[jurisdog]

As opposed to those other things you pointed out, the role of mother to child is biologically based, not socially/academically based.

See, in case you didn't get the memo, mother's give birth to children. Fathers don't. Likewise, mothers breastfeed children, fathers don't. Starting there, and continuing, mothers continue to play a specific role in their children's lives ~ a role that is different than that of the father.

Both roles are important. However, in terms of raising young children, the role of the mother is more important and more time consuming, and also more dependent on physical proximity and time spent with the child.

Now, I sense that fact really bugs you. Maybe its because you hate women, or you're a sexist? Or maybe you're just in denial? I really don't know, and unlike you, I'm not going to presume to know you or your motivations. One can only guess.

However, the importance of the mother to young children isn't just an opinion, its a biological fact. I'm quite confident that EVERY legitimate scientific study and every child development professional would agree. In fact, they do.

Now, that said, do I think that is justificaton for the poor treatment that men are said to recieve at the hands of the family law system? No, I do not. In my opinion, that is simply something that should be taken into account in terms of awarding primary custody (where agreement cannot be reached between the parents) of children below the age of 4 or 5.

[Harrison Bergeron]

"See, in case you didn't get the memo, mother's give birth to children. Fathers don't. Likewise, mothers breastfeed children, fathers don't. Starting there, and continuing, mothers continue to play a specific role in their children's lives ~ a role that is different than that of the father."

Are you sure you're an aduld with a juris doctor degree? That kind of simpleminded argument wouldn't do justice to a middle school forensics team. I can imagine everyone reading your words saying to themselves... "After breastfeeding, then what?" That "then what" happens to be state subsidized daycare for a majority of kids. By your own logic, that should cancel out all of your "maternal superiority" argument citing "scientific studies" with no names, no scientists, hell, no studies.

You chose to sink deeper into the ad hominem, to continue to refer to your opinion as "scientific" without one lick of empirical data, and to ignore the bounds of civil discourse by insisting that we answer your every nonsensical point while you ignored direct questions. Accusing Nick Danger of being some kind of "woman hater" was so blatantly amateurish and shrill sounding that not even the radical feminists use that tactic anymore. Your arguments are irrational in the face of facts. Any man or woman on this thread could have met your challenge for "case by case" arguments with tales of women being awarded child custody not on the merit of what you refer to as biological superiority, but by using the tried and true method of demonizing the father until he is seen as a threat to his own kids by the court.

Nick Danger was right, I was being extremely kind by offering up the possibility that your prejudice toward mothers might be "sweeping generalizations." Your arguments for women are so weak, so poorly thought out, and so lacking in scientific citation that one can only imagine that you are just as clumsy and inarticulate in a court of law. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that your specialty is not as an advocate for mothers, but as a legal assassin of fathers. I used to consider your profession the chosen weapon of radical feminism's deconstruction of the family. By my recent debates on FR with divorce lawyers, male and female, I now understand that radical feminism is simply a tool of your hateful, destructive profession which appears to be orchestrating a genocide on the nuclear family - the elemental building block of civilization - for profit.