Well-known UK commentator Peter Hitchens in an article called ‘So Much for Father’s Day’ said,

“By the end of his or her childhood, a British boy or girl is much more likely to have a TV set in the bedroom than a father at home. Our 45 year war against traditional family life has been so successful that almost 50% of 15 year olds no longer live with both their parents.”

In case you think that the name of this article ‘The War Against Fathers’ is extreme, let’s take an excerpt from social commentator Bill Muehlenberg’s excellent article, ‘The Systemic War Against Fathers’ and reprinted in Special Feature.

Muehlenberg quotes from the groundbreaking book by Stephen Baskerville, a Professor of Patrick Henry College in the USA, ‘Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers’. Baskerville says,

“The principle assault on the family today comes directly from government . . . (western) democracies are engaged, by accident or design, in a massive campaign against fathers and fatherhood, and  . . . this campaign lies at the root of a larger crisis that is undermining parents generally, threatening the institution of marriage, destroying the family, and ruining the lives of children.”

Closer to home, Senator John Madigan made a speech in Parliament about Australia’s family law system and the innate bias against fathers in that system. He also pointed out that the system is causing fathers to end their lives. In every war there are casualties, but the biggest losers are always our children.

When you look at the statistics, it is hard not to agree with Baskerville or Senator Madigan. Here in Australia one in three marriages end in divorce and over a million children will go to sleep tonight without their biological father in the home. The statistics on fatherlessness in Great Britain are worse than Australia and conversantly USA is even worse where 43% of children live in fatherless homes.

So how did all this happen and what are the major contributing factors in the war against fatherhood?

Malcolm Gladwell points out in his book ‘The Outliers’ that in plane crash catastrophes, there are usually several contributing factors that combine to create a perfect disaster. Any one factor does not cause the crash on its own but when several factors combine they produce a catastrophic consequence. So it is in the war against fathers; there are five primary drivers of the disastrous war against fatherhood.

Government is number one, as Stephen Baskerville points out, closely followed by the anti-male and father bias in education and then misandrist media. All three are driven by Marxist feminism. Fourthly, moral breakdown and the ensuing porn pandemic is emasculating manhood and destroying fatherhood just like the black plague. Fifthly, I have met the enemy and the enemy is us.

Without our own apathy and inactivity as fathers, the first four contributing factors would probably not be so devastating, but because of our passivity as men, the effect of the first four contributing factors has been catastrophic.

Only a few weeks ago a single father rang me up to talk about making a stand against the discrimination and lies that he had endured at the hands of the Family Court. The main role of Dads4Kids is harm prevention education. I told him this and tried to end the conversation but he was a clear thinker and a strategist so I continued to listen.

Before he signed off he told me something that has been ringing in my head ever since. He said, in a puzzled but low voice,

“You know something I have found Warwick; all men are cowards, they just don’t want to fight back”.

I quickly pointed out that there are exceptions to the rule, but knowing my own innate tendency to passivity, I knew that what he was saying was more right than wrong.

Our own apathy as men is sealing our fate in more ways than one. Yes, the Family Law Court and the legal system are destroying families and fathers and devaluing fatherhood more potently than anything else out there, yet it could never happen without our quiet acquiescence and passivity.

Radical feminist Marxist doctrine says that all men are rapists, murderers and that patriarchy (fatherhood) is essentially evil because all men are oppressors. Germaine Greer’squote about testosterone being a poison sums this thinking up well. This doctrine has permeated every level of our education system, legal system, governmental systems and to a great degree public media, all promoted by University professors, authors and radical feminist activists who not only hate men and fathers but are active instigators of the war against fathers and families.  This has been going on for over 45 years. Let me give you some quotes so you can make your own judgement.

“I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig.” – Andrea Dworkin

“I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honourable and viable political act…” – Professor Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor

“The nuclear family must be destroyed… Whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process.” – Professor Linda Gordon

“Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism.” – Professor Catharine A. MacKinnon

“We can’t destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage.” – Professor Robin Morgan

Interestingly, I would agree with these radical feminists in their passionate hatred of pornography as something that demeans womanhood and for the most part is perpetrated by men. I guess there is a certain logic in their hatred of men and fatherhood. Many of them carry their own deep father wound as Germaine Greer’s book ‘Daddy We Hardly Knew You’so eloquently shows. However radical feminist ideology has a dilemma; it becomes part of the problem by promoting hatred. As Martin Luther King Jnr once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that”.

What should our response as men be to the War Against Fathers?

Firstly, we must humbly accept our part in the problem and ask forgiveness of the women in the world we have hurt or demeaned and that includes our wives. We must embrace gender reconciliation. It is the only way out of the mess.

Secondly, we must rise up as tender warriors to defend our families, including our wives and our children. We do that by putting first things first. We must accept the noble role of fatherhood and commit to loving our children. The greatest way we can love our children is to love our wife. You see, love is still the most powerful force in the universe. A tender warrior is truly authentic and is motivated by love, not hate.

Thirdly, we must become proactive in supporting and helping other fathers to go for gold for their children. We must become proactive in speaking up in the public square and rejecting bad government policy and advocating for families. We must expose the anti-male bias in education and the media and advocate for the truth. We must reject and expose porn for what it is, nothing but the demeaning of womanhood and the longer term destruction of manhood and fatherhood.

Fourthly, and the hardest of all, we must reject passivity and accept responsibility.

Lovework

Combating the war on fatherhood is really hard work. Hate is easy while love is hard, but loving our enemies (if we have any) is the only way forward. Hate produces hate and love produces love. Hate has only got us deeper into the hole. Only love will lift us out. Did I say we also need some divine assistance from the author of love?

Yours for our children

Warwick Marsh

PS. Applications for the Dads4Kids Train the Trainer Summit, 16-18 May 2014, will close soon. Check out the Prospectus if you would like more information.

Remember this is all about helping other dads go for gold for their children and put their families first. This is the best way to combat the War on Fathers.