put you in a place which you never thought would have been possible.

You will look back at that conversation you had with your partner/ex-partner when she said to you let’s try for a baby and build a family unit. That conversation where you thought it was all equal and you both chose to have that child means absolutely nothing if you should split up. We need to encourage fatherhood and equality to bring our society into the 21st century and remove us from this biased dark ages whereby men as only seen as breadwinners and not caregivers. If we don’t change the script fatherhood will become extinct and there will be kids running around the streets without role models and father figures to balance them out. Being a parent should consist of two loving people wanting the best and doing the best for their children whether they are together or not!