Fathers Bear the Brunt of Gender Bias in Family Courts

glennsacks.com ^ | November 14, 2004 | Dianna Thompson and Glenn Sacks

[The Loan Arranger]

The National Organization for Women's recently released Family Court Report 2002 claims that family courts are "wrought with gender bias" against women. However, the respondents to the survey upon which the report is based were not chosen at random, but were instead self-selected from among those whom NOW calls its "constituents." If one selects a survey's respondents, one can make the survey show almost anything. For this reason, these types of Self-selected Listener Opinion Polls, commonly known as SLOPs, are viewed as junk social science by serious researchers.

NOW's report sounds the alarm on women's "loss of custody through gender bias" but the vacuity of this claim can be demonstrated by examining how rarely courts grant custody to fathers in contested cases.

[The Loan Arranger]

Our children are the future of this country. If we screw them up, nothing else matters!

[Prime Choice]

NOW's report sounds the alarm on women's "loss of custody through gender bias"

Leave it to the National Socialist Organization for Women to whine when their members -- all of had to have been LEAST fit to raise a child if the courts gave the father custody -- are denied sole custody.

[Angry Republican]

NOW: An embarrassment to women.

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

A study of all divorce-custody decrees in Arlington County, Virginia over an 18 month period found that no father was given sole or even joint custody unless the mother agreed to it.

I love VA, but it seems that a lot of judges here still have the belief that the children belong with the mother, no matter what.

My husband's lawyer told him that the only way he could win custody of his daughers here was if he could prove that their mother was a drug-dealing, prostitute. It didn't matter that she was bipolar and had attempted suicide at least twice. It didn't matter that she left the kids alone while they were sick to go out with her boyfriend. And it didn't matter that her boyfriend had once threatened a group of 7 year olds with physical violence for trying to look up his ex-wife's shorts while she was teaching a PE class.

Of course, the aforementioned attorney neglected to tell us that we couldn't win until after we had paid her several thousand dollars.

[searchandrecovery]

NOW = a bunch of ugly whores who just love to murder unborn babies.

[Aetius]

NOW and junk science go together like bees and honey.

[airborne]

Not in my case. She cheated on me (again). She moved out. I got left with the house, motgage, bills, kids and I still have to pay her support!

PA sucks!

[JPE]

I came back from a business trip to find my ex and her boyfriend had taken everything but the 2 kids to Atlantic City. When the judge still tried to give her custody, I told him he might as well throw me in jail right then and there, because neither the court nor my ex would ever get my kids. In the end, I got the kids and over $60,000 in bills for her gambling, she got a child support order. After chasing her for 10 years across 7 states, I have finally found a judge who is attempting to enforce the child support order, but for only pennies on the dollar. I actually had a county DA in CA tell me they don't chase dead beat moms because it is "politically unacceptable".

[shawnlaw]

Client had two children taken by mother(who had sole physical custody) out of our jurisdiction. Taking children from jurisdiction for more than 30 days without court approval was prohibited by the decree. We had to hire a PI to find her. Prosecutor had her arrested and brought back from the East coast. Mom spent several days in jail.

Dad got 18K in back child support wiped out and supervised visitation while children were in town (in accordance with new order).

Client passed away within a year of our new order. I doubt paternal family has seen the kids since.

Little good lots of bad for everyone...that's why I don't do domestic.

[Balto_Boy]

Once again we ignore that the majority of the judges making these decisions are male. I don't deny that men are getting shafted in divorce court, but what good does it do to keep writing articles about men getting shafted while ignoring who is doing the shafting and why.

They say that it's women who can't get along, but when I look at divorce court and other situations, I see that it's men who are going all out to "get" each other, especially when women are involved. I think it's time to stop repeating the same statistics and start looking at why men do this to each other and what we need to do to stop it.

[netmilsmom]

Kids need DADS!!!

We have made a country of selfish shrews with power and control over the children.
This is a mistake.
Boys need Dads to show them how to be men.
Girls need Dads to give them the attention they need so they won't look for it from boys with alterior motive.

I'd like to slap every worman (that is the spelling I choose) who ditches their husband's and then expects their children to love every boyfriend who comes along.

[newzjunkey]

Any hint there's gender bias against women is laughable on its face. There's a dangerous, immoral bias FOR women in the courts. Only fascist feminists, the sort who talk about 'choice' but fear informed choice, the sort who speak as if any sexual intercourse with a male is rape, only these hate-incarnates would claim otherwise.

[newzjunkey]

Because the bench is political. Judges face election in my jurisdictions. Do you want to be the one singled out by breast-beating activists as anti-woman?

[Johnny Crab]

My cases:

Ex 1 got boyfriend, I got left with bills + child support, hadda' 2nd mortgage my home that inflated in value over the Carter years. Visitation rights.

Ex 2 decided that someone studying electrical engineering was boring and got playmate. I got stuck with bills + child support BUT judge allowed Joint Custody(1986, Louisiana) after hearing ex's felon-convicted stepdad suggesting to her that she get a Ryder truck and empty our home while I was at school(!!). My attorney played this tape in judges chambers with only lawyers present. Ex's lawyer came out with that priceless expression of dis-belief. Oh yeah, I almost flunked out of college that semester(after having a 4.0 the 1st semester) as I spent more time in court with bs-lawyer games than I did in class.

Both ex's got "real friendly" May of my senior year(Graduated #6 in class). Yee hah.

[matchwood]

Mike Rosen, a conservative talk radio host in Denver said the other day that 50% of NOW members are Lesbians while the national percentage rate is about 2%.

One always has to filter NOW's positions (har, har) and statements for what they are - coming from another part of the galaxy perhaps.

[Balto_Boy]

It hardly defends men to say that judges are afraid of losing their jobs if they give fathers a fair shake, because all it says is that male voters are unwilling to support those judges. Besides, with the Internet, such charges could be refuted within hours, as happened with Rathergate. It also doesn't explain why men are so quick to turn on each other in other ways, such as being ready to beat each other up over the smallest disagreements.