When Political and Legal Good Intentions Go Wrong

The innocent man is all too often on the receiving end.

In one European country where I lived the law of gender violence was a well intentioned, but poorly defined, attempt to get to grips with increasing acts of violence against women.

The state issued pamphlets too broadly defined what constituted gender violence, leaving the door wide open to abuse by any wife with an axe to grind with her partner over the most trivial domestic complaint.

Ignoring a woman’s feelings, or just plain old forgetful ?

For example, the state issued pamphlet stated that gender violence began with things like ignoring the feelings of the woman.

How many men have forgotten to buy his wife a birthday card ?

How many men have forgotten to put the rubbish out ?

How many men have forgotten to put the cap back on the tube of toothpaste ?

Are these not all cases where the man could be accused of ignoring his wife’s feelings? Do you think I am exaggerating in order to demean the law?

The case of the tomato stained wet T shirt in the wash.

Ok here’s one for you. One weekend after having my son over I took him back to his mother’s house. The overnight bag she gave me with a few clothes for him was minus one white T shirt. My son loved my home made pizza and had gotten some tomato pure all over the T shirt. Of course, like any good parent I put the T shirt in the wash.

My ex-wife, being the totally unreasonable person that she is, insisted that I drive the two miles home, stop the machine, pull out the T shirt and drive the two miles back to hand the soaking wet piece of clothing to her.

Of course I refused, whereupon she threatened to report me to the police for stealing clothes. I point blank refused to be given the runaround by a vexatious woman whatever threats she made.

Three days later I was in court for a trial about the theft of clothes. There was a judge, a legal secretary, a prosecutor, a court usher…..it was absolutely ridiculous.

I was ordered to stand and step up to a microphone and explain myself. I did as ordered and asked the judge would the bench like to know what brand of detergent I had used.

The case was thrown out of court, as expected. But just think about the total waste of legal resources spent on a stupidity.

I had ten years of this sort of nonsense. Ten years of my life wasted on vexatious, untrue or at best extremely trivial domestic complaints harking back years.

When is it a crime to be called stupid ?

An other time I was accused of having called my wife stupid, eighteen months earlier. She stood up in court and tearfully explained how during a row over something and nothing I had muttered the word “stupid.” The law interpreted this as an act of violence.

Here’s the funny thing, every time I tried to explain my side my ex interrupted me. The judge politely asked her to let me speak. She sat back down. Then she interrupted me twice more.

The judge was becoming increasingly terse in tone remonstrating with her. She just would not listen. Eventually the judge yelled out to her.

“Are you stupid or what ? Either shut up or get out now!”

She angrily stood and glared at the judge and spat back “Fine, have it your own way, stupid.” Then out she marched slamming the door behind her.

I looked on in shock. Surely both she and the judge had just committed the self same crime that I was being accused of. I was glared at angrily and was amazed to hear…..

“This is all your fault. I pronounce you guilty and order that you are placed under house arrest for the next month. Take him away.”

Now I could regale you all day long, if I had a mind to, with the details of one ridiculous trial after another that went something like this, but that was not the purpose of this article.

Calling it what it really is.

The simple fact is that although statistically more men violently attack their female partner, violence does not have a gender. Men do not have a monopoly on domestic violence, to call it what it really is. And even then, domestic violence must be more precisely defined or some women will just have a field day.

Many was the time that the troubled person I had been married to violently physically attacked me to the point of causing physical injury needing hospital treatment.

Was the law at all interested in this domestic abuse ? Absolutely not. When I tried to report the offence to the law I was laughed at by certain members of the authorities.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Yet over a period of ten years I was prosecuted time after time by a well intentioned legal system following orders from its political masters for the most trivial or totally fabricated domestic indiscretion.

To make matters worse, I was not alone. I heard many a true story from other good men treated in this cavalier fashion. It totally ruined my life as well as those of a great many others.

At some point this nonsense has got to stop and resources have to be better spent dealing with the real problem of domestic violence, be it man against woman or vice versa.

A big stick for an unhappy wife to beat up her long suffering husband.

As it stands, the law of gender violence is being used as a big stick for unhappy women to beat up a husband who hasn’t got a leg to stand on. How many more mens lives does the law want to ruin ? How many more genuinely vulnerable women lives have to be ruined due to a lack of resources, due to the time consuming games other women play to score petty points over an absent minded husband ?