Posted on 11/22/2005 5:35:58 PM PST by neverdem
A documentary's negative picture of fathers
Child custody battles are always wrenching, particularly when there are allegations of abuse. For years fathers' rights groups have complained that men face a pervasive bias in family courts, while many feminists have countercharged that the real bias is against women. The latest round of this debate is being waged over a documentary, Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories, which has been airing on Public Broadcasting Service affiliates in the past month.
The film's point is simple: Children in America are routinely ripped from their mothers and given to fathers who are batterers or molesters. The women's claims of abuse are not believed by the courts and are even held against them when mothers are suspected of manufacturing false charges as a divorce strategy.
To fathers' groups, Breaking the Silence is blatant antidad propaganda. In a campaign led by the Boston-based Fathers and Families, PBS has been bombarded with thousands of calls and letters. It is now conducting a 30-day review of the research used in the film.
Film producer Dominique Lasseur told me he was shocked by the backlash. ''I have nothing against fathers," says Lasseur, a father of two, ''but I have outrage about children being given to abusers."
There is no question that our legal system fails children all too often. But the PBS documentary presents a skewed and sensationalist picture.
Thus, Joan Meier, a George Washington University law professor and one of the film's main experts, asserts that ''75 percent of contested custody cases have a history of domestic violence" and that about two-thirds of fathers ''accused or adjudicated of battering" win sole or joint custody of their children.
The Web site of the film's producers, Tatge/Lasseur productions, lists two sources for these claims: a study of 39 abused women involved in custody litigation in Massachusetts, and the 1990 report of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Gender Bias Study Committee which states that fathers who actively seek custody obtain primary or joint physical custody over 70 percent of the time.
But the 70 percent figure was not limited to domestic violence cases. It is also highly misleading, since it doesn't separate custody disputes from cases in which the father gets custody by mutual consent. In contested custody cases, mothers are two to four times more likely to prevail.
Breaking the Silence seems to suggest that abusers who get custody of their children are virtually always male. In response to criticism, the filmmakers say on their site that since "women are five to eight times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner," to feature one male victim of abuse alongside five women would have "overstated the problems of men."
The accuracy of their figures is questionable: the federally funded National Violence against Women Survey suggests that over a third of domestic violence victims are male. That aside, doesn't featuring zero abusive mothers significantly understate that problem?
Lasseur told me that if he had encountered cases in which an abusive mother was awarded custody of the children, he would have reported on them. I asked about the claim on a battered men's advocacy site that a man named Tom Gallen had approached him with exactly such a case. Lasseur conceded that Gallen had a well-documented story but explained that, relying on his "instinct as a producer," he felt that Gallen wouldn't be the right person to use.
It's difficult to assess the credibility of the stories actually used in the film, since their presentation is deliberately one-sided. (Lasseur told me that women's allegations of abuse are often "dismissed because it's he said/she said," and that he didn't want to recreate that dynamic.) In at least one case, involving a 16-year-old identified as "Amina," there are serious questions about the film's accuracy.
Official documents supplied by the girl's father, Scott Loeliger, and posted at www.glennsacks.com, show that there were fairly serious child abuse allegations against "Amina's" mother. Moreover, the only spousal abuse mentioned in these documents is violence toward the father by the mother.
The documents also reveal a messy, complicated case in which most evaluators concluded that both parents were behaving "abominably." Breaking the Silence simplifies this into a straightforward story of a villainous man and a noble, victimized woman, and does so in the service of a film whose overall effect is to vilify fathers.
The filmmakers contend that their only concern was the well-being of children. Yet if the film contributes to a climate in which fathers who seek custody are tagged as suspected abusers, it could endanger children as well. PBS should rectify this bias by presenting programs with a different point of view.
Cathy Young is a Reason contributing editor. This column originally appeared in the Boston Globe
Naaaaah, that NEVER happens! /sarcasm
Ping worthy, but I don't know who to ping.
Dads get a bad rap with child custody here in TX...but the tide is turning. I'm glad they're looking into the research behind this. Most of my experience with battered children... points to the step-dads or boyfriends of Mom, doing the dirty deeds.
According to Glenn Sacks' research one of the women on the program IS a documented abuser.
BTTT
Here we go again
Ugh. I really hate these threads (so why do I read them? LOL).
Divorce sucks. No matter what, the kids are not at an advantage. For every woman that makes false accusations of abuse against a man, there is probably another who can't keep her kids away from a man who does abuse (and vice-versa for men). Bad people come out ahead in divorce, ESPECIALLY in no fault divorce states. My ex should not have the kids with him; when he isn't neglectful (including letting our autistic child get sunburned repeatedly, once severely and requiring medical attention) and letting his young girlfriend do the child care on weekends he has them, he is unbalanced and mean and exposes them to his temper tantrums, screaming, and name calling. There are bad people on both sides.
Even though women get custody in 85% of the cases, they claimed that women were being treated unfairly, and demanded that judges be more sympathetic to them.
This babble went through the radical feminist community like sh#t through a goose. Soon moonbats like the infamous internet feminist "liz" were spouting this pablum like their is no tomorrow - and attacking their critics by calling them "angry men" and "abusive dads". The MSM picked up bits and pieces of this story and spread it around.
This culminated in the NY NOW convention in Albany last year where the theme was the "anti-woman" family courts - and how abusive men were always getting their way in divorces. As absurd and laughable as it was, the some fems made a documentary on this topic - featuring, among other people, the woman you mention who has been claiming that she is an innocent victim of the family courts.
The lefties at PBS loved the story - women are all good victims - men are all bad abusers - what's wrong with that?
However, when this feminist victimhood fantasy was exposed to the light of day it quickly unraveled.
The film claimed that the American Psychiatric Association said that there was no such thing as Parential Alienation Syndrome - but immediately after the release of this film the APA issued a press release strongly refuting that attribution. One of the domestic violence shelters that supported the production quickly disowned the film after that saw it. One of the female "victims" in the documentary was shown to have a long history of abusing her children and assaulting her ex-husband. Dozens of claims made in the film have been debunked.
PBS' first reaction to the criticism was to refute it - about a day after this story broke generating a firestorm of critisim of PBS, PBS issued talking points and instructions to its affiliates to stonewall anyone who called in with complaints about the film. The "talking points" have been dissembled by Glen Sacks, and each one has been thoroughly refuted.
Early on in the controversy the PBS producers assured their radical feminist friend that they would not bow to the demands of the "so-called man's rights" crew - PBS promised them (behind the scenes) that they would go ahead and show the documentary despite the complaints. Dozens of DVDs of the film were shipped out to feminist groups, and many were shown at fund-raisers last month as part of "October is domestic violence awareness month".
But the pressure has mounted - there have been about a dozen national columnists who have pointed out the severe problems with this film. Connecticut Public Television has been ordered to stop distribution of copies of the film, although the feminists there involved in the original production have bitterly contested the embargo.
In a stunning reversal PBS has discontinued their knee-jerk defense of this joke (a la Rather and CBS) and made a major turn-around by launching their own investigation to review the facts presented in that film (no conservatives need apply for the reviewing board, however.)
All in all a fascinating study in the arrogance and mental isolation of the leftist "intellectual" class.
In my country, 25% of the defendants in our Domestic Violence court are female. I'm told that we're in line with national trends.
Nationally (as well as locally) 60% of those who are accused of child abuse are female.
When the child abuse stats are sorted, men hold a slight edge in violence towards children. Women hold a significant lead in child neglect cases, and men hold a significant lead in sex abuse cases.
The problem is that the courts, and para-court agencies that do domestic violence and child abuse casework, are all infused with a blatently sexist "men batters, women victims" mentality. That must change, if for no other reason than to prevent a child from being sent back to an abusive mother.
Of course the judges are trained to look for MALE abusers.
And, I have reviewed some of these training materials - while a judge is told he must act quickly and strongly against a male abuser - he should act with understand and compassion when dealing with a woman who is abusing her children.
You wouldn't believe the stuff that goes on. What do you think the 3 billon dollars for VAWA is being spent on? It's Clinton's guaranteed job bill for the radical feminists. I mean, how else could a "women's study" major make a living in the real world?
That says it all.
Those two studies have been cited over and over and over again by the radical fems - while the other 99.99% of the evidence is ignored.
And no MSM reporter is going to do their own research to refute what a "domestic violence advocate" has to say.
Nothing new there. The egalitarian swine promote the same racist and sexist worldview at every turn. In order to achieve radical socialist equality, you see, it's necessary that traditional notions of gender, nationhood, heritage, and masculinity be debased and assaulted.
I actually had to watch this movie in my domestic violence class in college. It wasn't too bad, but it did seem to take all the women's words at face value and then turn around and portry anything the males said as complete lies. I raised my hand after the movie and expressed my concerns about bias and got looked at like I had just beaten my girlfriend in front of the class.
Truer words have not been written.
Alright, Cathy. So let's get our country away from no-fault divorce and stop the futile, leftist "50/50 presumption" diversion against fathers.
Solving the problem would mean giving up amazonian feminism, too.
Children deserve both parents. Your X may suck as a parent but that doesn't mean the kids don't NEED their father. And if he does suck, don't you prefer that he has a girlfriend there? 4 eyes on the kids better than 2?
In my opinion, a poor father is still better than NONE.
Divorce sucks, no question about it (I've been there). But you did have kids with the man, and divorce doesn't and shouldn't separate kids from their fathers. He may not watch the kids as closely as you do, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's neglectful, or that he doesn't deserve time with his kids.
Sorry, I read these threads because I've seen first hand in no less than a dozen cases where the golden uterus prevails for no other reason than she has it. I've thought about going back to law school just so I can brand myself as a father's rights lawyer and try to level the playing field.
*shrug*
(I'm female btw)
Get rid of no fault divorce & make it so that 50/50 parenting is the norm in all divorces. It would cut the divorce rate IN HALF over night. ;)
It would, and JAIL people who make false claims of abuse.
My ex has far more serious problems than those mentioned in my post or this one, but he still has the kids during his alternate weekends, and when he wants to spend extra time with them. In addition, I try to include him in the kids' life when he has the time to do stuff with them (it's hard for him because he has to go to the gym every night- this was actually something he said to me). He didn't want the responsibility of full-time children and a family when he had that, as he preferred to party when he felt like and sleep with whom he felt like, also (even if that meant not coming home at night AT ALL, leaving both the children and I to wonder where he was.)
My kids are lucky that their step-dad, my husband, takes an interest in their life and provides them with the stability of a father they didn't have when their own lived there.
There are men and women that are spiteful and selfish..and there are those of us who are divorced from people with serious psychological problems and/or addiction that do have valid concerns about the welfare of the children. I don't automatically assume that women should get the kids. My brother-in-law has raised his children since they were very young (and the one experiment with his daughter living with her mother half the time resulted in her getting molested by the step-dad), and my uncle raised my cousin (with the help of my grandparents), too. One of my coworkers raises his daughter, too, as his ex is unstable.
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