Posted on 12/10/2007 7:07:25 AM PST by RogerFGay
No other topics I write about so consistently provoke passionate personal response as those dealing with systemic discrimination against men. When, for example, I point out double standards for boys and girls in the health care system, or expose the use of bogus statistics around domestic violence, my inbox fills with male gratitude simply for acknowledging an obvious fact: Our culture is profoundly misandric.
Of the myriad forms of discrimination men cite, one looms over the rest: The egregious treatment meted out to fathers in the throes of contested child custody following the "no-fault" divorces most of them did not initiate or desire. My files bulge with stories of disenfranchised fathers ripped from their children's arms and lives. They have lost their homes, their careers, fortunes, friends and reputations, often on the basis of false allegations of abuse (for which their female accusers are virtually never punished). I wouldn't mention such anecdotal evidence, if the anguish in these testimonials didn't jibe with objective data confirming the shameful gender bias that dominates the family law system.
About half of all marriages end in divorce. Women are twice as likely to initiate a divorce as men, largely because they can be fairly sure they'll end up with control of the children. Where shared parenting is the default template, divorce rates plummet. Men are six times as likely as women to commit suicide within the first two years after a separation: That they kill themselves from despair rather than their ex-wives for revenge is, ironically, a tragically eloquent rebuttal to the feminist credo that men are inherently dangerous to women. Although 25% of women make more money than their spouses, 97% of support payers are men (even in cases of shared parenting). Mobility decisions favour women: The psychological comfort to a Vancouver mother of moving near her Toronto-based family will be privileged over the psychological devastation the virtual loss of his children causes the Vancouver-bound father.
Misandry in family law begins with an ideology that views children as the property of women, even though many peer-reviewed studies show children want and need both parents, and no studies show sole parenting by a mother serves children's best interests. This ideology is instilled in judges during training sessions featuring feminism-driven materials, and subsequently often plays out as unaccountable kangaroo courts. The result is that an adversarial mother who initiates a divorce against the will of the father --however indifferent her parenting skills, however superb his and even if the children spend their days with nannies or day care workers --pretty well has a lock on sole custody of the children. If she denies rightful access to the father, she will never be punished at all. Conversely, if he withholds money, he will be criminalized: His picture as a "deadbeat dad" may appear on government-sanctioned Internet sites, and if he goes to jail, as is likely, he will serve a longer sentence than cocaine dealers.
Most men think such kafkaesque scenarios can't happen to them. Happily married men parenting with equal diligence believe in their hearts that men who find themselves savaged by the family law system are congenital losers, or were demonstrably lousy husbands and fathers. Many such "winners" are in for an unpleasant surprise.
"We want to pull away from the idea that parents have rights in relation to their children," said Jennifer Cooper, chair of the Canadian Bar Association's family law section, representing 2,200 divorce lawyers. "Parents" in this statement is the hypocritical lip service feminism pays to humanism: She meant "fathers," for women's rights today are never "pulled away from," only supported or furthered. In the days when children belonged to both their parents, it used to be said that children were "hostages to fortune." Today they are hostages to feminism and the state.
In his new, cleverly titled book, Taken into Custody, Stephen Baskerville, president of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, paints a bleak picture of the routine injustice a divorcing father can expect when a woman initiates a divorce. Baskerville baldly warns: "If I have one urgent piece of practical advice for young men today, it is this: Do not marry and do not have children." His book, like many others of the genre, makes a persuasive case. Men should read them. If the system does not become equitable, don't be surprised if men choose increasingly, and with reason, to play their trump card: Voting for equality with their condoms.
All this is true even if the man was faithful and the woman was not. All of this remains true even if the woman later marries a billionaire. The man will still pay child support. The tables do not take into account the other children that a man later produces. The child support keeps pumping money to Mom number one at the expense of the children of Mom number two.
“Homeschooled Christian women would be a good pool to start from.
The more generations of “homeschooled Christian” they have behind them the better.”
Not true.
Do you know how many of those girls are so messed up that they freak out the minute that they step foot outside of the house?
You cant defeat all temptations...good and bad.
I have seen the h/s kids indulge in every excess to the max when they finally go to college or the military.
A good family with support and an understanding that they are going to have to face life on their own, is better than trying to lock them away.
The family courts system is a Gynocracy, which should be overthrown, with violence if necessary.
Import a woman from a muslim country? < /richter scale irony/bitter joke/sarcasm>
BECAUSE THEY'RE WORTH IT!
If a man doesn't earn enough money to raise a family, then maybe he's not ready to get married. Perhaps he should postpone marriage long enough to become better educated or train in another field. That's just good, common sense.
Seriously, marrying a good or traditional women is nothing more than good luck.
I’ve been married to the same women for 40 years, and both my kids have each been married for 15. There’s no way that skill in finding a partner played into it... I was just lucky.
Who thinks it is a wise decision to marry a mental patient?
Bipolar disorder is generally pretty obvious by the time someone has graduated high school.
I'm thinking of proposing to a very nice, very traditional woman, and when they hear that I'm even thinking of marriage, they do all that they can to talk me out of it...
Just because they exhibited bad judgment doesn't mean that you are.
I married a woman who came from a Catholic, blue collar background like myself, who wanted children, who has parents who were happily married for 30+ years when we married just like my parents, who had worked her way through college like myself, who had similar desires and tastes to myself, who was a modest person not a party girl, who when she had a disagreement with me took me aside and told me point blank without passive agressiveness, cattiness, etc. This and a thousand other observations I made told me that she was the right person to marry.
My wife and I are friends with plenty of other married couples who are similarly matched.
I do not know a single divorced person whose marital relationship was not fraught with serious trouble from the beginning: they were deeply in love, but her parents hated his parents and vice versa; she liked to go out dancing with her friends every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night even after they got engaged; she liked to publicly make belittling comments about him in company when they were dating - there are always clear signs that there are serious problems well before the wedding.
Keep a clear head and read the signs.
I spent 10 years of my law practice in family law and have only three comments:
1. Shared parenting works if both parents are more concerned with the children than with being the winner. I’ve seen it succeed more often than not.
2. Conceding the above, you’re correct: no matter what - no matter the reason for the divorce, it ALWAYS hurts the children most.
3. No-fault divorce is not the panacea many trumpeted. It’s a lousy idea that allows people to shack up legally, then leave when they “fall out of love” or realize they married a loser. What a crock! Get to know your intended before tying the knot - nobody ever said marriage wasn’t work. A LOT of work. It’s what makes life with your spouse worth living.
Something that's good of course, but has nothing whatsoever to do with the article or subject. ~ RogerFGay
Yeah. I was. Didn't do a bit of good.
That just isn't how the wideawake family operates. And we're quite satisfied with that fact.
That’s what I meant. Most divorces are not the result of a husband’s misbehavior.
“Don’t take advice on marriage and relationships from the people who are worst at it.”
That’s like asking the Arizona Cardinals how to win NFL championships.
...and would those men also say that given the chance, they wouldn’t have had the children they have? What a completely tragic and selfish response to a gift from God!
Reminds me of the wife of a friend, who said in marriage counseling, “I guess I just shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place”. Where do you go with that?
I like your view. I also wish I had never married. The Church was instrumental in my divorce. Which I am very sad to admit.
Yeah, a little bit like listening to a passed-over light colonel tell you how to make general...
You gave your son, the child you fathered, the advice, “don’t have children”? How valuable does that make him feel?
It seems to work well in my case.
A few years back we were at a parent-teacher conference and during the discussion of homework issues it came up that Ratboy spent most of the school week at Mom's.
The teacher was astonished. She said that she had many 'children of divorce' in her classes and she could always tell who they are, but in his case she had no indication that he was one.
We were pretty pleased with that...
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