Posted on 06/21/2002 5:57:46 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Three and a half decades after the rise of the feminist movement, American gender politics have begun to come full circle.
The feminist movement has always been aided by sympathetic men, and American women would never have come so far so fast without their support. While women still face many problems, those problems have received a fair and often extensive public hearing.
Today, men's issues--principally fathers' issues--are where many of our nation's biggest gender inequities lie. And just as many men helped the women's movement, many women are stepping forward to help fathers, forming groups like Moms for Dads and the Second Wives Crusade. Today women make up half of the membership of the fathers' movement.
Fathers' grievances include: blocked visitation and unenforced visitation orders; "move away moms," who permit or even use geography to drive fathers out of their children's lives; acceptance by the courts of false and/or uncorroborated accusations of domestic violence or child abuse as a basis for denying custody or even contact between father and child; rigid, excessive, and often punitive child support awards; a "win/lose" system which pits ex-spouses against one another by designating a custodial and a noncustodial parent; and judicial preference for mothers over fathers as custodial parents.
According to Virginia Forton, the Executive Director of Moms for Dads, "Our current system torments noncustodial parents and their children by allowing custodial parents to drive them out of their children's lives.
Children need both parents. At meetings I've seen so many fathers, with tears running down their faces, talking about the children they're no longer allowed to see. How could we, as women and as mothers, not try to help them?"
Just as male feminists have been criticized by traditionalists as dupes and opportunists, many women in the fathers' movement have been condemned by the feminist establishment. Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, says that women in the fathers' movement are used by men the way "a man charged with rape will hire a woman lawyer to represent him."
In The Price of Motherhood, feminist writer Ann Crittenden portrays these women as petty and shortsighted pawns of men. Susan Faludi, author of Backlash, likens them to Uncle Toms.
In reality, many pro-father women, such as Canadian Senator Anne Cools, North America's premier pro-father public official, came from the feminist movement. Cools was one of the most effective leaders of the battered women's shelter movement during the 1970s.
Others, like Forton and Melanie Mays, a member of the advocacy group Child's Best Interest, had little interest in fathers' rights or gender politics until they came into contact with our family court system's anti-father bias and its devastating effects on the people they love.
In Mays' case, witnessing a close relative and his children being tormented by the court system spurred her to action. Other activists are grandmothers who were cut out of their grandchildren's lives when their sons were cut out of their children's lives.
At the core of the movement are second wives. Since over half of all first marriages end in divorce, and 75% of divorcees remarry, there are many second wives and second husbands who struggle with the effects of their spouse's divorces.
Many second wives who marry divorced fathers have little inkling of the maelstrom they are entering--custody disputes, access and visitation denial, sudden child support increases, and the burden of legal fees spent on fighting inequities. Some second marriages end in divorce because of these pressures. Increasingly, however, these women and others are turning to activism.
According to Mays: "The fathers' rights movement is the civil rights movement of our era. Some belittle the plight of fathers, saying 'oh, they're men, they're privileged, what have they suffered compared to other groups?'
The answer is this--whatever horrors blacks or women or other groups have endured in the past 50 years, nobody ever took their children away. What discrimination and what injustice is worse than that?"
(Glenn Sacks writes about gender issues from the male perspective. His columns have appeared in many of America's largest newspapers. Dianna Thompson is the founder and Executive Director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children.)
Glenn Sacks
Most people don't think their spouse is gonna screw 'em over. If they do usually they leave first.
Why would any woman have kids with this kind of guy?
Because she's stupid. Seen it more times than I'd care to admit. None of this has bearing on the root question.
If she does, it's her problem just as much as his. And, yes, he should still get custody of the son. But in this case, he wouldn't want the son anyway, so would probably be willing to give him up.
But now you have an exception. It's not all being handled the same way. That was your goal, universal divorce handling, no power for the courts.
If a parent has been convicted of a crime in a court of law, they would forfeit their rights to custody.
You can be a crackhead and not get convicted. But again, we're introducing exceptions here.
I did not say that either parent should be cut off from any kids, just that custody would be to one or the other.
You said more than that. You also included no visitation and no child support. That's a complete severing of the relationship in my book.
By doing this you would have the best chance in forcing both parents to behave like adults and share the kids. But there would be not time/money issues that could/would be used as bargaining chips and extortion leverage.
How could mandated single parent custody with no visitation or child suport result in sharing of the kid? Your outline is the exact opposite of sharing the kid.
In a divorce, this usually happens to everyone anyway. And this continues to happen even after the divorce. My solution would actually help put a limit on how much of this could continue happening. Like I said before, divorce should be cruel, harsh, cold, and businesslike. Maybe then people would think at least twice before making a marriage commitment and then pulling the plug a few years later.
Please. Spoken like someone seeking revenge. Divorces aren't all nasty, your system would force the occasional amicable divorce to be a war. That's stupid. If the couple can figure something out on their own then that's the plan that should be used. If the couple can't that's when the courts should step in and sort the mess out. That's what courts are actually supposed to be for, sorting out messes. At that point the courts have to take in the whole situation and react accordingly.
You also have to take into consideration just what is "business like". I've seen business relationships disolve so brutally they made the Woody Allen/ Mia Farrow split look positively polite. And I've seen divorces take just a couple of days to hammer out and everybody leaves happy and friends. There's a world of randomness in any dissolving of a relationship, an't be helped.
Well, no, dear, that's not exactly how it works here.
I'm invoking the same right that "rdb3" invoked in http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/649482/posts?page=125#125, and to quote his words at that time:
You and I have no need in discussing anything. Therefore, to keep it respectful and mature, please do not address me anymore. And I won't address you.I suggest you leave me alone.
YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!
I expect I've heard the last from you. You've certainly heard the last from me, unless you mouth off again.
I suggest you take my warning seriously.
Now go take on the day.
I stopped posting to you. I told YOU to stop posting to ME. I presume by now that you've gotten the tap on the shoulder by the management, but you still don't get the clue.
You are one strange cookie. Now LEAVE ME TF ALONE!
I know how you feel. I know that sounds trite, so I'll explain. A week ago this past Monday, my very sick little cat went to the vet to try to remove a large tumor from her neck. They couldn't remove most of it, because her carotid artery went through it. They kept her overnight because she wasn't doing very well. They called the next day to say that she never came out of the anesthesia.
I cried myself to sleep for days. I still tear up when I think of her. She was a truer friend than most of the people I've known. I lost another very special kitty a few months ago, and the pain is cumulative.
A few years ago I had to put my dog to sleep. I'd had him for 14 years, since I found him abandoned in the woods as a tiny starved puppy. He was the smartest, most loyal, even-tempered dog I'd ever known. His kidneys went, and he bloated up with fluid that was seeping through microscopic pores. His skin quickly developed deep ulcers, some right down to the bone. It tore me up but there was nothing else that could be done for him. We tried all kinds of treatments, but he was an old dog, and very large, and they said large dogs don't live as long as smaller ones. The vet came out and I held him in my arms as he faded away.
Try to be strong for your pet. They are more human than most people. I believe we'll see them again some day.
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