T is for Tragedy

Just Another Disenfranchised Father has been brilliant lately, and if you aren't visiting his blog, you are missing a lot of important stuff.

Today he tells us about a toddler who wandered away from her playgroup and drowned in a pond. A bricklayer saw the girl, off on her own, but did not dare to try to interfere with her and get her to a responsible person, for fear of being suspected of being an abductor/abuser.

What a wonderful world the gender-feminists, the VAWA-promoters, and divorce lawyers have created! Some would probably condemn the man for his inaction, and I myself feel that he should have gotten involved, but I also understand exactly where he was coming from.

I worked many years in the city, and many times came across a child, seemingly alone in the subway crowds. What to do? For me the solution was to stay near the child, and ask him or her to find their mom or dad. Usually someone would appear out of the crowd in a minute or two, often somewhat annoyed with their wee one for escaping. But even the small amount of interference I ran put me in the position of potentially being seen as a child-stealer.

The impact the misandrist view of men on our culture is wide-spread, and still spreading - examples:

I was recently discussing the lack of male role-model-teachers in the local elementary school with a female collegue - and she said: "A man would never take that job, with all the child-molestation scares around? He would never be able to be alone in a room with a student!"

Or how about this blast from the past - A man tries to assist a young woman who is stumbling drunk and wandering about on the street, and ends up being dragged through the courts on a false rape charge, that eventually get thrown out as the woman can't pick him out of a lineup (after nine months of prosecution). How did the police get him in the first place? They asked for people to come forward who might have seen the woman that evening to provide information.

From my post on this:

Doesn't this case have a chilling effect upon men who might ever consider assisting a [...]woman? Heaven forbid, women of the world, that you ever be in need and alone on the streets. No thinking man having heard of this case is going to come anywhere near you. They are going to go the other way. It will be the WRONG thing for them to do, but who can afford to spend 9 months of their life fighting a false rape charge, and be labeled 'rapist' for the rest of their life. Oh, but some of you may say 'but it turned out right in the end.' Riiight. He was Accused of Rape, Arrested, and suffered through 9 Months of Prosecution. I don't think that anyone has these on their 'to do' list, or even on their 'ok if it happens' list.
[...]
Think about that as you sip your coffee today. Would you EVER pick up a female looking lost and alone in your car[...]? Even pause to check to see if a passed-out woman is 'ok'. 'Don't do it' the law says. 'Call a cop, or an ambulance. They'll come -eventually.'

But these are situations where there is no ill-will. Statistics tell us that in far more cases accusations against men of molestation/abuse/rape are made by intimate parters - partners who have something to gain from portraying their soon-to-be ex as a beast. Something like - custody, a great income stream, the house, and half the assets. I don't think that these witnesses, with so much to gain, have much trouble identifying their victim in a line-up

My best to you in your struggles.