Writing in The Weekly Standard, associate editor of the Atlantic Monthly Ross Douthat reviews an excerpt from Maureen Dowd’s new book, Are Men Necessary: When Sexes Collide, and finds it the perfect occasion to examine the progress of the feminist movement to date. From “Has Feminism Failed?”:
Everywhere she looks, Dowd sees feminism in retreat. Women don’t want to split the checks anymore; they favor Mrs. over Ms.; they still flirt and play hard to get and wear makeup and agonize over whether to return a man’s calls; they take their husband’s name, and in higher percentages than in the halcyon year of 1990; they read superficial, sex-obsessed glossy magazines; and some of them even dare to stay at home with the kids, eschewing both the fast track and the Friedanian idea that domestic life is at best a “comfortable concentration camp.”
As for men—and Dowd reserves her real contempt for them—the poor boobs never quite managed to shed the “atavistic desire to be the superior force in the relationship.” They want to pay for dinner and they’re easily intimidated, both by Times columnists and by the girls (sorry, women) from Harvard Business School; they think their wives and girlfriends should have Pamela Anderson-sized breasts and speak only when spoken to; they want nothing more to marry a docile, not-too-desperate housewife and then divorce her a few decades later to take up with “their secretaries, assistants, nannies, caterers, flight attendants, researchers and fact-checkers.”
As with much of what Dowd writes, it’s hard to know how seriously to take her mix of cheap shots and caricature. Still, it’s worth at least suggesting, by way of counterpoint, that the world we inhabit isn’t one in which the feminists have been backlashed into retreat for the last 40 years–it’s a world where feminism won, at least insofar as it could, and the sexual confusion that so dismays Dowd is the unexpected consequence of its victory.
[…] to the extent that feminism was a realistic political movement with realistic goals—as opposed to a utopian fantasy—its achievements have been remarkable. Women have moved into nearly every professional arena in American life, from law and politics to ministry and the military, and an edifice of regulation has sprung up to protect them from gender discrimination and sexual harassment, and to encourage their hiring and promotion. Laws against rape and domestic violence have been strengthened, public awareness of both has been dramatically raised, and the rates of these crimes have been falling for some time. Abortion and birth control are not only widely available, but enshrined as constitutional rights. Real sexism has been banished beyond the pale of public discourse: Whatever men mutter to each other on poker night, no public figure would dare to suggest that a woman might not be qualified for any position, anywhere, simply because of her sex. Even suggesting the possibility of the existence of meaningful gender differences can get you tarred and feathered and forced to recant, as Larry Summers recently discovered.
There’s more: today’s women are dramatically better-educated than men, something that would have been unthinkable half a century ago, and by nearly every available metric, the young female of the species is healthier than the young male–less prone to suicide, drug addiction, and alcoholism, better-adjusted and higher-achieving, more ambitious and happier. Even sports, the most guy-ish of all the guy things, has been overrun by women–thanks in no small part to a feminist-inspired legal apparatus devoted to leveling the playing field in colleges and universities, even if it means bulldozing successful male athletic programs in the process.
And women have achieved all this while shaking off much–though not all, admittedly–of the old sexual double standard. Yesterday’s sluts are today’s healthy, empowered young women, today’s sluts are celebrities (insert obligatory Paris Hilton joke here), and even the raunchiest guy-magazines take time out from the leering and the dirty jokes to instruct readers on how to satisfy their girlfriends in bed.
In the marriage market, too, despite what Dowd claims, women are facing less of a choice between love and self-improvement than ever before. She cites, for instance, a much-quoted study showing that women’s marriage chances drop as their IQs rise. But she fails to mention–understandably, since it tended to be ignored by the breathless press reports–that the study was conducted on a population of women born in 1930s Great Britain. More up-to-date analyses suggest that the trend is moving in the opposite direction […]
Of course, some of these highly-educated brides may be dumped eventually, during their hubby’s midlife crisis, for a bright young fact-checker. But this points to the problem with nearly all the “what-happened-to-feminism?” arguments—they ignore the extent to which the problems post-feminist women face aren’t the result of feminism’s failure, but byproducts of its success. The “trophy wife” phenomenon is a case in point. Feminists wanted women to be able to leave loveless marriages and escape abusive husbands, so they backed the push for easy divorce–and sure enough, no-fault split-ups have made it easier for women to shake free of miserable unions. But they’ve also made it much, much easier for Woody to leave Mia and shack up with Soon-Yi.
Similarly, Dowd laments the coarsening of American sexual culture–the piggishness of men’s magazines, the Cosmo features urging women to “lace a glazed doughnut around your man’s member, then gently nibble the pastry and lick the icing,” the pressure on women to become “self-actualized sex kittens.” But these excesses don’t suggest that feminism has failed–just that its victory came with certain (fairly predictable) side-effects. Those sober feminists in turtlenecks wanted sexual equality, where a woman could be as free with her body, as sexually empowered, as any man. Well, they got it–and it’s unfortunate, but probably unavoidable, than many of the liberated women have ditched the turtlenecks and decided to behave, as the title of a recent book would have it, like Female Chauvinist Pigs. And it’s similarly predictable that sexual liberation has been a much better deal for the women of Dowd’s class, the urban upper-bourgeoisie, than for the growing ranks of single mothers further down the income ladder.
Even the work-life difficulties that a book like Perfect Madness decried–and that Dowd touches on, briefly, when she complains that high-achieving men are more likely to have kids than high-achieving women–exist precisely because feminism has succeeded so dramatically at integrating women into the workforce. Once there, many of them discovered that it was next-to-impossible to be a perfect mother and have a perfect career. But is this tension really a “problem” that feminism failed to fix? […]
[…] such hard-won realism runs counter to feminism’s utopian strain, the strain in which every tension in human life can be eliminated and every problem smoothed away—and the strain that was cuttingly described by Joan Didion, writing in feminism’s infancy, as “the voices of women scarred not by their class position as women but by the failure of their childhood expectations and misapprehensions.” It’s this form of feminism, not the practical form that won so many practical victories, that drives the “who-lost-feminism” debate, and keeps alive the peculiar notion that if the woman’s movement had only been more successful, if only there hadn’t been a “backlash,” we wouldn’t have to deal with Britney and the Desperate Housewives, Cosmo and Maxim–with men picking up the check and cheating on their wives and marrying their secretaries; with women taking their Ivy League degrees and going into full-time motherhood; with the tension between work and parenthood that affects the lives of career women, for reasons both cultural and biological, far more than the lives their male competitors.
“Little did I realize,” Dowd writes, “that the feminist revolution would have the unexpected consequence of intensifying the confusion between the sexes, leaving women in a tangle of dependence and independence as they entered the 21st century.”
But surely anyone with an iota of common sense would have predicted exactly this—that a movement aimed at reshaping society would lead to both great goods and unexpected evils, that it would make some women’s lives better than ever before and others worse, that its brave new world would be bright and shining and also leave something to be desired. Feminism didn’t lose or fail or falter, it won—and if its victory didn’t turn out quite the way people expected, well, they should have expected that.
Probably unsurprisingly, I find Douthat’s argument here philosophically compelling, specifically the notion that the “failures” of the feminist movement are nothing more than reminders that equality of opportunity does not guarantee equality of outcome. Similarly, the removal of certain social and legal impediments cannot and should not guarantee utopian outcomes that operate in an ideological vacuum where secondary effects and free will are completely absent. That is to say, give women equality and you might not always like what they do with it—a lesson that many second wave feminists like Dowd find both disappointing and, for purposes of ideogical purity, inconvenient.
In my estimation, too much of today’s feminist orthodoxy continues to concentrate on trying to shape society to meet the utopian image of feminism laid out by the doctrinaire feminists who control much of feminism’s public face. And this impulse proves most problematic when, in order to try to shape the world in that idealistic image, the feminist establishment (and there is an analogue here to the recent dustup between the black Maryland Democratic establishment and Michael Steele) insists on defining what is right and proper for women—rather than acknowledging that, because women are free to choose, they are free to choose what is right and proper for themselves as autonomous beings (not just representative females), and that consequently, this is in and of itself evidence that feminism has won out.
Classical liberals believe that equality of opportunity for the individual—regardless of (rather than because of) his or her group identity—is the proper aim of our society (in the sphere of the women’s rights movement, this manifests itself in what Christina Hoff-Sommers calls “equity” feminism). Disappointment with how people choose to use their freedoms, while it is certainly real, should not be seen as evidence that the movement that procured those freedoms has failed. Instead, it proves that we are a country of individuals, and that individuals, bless them, don’t always act perfectly in accordance with culturally-defined types.
The pushback against institutionalized feminism bemoaned by people like Dowd, then, is simply a pushback against the excesses of identity politics, which allow for only a single idealized or “authentic” vision for those who must necessarily claim membership.
And in that sense, the pushback is a return to the individualism that has long-defined this country.
****
[updated to clarify terminology; see here]
It may be complete bullshit, but feminism works, at least in a ends-justifying-the-means kinda way.
Anti-male genderism has permeated all offices of government power in the west, and the end result is the most lopsided institutionalized sexism since The Patriarchs acted in carefully coordinated underground societies of millions of ugly sweating fat guys in order to lash wenches to bedposts. Or whatever it was that pissed off the turtlenecks hundreds of years ago.
Women own literally billions more in property, get custody seven out of ten times, commit as much DV as men, and abuse and kill more kids. Yet the divorce, custody, DV and all other gender-conscious industries still favor them. Sure, the nasty corporate world of modern ugly sweating fat guys still discriminates against their wages—by under 10% when you subtract intentional homeemaking, but who’s counting when there’s political hay to make?
And the drinks are still free. Yep, feminism still works.
Excellent analysis that also encompasses the civil rights movement.
Excellent post. (Not too bad comments yet, either.) Most amusing are those unfortunate feminists who say that all they have fought for has come to naught when women either don’t act like perfect feminists or do act like perfect feminists and then complain of feeling unfulfilled.
TW: cannot. As in, If you want women to have free choice and power over their lives, you cannot force them to make the decisions you wish they would.
I wonder how many of the MoDo type feminists have ever refused a warning in favor of a full-blown traffic ticket.
Just a thought.
BECAUSE OF THE BOOBS!
One of the biggest problems I see on the left is understanding that these are mutually exclusive. Equality of opportunity almost surely guarantees unequal outcomes based on the ambition and ability of the individual. To get equal outcome you have to restrict the opportunity of the more capable. I hate the whole concept of “No Child Left Behind”, the only way to achieve this is to hold back the fast kids.
How do you manage to get book deals on this level while admitting you are a fucking idiot? That is what I really want to know.
Hey Jeff,
Your review is up here.
I knew this book was trouble when a female colleague who knows my politics grabbed my arm at a reception this week and gleefully announced, “You have to admit Maureen Dowd got this one completely right!” I responded that I had to do no such thing–Dowd wants to blame her 50+ years of relationship failure on everyone else and what she should do is look in the mirror. Then the colleague launched into a paeon of praise for Prince Charles for perferring Camilla to Diana–I guess it’s okay to betray your wife and the mother of your children if the co-betrayer is less attractive?
This line of reasoning is not doing self-respecting women any favors.
B Moe,
I just have to address your observation on No Child Left Behind. The high performing kids are absolutely not held back from achieving their best; why would they be? The numbers the government needs are based on averages. The higher the top end, the better the school’s average is going to look.
What I’m seeing in practice is a great deal more attention being paid to the slower learners, instead of seeing them written off as duds. This is a good thing, yes?
No problem with that, but call it “No Child Ignored”, or “No Child Written Off”. The literalist in me just has a serious problem with No Child Left Behind while I am constantly hearing and reading of kids not being held back for fear of harming their self-esteem, and seeing the rampant grade inflation the Hope Scholarship has spawned here in GA.
The only way to truly not leave the slow behind is to hold back the fast. I don’t make the rules, I just drive the truck.
– In retrospect I think it would be good to add “mouth shaping 101” to the collegiate corriculum for the ladies…. something that accentuates the perfect “Oooooo” at just the right moment… and to learn at least a modicum of which wines go with a good BJ…. yeh…. yeh…. thats the ticket…..
Feminism for women like Dowd, went wrong because she saw it for more than it should have been- Equal opportunity.
The writer makes the excellent point that some of things feminist thought would be great for women (getting out of lousy marriages easily) turned out to be great for the men too, and in those case, lousy for the women.
Giving women opportunity didn’t mean that all structures and values needed to be thrown out.
Feminism could just never change women from wanting to be well.. girly.
Feminism’s death knell was the thing they hold most dear…abortion. Half of us just saw the horror of it and dropped feminism like a hot potatoe.
But even without abortion, feminism was bound to fail. Liberals lead it and just like anything else they do, it’s a good idea gone bad. Feminism, welfare, taxes, you name it.
Good gone bad.
– Rightwing is right on – as usual..
Jeff
A quibble—I’ve never equated classical liberalism (equality of opportunity) with equalitarianism (political, social and economic equality). IMO equalitarianism is an anathema to individualism.
Equity feminism is about individualism, gender feminism is about equalitarianism. GF is squarely in the Left, with the unsupportable tenet that men and women are the same.
Thus, as early equity feminism sought the right of women to be held as equal before the law and to open the doors to equal opportunity and pursuit of choices, GF has chaffed and railed against women who choose differently then the GF orthodoxy demands. Be a stay-at-home-mom? Choose the “mommy-track” at work? Express the idea that the genders are inherently different? One is then an “inauthentic” woman.
One consequence of the decades of incessant indoctrination that men and women are the same IS the rise of girls and women to publically proclaim their inner slut. Women who have been told time and again we must compete like men, think like men, drink like men, have sex like men…indeed that we are the same as men, what is left to demonstrate our difference from men but show more of our bodies?
Shorter Modo:
Feminism didn’t work because men are pigs!
True, although for much of this country’s(world’s) history, women really weren’t given equal opportunity as individuals. We’re in the game now, to be sure, and we have both feminists and American men to thank for that. After all, men have had control for centuries and any power women have gained in the US is partially due to the willingness of American men to share it with us. Men are holding on much more tightly in most of the world.
I’ve seen so much change in the years since I graduated from college (not that long ago!). I was warned by corporate recruiters that I might have to do business travel, you know, with men. My sister, an engineer, got a rose for secretary’s day because she was the only non-secretarial female in her office and the men didn’t know how to handle that. Sure, there were those that were utterly hostile to the idea of women gaining power. But for the most part, by the time I came into it, there was just an awkwardness to it all. I think even that has gone away now.
What is left is a tangle of dependence and independence, but that’s how life is. That’s what a relationship is. Did anybody really want feminism to reeducate us and turn us into sexual comrades?
So yeah, I think women can now be part of the push back to individualism. It’s time.
– Are the women of the GOP hot or what?
I always knew that women were perhaps the most oppressed victims of you corrupt mysogynistic racist neoKKKon theocrat pukes, but I never knew how disgusting you wankers really were until I heard Maureen Dowd was having a hard time finding a man who is equally as sublime and brilliant as she says she is in her columns. I don’t know when you fuckers are going to wake up to the fact that the entire fucking solar system revolves around her and her dating patterns–of course you unintelligently-designed assholes probably still believe in Phlogiston; and by the way DICK CHENEY’S HALLIBURTON, the Earth isn’t flat it’s a living breathing WOMAN with feelings that you’re RAPING–but I think the reality is you’re SCARED of a woman who Speaks Truth To Power at every waking opportunity, and call her “shrill;” You demonize the fact that she won’t be OPPRESSED by your idea of what constitutes a fair and complete representation of what a person actually said. But the reality is, WHAT MAUREEN DOWD WANTS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT YOU MEN THINK IS “FAIR” OR “RIGHT.”
MAUREEN DOWD NON-FUCKERS
Yesyesyes, that’s all well and good MoDo, but I need to hear more about the glazed donut thingie.
This sounds like an excellent technique to use in my long campaign to seduce Margaret Cho.
I tend to think of classical liberalism as being about equality before the law. All of the economic and social stuff, is really a different sphere of ideas (albeit related). I mean, personally, I don’t see any reason why women shoud be prohibitited from doing anything men do, either by law, or by social custom. But I do see a distinction between law and social custom, and regard the former as the proper sphere of government. Obviously there are places where the two might be in conflict. I would prefer to err on the side of less government.
Wow.
I don’t do drugs and yet I find this blog really funny. Do I have reason to worry?
Yes. Bur you can stop the worrying by doing drugs. See, it all works out.
TW: “Trouble”. None a ‘tall.
Whenever complaints like that of MoDo are discussed, I’m brought back to the maxim that modern feminism is composed primarily of outrage at les faits de la vie.
Darleen —
Just a problem with terminology. I have always differentiated gender fem with egalitarian fem; I’m using egalitarian as you are using “equity.”
– Yeh but Jeff…. you have to admit shes got a great point with that “show more of our bodies?”…
– Shag MD?… Lets put it this way APF…. If she was the last known specimen of the female gender in the known galaxy and I had to choose, I’d put my spaceship as deep into the the Sun as possible…..
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
TW: “Bed”. If you know what I mean. And I think you do.
Seriously, you do, right?
– Hmmmmm ….I see what you mean FJ…. Guess we’ll have to add “watching every atom in your body explode at the speed of light” to the 47,316 sexual kinks in the “Amorous delights of the Universe” guide…..
… you do know you have Goldsteins propeller spinning out of control here … Well you do don’t you……
Heh. Douthat just called MoDo an UHB.
BTW, did that guy quit making movies, or what?
Also, has anyone here ever MET a “docile” woman? I think the existence of such, at least among middle class Americans in the early 21st century, is a myth perpetuated by women with poor social skills. It’s akin to the belief among guys who don’t know how to flirt that guys who do are “assholes.”
I’m sure you’ve seen this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/04/AR2005110401996.html
TW “ran”. As in: how many ran away?
Real men get unbearably randy at the idea of Dowd giving them a quid-profiterole, and if you think turns-of-phrase like that reveal someone desperately trying to out clever everyone, you must be a retro-sexist cad who can only appreciate women when they’re naked and chained to a stove–WHICH DOWD WOULD GLADLY DO FOR YOU IF ONLY YOU’D STOP BEING SUCH SEXIST ASSHOLES AND GIVE HER A CHANCE!
Hmmm, I saw my lawyer and got a certificate of NON OPPRESSOR, only cost $50.00 and is good anywhere.
TW “added” the shyster did however try to add a disclaimer clause, but I wouldn’t have any of that. FREE AT LAST
– The only possible reason I can imagine for chaining her to a stove is so she can sniff for gas leaks…. Something there will unfortunately be no shortage of around here as we get into weekend football parties….
criminy!
Bitch, bitch, bitch. She bitches when she’s lost, she bitches when she’s won, she bitches in the moonlight, she bitches in the sun.
All because Modo ain’t got no Mojo.
What a Bitch.
The only logical reason is because you’re too intimidated by the size of her pen–or as you probably see it in your oppression-fevered brain, penis.
As Maureen said countless times in that article, the reason she’s at home tonight curled up on the couch with a pint of Chunky Monkey ice cream in the right hand and a box of tissues in the left while watching period-pieces starring Hugh Jackman, is because she can have any man she wants. WHICH YOU WOULD FIND OUT IF ONLY YOU WOULD PLEASE ASK HER OUT!
By the way, Jeff (if you’re still around):
I followed the link to QandO’s review. I kind of like that, at least you were the best of the bvoilerplate he kept going to. Hey, PJ O’Rourke? You could do a lot worse.
But, boy, does he have a hard-on for Powerline and NRO.
Followed a further link to the Maguire site. Genious I can handle. Really, really good gives me a bit of pause.
Bvoilerplate is a term that describes the technique of having a theme, or template, that you employ in an essay, or literary work. It is sometimes confused with boilerplate.
When I had to get out some important filings at the office, in the largest cases I’ve ever seen (three years in this office, nine years as a lawyer), and we did, and a couple of the secretaries worked hard to help me (and the others) get the enginners’ stuff cast into legal form, and we got them filed on time…
Well, I went out and bought bouquets for them to say Thank You for the hard work and help that was done to keep me from looking like an utter ass (as opposed to just an ass, which I do quite well on my own, thank you very much) and they were happy to get the flowers…
So, according to BitterRed that was a bad thing for me to do, or a good thing?
Could someone help me, I think I’m a little confused. Was that bad of me, or is BitterRed just a jealous, neglected, soon to be abandoned hag who I can safely ignore?
Word: across. You can get subtle ideas across me with the use of a 2×4.
Or whatever it was that pissed off the turtlenecks hundreds of years ago.
I hate to get nitpicky, but I believe that was inability to own property, the illegality of voting, legalized wifebeating, lightweight education and no social mobility beyond what we could achieve through marriage.
But carry on. And, Goldstein–STOP MAKING ME SHAVE MY LEGS! STOP CONFERRING WITH MY HUSBAND ABOUT THE DISPOSITION OF MY UTERUS! I demand that all the pie in this house be baked solely by THE PEOPLE AT THE SUPERMARKET BAKERY!
Hmm. Wonder what this guy thinks? Or this one.
– Don’t think the two of them could find a pair of brain cells to rub together… Stop that Jeff, or a least post some sort of warning if you put up those kind of mind-fuck links….
– Now I just need a shower…..
Indeed. I have to say that Dowd here is, well, dumb. No getting around it.
You go, girl!
Right on, sister!
Okay. Let’s watch the objectification, shall we?
I’m out of cliches.
Nan, BMoe—My brother the New York Lib’rul was looking into emigrating to Sweden (Swedish wife) until they got a look at Swedish schools.
The Swedes have an educational concept called “leveling.” They have plenty of programmes for substandard or handicapped students but none for the gifted ones, because those would be elitist.
Richard,
Unfortunately, there is at least one place here in the US that is experimenting with “leveling” already. I read about it somewhere online, but can’t remember the location (or the location). The dumbing down of America continues apace.
UP
“Preferably someone with ‘juice,’ like a George Cloony. She’s a good-looking woman–a bit catty but some guys find that attractive,” says Molotov Cocktail-wielding rioter.
Developing…
Has anyone ever seen Maureen Dowd smile? I mean a big, genuine smile with a head-thrown-back laugh afterwards. Because a woman who can do that will always have her choice of men, dumb and smart.
Like all progressives and their progressive movements, their utopian natures make them constitutionally unable to accept victory. It isn’t the goal, but the fight that defines them. All remains a fetid, festering circle of Hell until the ideal has been acheived. And don’t forget that the ideal includes all you proles loving it.
It isn’t the lack of progress that MoDo DoDo is bemoaning so much as the fact that the battle is no longer raging. She only feels good about herself while she imagines herself leading the charge over the ramparts. No doubt it hurts to discover that she has never been more than a REMF all this time instead of a Power Puff Grrrl.
Turing word: united, as in re-,’cause it feels so good.
A Modo without a man is like a fish. With or without the bicycle.
Reading that WaPo article, I’m struck by how MoDo’s definition of feminism seems to be: ‘The thing that will ensure that men will always find me sexy, gorgeous, and brilliantly intelligent–even after I’m over 80, partially senile, with my boobs in my shoes.’ Apparently, feminism will bring about some sort of 180 cultural turn-about, in which the only women who can’t get dates, sex, or a proposal from an attractive and brilliant man without even asking for them are the dumb broads with big breasts, the sweet little things who just want to get married, and the cute young secretaries. She seems to want a world in which any woman no matter how old or unattractive can be Hef (even without the money, no less)–the world she’s currently living in, in which a woman with no obvious intelligence or education can ascend to the highest opinion column in the land, doesn’t seem to be enough for her. She wants a feminism which can somehow rewire the penis of every man on earth to respond with ardent desire to–well–mainly her, but also just about any woman who’s intelligent and interesting regardless of how unattractive she is (or, rather, any woman who likes to think of herself as intelligent and interesting despite how unattractive she is). And, of course, a feminism which will guarantee that your man will never cease to find you unattractive–as long as we’re rewiring his penis, we also set it to respond to only one woman on earth, ever, like a compass needle to magnetic north.
How exactly does a woman who defines happiness as ‘unconditional love and approval from all men–or at least the hot, smart ones’ still get to be called a ‘feminist’? Does feminism suddenly mean ‘I get to have everything I ever wanted without working for it or making any sacrifices, and Daddy will always love me and buy me a pony’?
I bet a nice fat roll of 2006 hundreds would help. I can whistle a few bars of that, easy.
If you need us guys, MoDo, we’ll be downtown, this year, dealing with the oldboys and gender feminists in family court, nanny government, and social (dis)services who’d be pleased to add our patriarchal names to the list of 15,000 a year or so dead-by-suicide ex-husband fathers.
Thus, let me tell you about the inability to own property, the overt and highly functional illegality of the utterly unconstitutional gender feminist family and social government systems, legalized kidnapping, theft, and oppression for fun, profit, and revenge, lightweight gender equality rhetoric, and absolutely no social mobility beyond what we thought we could achieve through marriage. You know, the contractual kind where dad gives it all up for the family.
For life.
That being what at least a couple dozen million ex-
husbandsfathers would do. If given the chance by a slightly lopsided system.One orchestrated by women. (Ask your rep who runs state govt by lobby and ask your Congress what title IV-D and VAWA are.)
(Oh, and hi Modo. Good luck with that.)
In my 12th grade social studies text was a chart listing a variety of civil service jobs and two columns with starting salaries for each. Why two columns? Because women working in the public sector were paid (substantially) less than their male counterparts (later I would learn that the same was true for the private sector). Same job, same grade, less money. This was well before the revolutions of the 60’s and normal for us was working dads and stay-at-home moms, but I nonetheless found it quite astonishing. I asked the teacher for an explanation. He said that men’s salaries were higher because men typically had families to support and women did not. I suggested that was total BS (well, I doubt I put it quite that way) and demanded to know if the female teachers in our school were paid less that the male. He refused to answer and redirected the discussion. I took that as a “yes”.
A friend (male) once suggested that I was a liberated woman coming out of the womb which perhaps is why I’ve never found much common cause with “doctrinaire feminists”. I do thank them, however, for their significant contributions in addressing the kind of disparities described above. I would ask them however to remember that “male” and “female” are not matters of opinion and “choice” means exactly that.
Has MoDo ever considered switching teams? Just a thought.
6Gun
You know, the contractual kind where dad gives it all up for the family.
For life.
And moms only “give it all up for family” 9-5, Mon-Friday?
You got some divorce issues, eh?
Darleen,
That’s rather obvious. Most courts give the kids to mom and all but drive dad financially into bankruptcy.
Ah, “issues” is it, Darleen? How PC, and how transparent of a shield you have there.
If you’d been paying attention you’d recognize the institutionalized nature of the problems I identified, and from there, the emptyness of the bleating feminists. It’s all fairly black and white, those statistics.
I trust that you’re visiting Jeff G because of some shared principle. That you’re fairminded and at least ostensibly conservative/libertarian/what-have you, and that you’d defend the family.
Problem is that as long as you—female?—avoid the issue by scraping it off on ole dad’s “issues”, then you’re going to be part of the problem and not the solution.
Let me tell you about the convention of corruption in family law—the divorce industry. See, I’ve taken the time and done the research; I have the hard data and already began to present it.
So, is this still just me or is it really a gender issue after all? Darleen.
I don’t intend to debate my supposed issues with you. Will you debate the real ones?
Most men don’t seek sole custody. Average man sees a 15% increase in his standard of living vs a 45% decrease in the standard of living of the average woman post divorce*
Divorce is messy and in places were “no-fault” has been instituted, it has had the unintended consequence of making innocent partners bitter about “fairness.” Such bitterness can lead to years of gotcha games. Such is not a conspiracy against men (or women).
And please, let’s NOT pretend that it is the majority of fathers that get the shortend of the divorce stick, regardless of the anecdotes. The sheer size of the failure of non-custodial parents (majority fathers) to pay their court-ordered child support is legend.
6Gub
I’ve not only read the stats, I’ve been in the thick of ‘em. Personally AND having worked at the Child Support division of the District Attorney’s office for six months before transferring to the criminal division.
Children are legally entitled to support from both parents, and the fact remains that it is difficult if not impossible for both parents to maintain their old lifestyles now split between two households.
Let’s put a little finer point on it, Darleen:
Please explain the constitutionality of:
1. Being thrown out of your property on a bogus restraining order;
2. Losing your kids without recourse; a type of legalized, unilateral kidnapping;
3. Paying what amounts to ransom to maybe see them;
4. Risking child support debtor’s prison for being a dad and having to deal with a law that makes even unjust “awards” of support uncorrectable;
5. Attorneys presenting these tactics as a norm of practice;
6. Facing a 85/15 gender disadvantage in primary custody and child support, worse in DV claims, all the while having killed or abused far fewer children;
7. Having no legal recourse whatsoever against an ex spouse who commits felonies against custody or yourself;
8. Being refused due process because of sex;
9. Being refused equal representation under the law. Local DA’s are ruthlessly pro-mom, as are anti-DV groups who share in the fraud of false restraining orders and manipulate court policy accordingly;
10. Being refused equal services when abused, which you are as much as 50% of the time. Reporting less than half of all abuse against you out of shame or fear of being denied;
11. Being refused presumption of innocence;
12. Having to pay support for kids you didn’t father on the basis of a simple claim to the Court from someone you never met;
13. Generally being discriminated against due to your gender;
14. Title IV-D;
15. VAWA;
16. Federal kickbacks of 66% of every child support dollar collected locally. Talk about incentive.
And on and on.
Is any of this actually legal? I mean, constitutionally legal? Or is it a manifestation of the power hateful feminists have over all levels of government. Remember, lobbies own government and the women’s lobby is um, king.
Ask your own state representatives who wear the pants, Darleen. Do it.
Let’s get it very clear: Gender feminism is sexist, illegal if practiced in any other venue under any other name, unconstitutional, ruinuous, hateful, and utterly ruthless. By their works we shall know them.
Alex–it all becomes clear when you realize that the entirety of the known universe revolves around the sex life of a shrill NYT fluff columnist, and that the success or failure of the feminist movement in her lifetime is wholly determinate by whether or not the guy she’s sleeping with dumps her ass for Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Rodney Dangerfield said he didn’t like the newfangled trend of having women on the sidelines helping to call football games. He said it rubbed him the wrong way, having a perky blonde announce that “it’s two inches short.”
6gun,
Sorry for what sounds like your or a close friend’s experience on account of divorce. Divorce is nearly always unfair to father, mother and children. It cuts all ways in different cases and jurisdictions. Some people stay in awful marriages to avoid what might be the worse trauma of divorce and psychological fallout in kids, as in choosing the lesser of evils, but sometimes it simply isn’t. Still, once kids turn 18 and their emotional underpinnings and spouses’ financial security are no longer major issues, then one might ask Santa for the big D, knowing of course that divorce impacts even adult kids and middle-aged dating can’t be all that interesting. There are precious few easy, guilt-free divorces, as it should be. The inequities of divorce do need addressing fairly, though.
I second the women here who give credit to early feminism for the options and standing American women have today. But even most of us women would agree that the feminist movement was a mixed blessing and is now just blessedly mixed up.
On the bright side, all of Maureen’s cats can recite the dialogue from every episode of ‘Streets of San Francisco’ ever filmed.
Indeed. Why should they? The odds are abysmal, the environment massively hostile, and the costs astronomical for fathers. Most dads I work with would consider it a miracle to escape with their lives and joint custody.
You tacitly claim that the data I assert is anecdotal. Do you have the data on divorce and custody per gender? I mean, hard, irrefutable, documented data?
Your source isn’t reliable, nor is it realistic to make such an assumption when American women own billions more then men and support awards go to women the vast majority of the time.
But no-fault is universal. And ripe for abuse.
Aside from the acrimonious nature of the for-profit divorce, which is agreed, even if you don’t regard fully why and how it works, you’re not being complete.
Anecdotes?
As a former DA staffer, hearing you say that is disconcerting. you don’t begin to realize the depth of the problem of the federally-mandated, unconstitutional child support industry.
But do they get such? Statistically?
This is a total crock.
This claim was originally put forth by Lenore Weitzman, based on a survey she did that consisted of knocking on doors and asking divorced women to give her some figures about their family incomes pre- and post-divorce, and how much alimony and child support they received. She kept her data to herself for 10 years, rejecting every attempt to analyze them. When she finally relented, an economist named Richard Peterson found that Weitzman’s data didn’t support her claims.
But by this time, Weitzman had already been awarded the “Distinguished Scholar” award by the Am. Sociological Soc. and her claims had become the most widely-circulated lies in the history of American journalism.
The truth is that both men and women suffer a decline in standards of living post-divorce, but that when tax consequences are taken into consideration (something Weitzman didn’t do), men have it worse than women.
Similarly, the widely-reported failure of men to pay child support is a crock that’s drawn from the sliver of the population served by the federal IV-D child support collection program: never-married welfare mothers and their young, unskilled boyfriends. The child support compliance of formerly-married men is over 90%, roughly the same as the overall compliance of Americans with income tax.
The fact that we have servants of the state running around on blogs spreading crap like this Darleen character tells you a lot about what fathers are up against in family court.
6Gub
Good lord
1)if it’s bogus it can be reversed.. GO TO COURT
2)bogus
3)bogus – again, children are entitled to support from both parents. In CA there is a COMPUTER program (dissomaster) in which all financial and time facts from both parents are entered and support is then calculated. I cannot speak to how other jurisdictions calculate CS, but CA took the computer track to help ameloriate charges of “conspiracy.”
4) again… re CA, BOGUS
Strangely, you sneered at me about facts and statistics then offer up a list of arguably anecdotal, emotional charges with no substance.
Not that I’m surprised considering your first post of this thread was hostile – and not just to gender feminists—RE: domestic violence..YES women are just as likely to be aggressors but with the huge caveat that (1) DV is defined to include shoving and ripping the phone out of the wall to prevent 911 calls (2) women victims suffer much greater physical harm then men. RE: “women … abuse and kill more kids”. No on murder, yes on neglect, no on sexual abuse
Gender stereotyping? Geez, which one of us has been emotionally hysterical and the other offering up links and stats?
Note that Darleen’s murder stats count stepfathers as fathers. Stepfathers outperform natural fathers on child murder by 10:1.
This is lying with numbers.
Also, Darleen has probably never seen the insides of Dissomaster, in which the target is to transer 25% of the father’s income to the mother. Judges simply play with the timeshare number to get the desired result.
Richard
Oh… I’m a character…let the tears well in my eyes and go shut down my blog.
Want to link to that 90% compliance figure?
What did you miss where I stated that, by statute, in CA that children are entitled to support from BOTH parents and it has not a damned thing to do whether or not a judge had a bad cup of coffee that morning on what child support is awarded. Additionally, I was clear that divorce impacts both partners lifestyles because one is dividing income between TWO households.
If you would like to go back to the days of fault-divorce where the innocent partner can be awarded monetarily, either by the court or during negotiations with the partner that has to buy their way out … argue that. But do stop the hysterics that somehow the Vast Female Conspiracy is driving males who whine about financially supporting their children to the poorhouse.
I give great kudos to my husband who has never defaulted on one child support payment to his ex. ANECDOTALLY (ie from my personal experience), he’s rare.
Now, here’s more nice, hard stats… only 1/3 of the women as custodial parents (1/5 of custodial men) reporting on childsupport are “never married.”
The problems with much of this is that how childsupport is awarded and collected varies from state to state. Some states routinely award cs for children until age 21 or completion of college. In CA, it’s only until high school graduation or age 18 which ever comes first (or 19 if still in high school). Also in CA, wage assignments are automatic when child support is awarded… just as joint legal custody is defacto unless other wise stipulated or proven in court. AND mediation for matters of visitation is mandatory prior to any court appearance. If an order of cs is being administered through the Child Support offices, either party has a right to have the order formally reviewed annually (or sooner if there has been a 20% change in income).. does NOT entail having to hire an attorney.
Of course, all this talk about financials doesn’t even begin to try to quantify the intangibles the physical-custodial parent brings to the issue.
But heck, Dick, if you want to continue to weep like a little girl about the unfairness of the courts to poor defenseless males, carry on.
grammar check… just as joint legal custody is defacto …. defacto should be “default”
Hi, 6 Gun. Notwithstanding my affection for revolvers, I regret to inform you that you need to get fucked.
1) You offered up a suggestion that hundeds of years ago, nothing of consequence was really happening in terms of discrimination against women. I provided a few clarifications, all of them describing phenomena from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Maintaining that there never was sexism is like responding to a “black victocrat” mentality by stating that slavery never occurred in this country. Get fucked.
2) When I called you on it, you veered back into the present time and century. So get fucked.
3) You conflated me with Maureen Dowd. I’ll refrain from the violent imagery, since the notion is laughable: I myself am attractive and intelligent, unlike the idiot NYT columnist. However: get fucked.
4) You offer up all sorts of horror stories about Bad Things That Have Happened to Fathers, ignoring that there are also lots of Bad Things That Happened to Mothers. Consequently, get fucked.
5) My own father was living on the East Coast in the mid-1970s when I was 13, and my brother was 15. After deciding that the original divorce settlement was wrong, he had paid his own made-up amount for years. But at this point he decided that he was simply going to stop. In this decision he was presumably “helped” by his then-wife, who put her own child’s needs ahead of ours—though she knew damned well we existed when he married her.
Consequently, my brother was able to sweet-talk a college education out of my mother. My half-sister was given one as a matter of course by our father. But when I found that I was unable to support myself through school—and that I could not stomach letting men support me while I finished my education—I dropped out. Because my mother was nuts, which my father knew all along. Yet he still abandoned me in favor of his second daughter.
In conclusion, get fucked.
Darleen has probably never seen the insides of Dissomaster, in which the target is to transer 25% of the father’s income to the mother. Judges simply play with the timeshare number to get the desired result.
Oooooo..aaaaah… BECAUSE OF THE MATRIARCHY!
Dick, I buy that as much as I buy Amanda Marcott’s “I blame MEN” rants.
Richard, I realize I left you out. So I’ll respond to your odd argument that a man can move in with a woman who has a child, marry her and possibly adopt the child or children, and then kill one or more of those children without . . .
without it being a bad thing?
without it being an ill done by men?
something that doesn’t reflect badly on them or their gender, because they are not the “natural fathers” [how quaint!] of those children.
By the way: get fucked.
Paraphrasing ever so slightly: But heck, Rosa Parks, if you want to continue to weep like a little girl about the unfairness of the courts to poor defenseless negroes, carry on.
Darleen, the child support collection system in California was created by SB 542 (Burton). Before this measure was passed, the legislature convened a joint session of four committees to hear testimony from a panel of invited experts. I was one of them. In my testimony I showed that the success of a child support collection system can be predicted by two factors: the level of the obligation and the number of never-married parents in the system. California is one of the top five states in terms of the level of the obligation, and one of the bottom five states in collection success. Do the math.
Nobody here is complaining about a matriarchy except you; I ascribe the inequities in the family law to Democratic Party pandering to the women’s vote.
Attila Girl: take those meds, your doctor is your friend.
Sigh. No Darleen, because of Title IV-D. You were in the DA office; read it yet? It paid your wages.
I maintained, little feminist girl, that today the pendulum has swung.
Er, yes, they have, and the point would be? Mine are those damn statistics. I dislike, um, what was it? Oh. Institutionalized sexism. For profit.
Grrr. Get fucked?
Has anyone ever seen Maureen Dowd smile?
Here you go, Salt Lick.
How open minded. But I’m still offended that a former DA staffer refuses to admit that the three step program is part and parcel of the divorce industry:
1. Being mom, and a statistical majority abuser of children, allege DV against dad, bogus or otherwise;
2. Receive house and said kids;
3. Make your tidy new “primary caregiver” status official in court.
If you want to be taken seriously Darleen, factor that.
Atilla: Go fuck yourself
No, 6 Gun, you did not. Because had you said that, I would have agreed. You simply denied that things were lopsided the other way for centuries, and then addressed me as “Maureen Dowd” when I indicated otherwise.
Your original idea of “statistics” was a litany of complaints against Big Bad Women and the Big Bad State that Supports Their Exploitation of Poor Wittle Men, such as:
1. Being thrown out of your property on a bogus restraining order;
Which, of course, never happens to women.
2. Losing your kids without recourse; a type of legalized, unilateral kidnapping;
Which, of course, never happens to women. Nor does kidnapping of children by husbands from Saudi Arabia who then take the children to the Kingdom, knowing our own federal government will do nothing about it.
3. Paying what amounts to ransom to maybe see them;
Which never happens to women. And noncustodial parents never get the state to support their parental rights.
4. Risking child support debtor’s prison for being a dad and having to deal with a law that makes even unjust “awards†of support uncorrectable;
We don’t have debtor’s prison. There is Debtor’s Anonymous. If you’re having trouble managing your finances, you might try it.
5. Attorneys presenting these tactics as a norm of practice;
Personally, as one of the officers of the National Female Oppression Network, I presented the motion that we subsidize the training of unethical lawyers.
6. Facing a 85/15 gender disadvantage in primary custody and child support, worse in DV claims, all the while having killed or abused far fewer children;
Yes. The parent who killed more children is generally given preference in family courts. You have us there.
7. Having no legal recourse whatsoever against an ex spouse who commits felonies against custody or yourself;
Get a better lawyer.
8. Being refused due process because of sex;
Get a better lawyer.
9. Being refused equal representation under the law. Local DA’s are ruthlessly pro-mom, as are anti-DV groups who share in the fraud of false restraining orders and manipulate court policy accordingly;
Get a better lawyer.
10. Being refused equal services when abused, which you are as much as 50% of the time. Reporting less than half of all abuse against you out of shame or fear of being denied;
Pick up the phone. Call the cops. Or someone.
11. Being refused presumption of innocence;
Or being accused of having a persecution complex. One of the two.
12. Having to pay support for kids you didn’t father on the basis of a simple claim to the Court from someone you never met; <i>
A lot of us are against that, and if you’d be nice rather than antagonizing us, we could fight it together. Instead, you prefer to piss people off. Interesting approach.
<i>13. Generally being discriminated against due to your gender;
Couldn’t #8 have been folded into this?
14. Title IV-D;
15. VAWA;
16. Federal kickbacks of 66% of every child support dollar collected locally. Talk about incentive.
Same same. On and on and on. You sure know how to make friends–and arguments.
Bitter Pill: Fine. Shall I use the Hitachi Magic Wand, or do you prefer the organic approach? We aim to please.
– If anyone thought the war of the sexes was over, or that theres anything but acrimony when dealing with support/alimony, the preceeding should clear that one up in a hurry…
– Just the tip of the iceburg. Hopefully not Anecdotal since mine are from personal experience….
– In Cal the first thing the court does in any custodial process is to show both parties, and the immediate family members, a video focusing on the single idea that they strongly guard against fighting the divorce case through their children. Its almost a handbook of bad, child abusive approaches, one can use to “get the other”. Of course in many cases thats exactly what they do forthwith….
– Divorce they say, is right up there next to a death in the family, maybe in some ways worse because it never really gets resolved. Is it any wonder that it should be so contentious. Its like a murder thats re-enacted every waking day, until the litigants are finally dead.
– But hey. I take exception to comparing Attila Girl to MoDo…. Now thats nasty and uncalled for…Ad Hominem attacks are the stuff of the koolaide drinkers and never add a thing to a discussion… And that from a man who payed his share of support payments, had to live out of my car at times to stay current, and ended up raising my youngest on my own because an itenerate wife walked out cold….
– Lets face it. If life were fair MoDo wouldn’t have to beg for dates……
6Gun
Bullshit. Your “3-step” is unadulterated bovine excrement. I’m now in the criminal DA and if you think the cops and issuing DDA’s are part of some grand Matriarchal conspiracy to charge men with DV with no sufficient evidence to support such a charge….
Go fuck yourself*.
*kudos to AG.
AG
Heaven forfend that locals get fed incentives to help collect court-ordered child support.
I mean, like no one has their wages garnished for small claims judgments or awards from personal injury judgments.
Just who the hell do these custodial parents think they are?!?
Are you dense too? I made light of the fact people like you, Artillary Girl, conveniently overlook engineered contemporary gender discrimination and the harm it causes out of a tacit, blind revenge. Are you into reparations too?
I’d be happy, albeit inconvenienced in dealing with your bias and slander, itemizing every claim I made. I already began the task for you and judging from your rant, it’s you who should go to work. Load up Google, parse for baseless conventional wisdom, feminist doublespeak, and simple hatred, and review the bottom line data yourself.
Here’s one: Darleen’s from California; I’m next door in Nevada. I hazard to suggest that Nevada’s two major demo- and psychographics—Las Vegas and Reno—are not at all unlike LA, SF, and SD, and therefore not too much unlike the rest of the country. In Nevada, Atilla Girl, women enjoy preferential treatment, some 80% of all sole or primary custody, yet commit nearly 63% of all child abuse.
http://www.dcfs.state.nv.us/2002Statistics-Final.pdf
Need more? Seriously, there’s a ton out there, all of if quiet federal- or state-level statistical material that refutes feminist dogma. Have at it.
Sigh. It happens to women. But to what ratio? Answer the question.
Again, your point? I’m talking about Modo’s backyard, bastion of democracy and, as I believe I stereotyped them, her ugly sweaty fat guys. I already know the Saudis are animals, as I’m sure you surmised and conveniently ignored. Nice stretch.
Oh, and speaking of the Mideast.
Speak to the issue, AG: What’s the ratio?
And noncustodial male parents rarely get the state to do a damn thing. I speak from some experience as a local father’s daughter was taken from court-ordered joint custody, medicated covertly with dangerous drugs by a mother the court called an alienator and obstructor, and finally returned 11.5 months later. She’s off the drugs and, no surprise, now won’t return to mom’s.
Did the courts help? What do you think? His 30-page complaint, including criminal citations, is on the AG’s desk and even with a half dozen felonies committed, nothing whatsoever’s being done. That, AG, is par for the course. Meanwhile he was diagnosed with post traumatic stress, chronic fatigue, and as of this year, three months after his daughter’s return, terminal leukemia. He might survive to see her graduate high school.
We do have a debtor’s prison, unconstitutional as it is, and managing finances has nothing to do with it. We call them deadbeat fathers and the legal mechanism to get around the illegality of debtor’s prison is called a contempt citation. Neat trick, huh? Once again you and Darleen are talking out your ass without those numbers, and she’s doing it deliberately. How many moms do you know who have been beaten to death in jail for child support?
I don’t doubt it. Was it the cash?
Refute me then.
Really. You know our friend’s story. He fired attorney in order to convincingly win his case pro bono. You can’t be serious … and obviously aren’t.
Tell it to the DA who presses a child support while you’re overseas serving the country, and that’s just for starters. (Your gross inexperience isn’t making much of a case, AG.)
Get a better grasp of the numbers.
Can’t. DV shelters are female only. It’s local private policy and it’s pretty much universal. Ever been to a men’s shelter? Thought not.
I take my constitutional rights seriously. Do you, or is it all hung on empty anti-discrimination rhetoric and cognitive dissonance? At least until you out yourslf as more or less without an argument.
“Go fuck yourself.”
Fixed link:
http://www.dcfs.state.nv.us/2002 Statistics-Final.pdf
Once more: Add “20%” between 2002 and statistics.
Darleen, before your professional female DDA sensibilities tell me to go fuck myself again, kindly give me your respective ratios of male and female DV calls and arrests, then provide custody and child support awards by gender in your polite little burg.
1. Nationally, DV is an equal opportunity offender.
2. Nationally, mom gets custody seven times more than dad. You figure it out; I’ve tried.
By the way, what town was that? And your position there?
Married Friend: So B Moe, when you gonna get hitched again?
B Moe: Not anytime soon.
Married Friend: Seriously, don’t you ever get the urge to get hitched and settle down?
B Moe: Sometimes, but I stick my dick in a live light socket and it goes away.
– *sigh* … Just one more reason why statistics can do more harm than good:
6Gun – If 80% fem parents do 63% abuse then thats 63/80, or approx. 0.79 cases of abuse per female custodial parent. If 20% male parents do 37% abuse then thats 37/20 or 1.85 cases of abuse per male custodial parent. Doesn’t exactly support your claim.
– On the other hand I think your contention that the system is heavily biased in favor of the ladies is probably true to some degree. I’ve seen it myself personally. But the system has to be, by neccessity, based on some GENERALLY accepted ideas. One of them is the idea that of the two parents the women will GENERALLY be the more nuturing for the children. Maybe thats changed in todays world. But I have to say I still think in GENERAL thats true. I keep having to use the modifier “general” because of course there are instances where the exact opposite is true. My own case couldn’t be more of an example if she tried. But thats not the point.
– I wonder if MoDo switched to Bill Blass CFM little red party dresses and some 6 inch stilletto’s she would have better luck…..
6Gun
Friday we filed charges against a father, unemployed while wife worked full time, for causing 14 fractures to his two-month old daughter.
Of the PC273.5 incustody cases I see on a daily basis, 2/3 of them are male on female. Sometimes perps/offenders are gays or lesbians, sometimes female on male. Most of them will be misdemeanor filings (even filed as PC243e1) as the DV was nothing more than shoving or one keeping the other from calling for help. Many will be “turndowns” due to insufficient evidence – most likely because evidence shows mutual combat. But if we are talking felony PC273.5a… with broken bones, slashed faces, severe bruising.. vast majority of time that will be male on female. Men just are more capable of beating the sh*t out of women and, in a huge frustration for our victim/witness advocates and the Family Violence DDA’s, too many women WON’T LEAVE THEIR ABUSERS. They are intimidated by physical threats, economics threats and THREATS AGAINST THEIR CHILDREN.
When men are murder victims, and they are the majority of all murder victims, only 3% of the time will their murderer be a wife or girlfriend. Woman as victims – 26% of the time will be murdered by a husband or boyfriend.
and you STILL LIE about stats concerning crimes against children
You have continued to cough up the 80% have sole or primary custody without ever explaining:
The differences between legal and physical custody (there can be joint LEGAL custody while the kids live with mom or dad the majority of the time ie physical custody).
Of that 80%, how much of it was STIPULATED TO by the parties themselves (ie how much of it was fathers who didn’t want to be sole or majority physical custodians) and breakdown by age of the children involved. As children get older, their wishes hold more sway with the court. And infants and toddlers are rarely going to be awarded solely to fathers unless stipulated to or if the mother is unable to care for them.
Children do BEST when growing up in an intact home with their married, parents. I’m sorry divorce ever has to happen. And I don’t pretend that settling it through the courts is all skittles and beer. However, when a contract ends but responsbilities and obligations continue, there has to be a mechanism to deal with the cases. Some adults are able to have a working divorce (my husband and his ex), and some live their lives cutting off their nose to spite their ex spouse (my ex…long story).
It is worthy to pursue correcting inequities and injustices (automatic DNA testing when custody cases are filed is a good thing)… but old shibboleths about cops, DA’s and judges all being in a grand matriarchal conspiracy against nothing but pure of heart men don’t help the case at all.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. I’m not going to debate you guys on family law. But just be aware that whatever inequities exist now are much more likely to be corrected if you don’t hysterically condemn the opposite sex. Instead, try working with reasonable-minded people to make things better.
Or, you know: continue to alienate others. Your call.
No. I never have been. And I have no idea whatsoever why you are projecting this stuff onto me. In case you hadn’t figured it out, it’s highly offensive to me that you’re doing it. One more time:
* You did not “make light” of past centuries’ discrimination against women; you denied that it had occurred, which is akin to denying slavery or the holocaust.
* I’m not “conveniently overlooking” anything; I’ve specified that at present family courts probably are still skewed in favor of women. I’d like to see this change.
* I’ve never advocated “tacit, blind revenge”–I’d prefer that these matters be as fair to both sexes as possible. I really don’t know where you get this garbage, or persist in ascribing it to me.
* “People like me”–is this another way of comparing me to MoDo? She’s an ass; I didn’t even click on the link to her article, but only read the excerpt Jeff provided, because 1) I don’t want to give her traffic, and 2) I can’t stand to read her stuff.
You might read over your first few comments in this thread if you’d like to know why you offended (at least) two potential allies.
But, of course, I suspect you won’t.
– Continuing the thought from my previous post, if the statistics you yourself provided 6Gun are accurate, it means in plain words a male parent custodian is more likely to abuse by a factor of 1.85/.78, or approximately 2.4 times as much as a fem custodial parent. When you look at that, avoiding the “oh wow” factors that people like to get hung up on when looking just at total numbers, its actually a wonder the court isn’t more biased toward the woman than they are…
– Just as an example, if the court were to adjust the percentages closer to 50%, they would be perpetuating an increase of greater than 2 times the abuse cases. Do the math.
– I think one thing that everyone involved in a divorce tend to burry is that fact that your personal feelings often times outways the true considerations of “whats really best for the children”. This sadly is true of all partys including the law officials….
– Maybe if we were all trained to understand the traumatic family effects, not to mention the economic destruction, that swirls around divorce, we might pay just a bit more attention to those vows when we take them. Unfortunately there probably isn’t nearly as much money in good marriage preperation and training as there is in the divorce industry…
– Oh and MoDo, we moved you back a few rows in the gaggle because someone leaked that you’re a closet thespian. We just can’t have that in a front row reporter….I’m sure you understand… nothing personal….
That damn ‘dillo snuk in and changed “outweighs” to “outways”…. honest … he hates me….
But she trained at a good school.
Attila: unclench. You’ll be a happier person. Love and peace babycakes.
Ed—Thanks for the link, which apparently is of Ms. Dowd smiling? I’m denied acess. To her. To her smile. What a tease.
Sigh indeed.
If mom gets primary custody 7 times more than dad, a documented, verified, reliable statistic, it has to do with primary custody status and gender discrimination and not the price of tea.
If women then nationally commit approximately 60% of all child abuse, which they do, the onus is on the state and it’s radfem henchmen to explain (1) where the sexism comes in and why, and (2) why their various agencies institute an almost exclusive male-batterer mentality.
Don’t tell me the stats conflict. Your stretched point actually precedes your conclusion with your own bias:
You need to be far, far more precise. When between a third and forty percent of all DV is committed by women, and when 60% of all child abuse is committed by women, and when no-fault and the welfare state breed single family households, which are enormously more harmful to kids in every single major performance and abuse category, and when you generally tacitly conclude then that this is still all grounds to violate a parent’s constitutional rights to freedom, equal rights and treatment, property, due process, and the like, which is what the current system does, and overwhelmingly to men, there’s a substantial problem with “generally”.
That your logic then constitutes a great performance by women per capita and that the system is well, kind fair, but not maybe really, is obvious nonsense.
Mom’s are favored by the system. Moms are more destructive. The conventional wisdom is flat wrong and we’re finding that out across the nation.
The question in this thread nobody wants to answer is what is the relative importance of a father’s constitutional rights, which were obviously intended to be primary to justice, and how can we defend they’re being ignored and trampled by a feminist industry that has huge resources and institutions and policies on the ground, in both the private and public sector.
In short, the System is biased to a degree that simply conflicts with the facts.
Moms are more destructive
What an unadulterated liar you are.
Misogynist you should be shut in a room with misandrist Amanda or MoDo and the rest of us could be peacefully shut of you all.
– Well it seems we’ve moved beyond the lines of honest debate into the realm of “I hate you fucking gold digging bitches…and you too Dowd”, so I’m off the bus.
– MoDo…. Chirac’s office called…. you left your gold lame’ panties in his mercedes…
Darleen, you are obviously enraged and biased and it’s not my intent to play into that. That you proudly proclaim yourself a taxpaid DA staffer in the state of California while telling me to get fucked and calling me what amounts to a pathological liar and a misogynist is equally disconcerting.
I’ll also remind us that you probably operate on ostensibly gender-equivalent state and matching federal Title IV-D funds, but you refuse to reveal where your office is while spouting the traditional feminist rage and verbal abuse.
Where is your office, Darleen? Does your superior know you’re posting?
Not an encouraging sign, not the way I want my public servants behaving, and not an effective way to lobby your position. Since you’re not speaking to a solution, I suggest that you’re part of the problem.
So far you’ve refused to address the ratio of DV arrests versus primary custody awards by gender. You’ve refused to refute one of my points rationally without resorting to proofs by assertions and diversions into limited case histories.
Nonetheless, I’d be able (but inconvenienced) to waste more time posting a couple dozen accounts, each with headline links of the last few months, to murdering moms and abusing moms and murdering and abusing third party women and sex abusing female teachers and so on and so on. We can go tit for tat all day if you’d like but sooner or later the tenuous nature of your position will out itself. It’s your call.
So you have no case. You have no facts that speak to the issue of gender discrimination against men in state, federal, and local social policy, both public and private. You cannot explain why women get the lion’s share of federal subsidies while statistically not deserving them. You won’t address why your own legislature will likely tell you flat out that fathers suffer as the result of a vast and powerful women’s lobby. You won’t address VAWA, the DHHS, welfare, Title IV-D, custody and abuse statistics, or your own rage at having to be asked to make rational sense out of them all.
You’re biased in the extreme. Apparently you’re a n angry, selective, secretive, cognitively-challenged member of the very industry that is finally being asked by the nation to account for 40 years of intentional discrimination against fathers.
And you obviously don’t like it.
I’m misogynist? Hardly. Your using the word is almost as cute as it is empty of meaning. Go to the points and facts and do it with the respect a public servant should show the public.
You can abuse me all day long, Darleen, but that you’re also probably abusing the constituency you’re paid to protect equally and without bias is what concerns me.
When I won my case after a year of abuse by a clinically disturbed and abusive ex, the lead self-help attorney at the court building, a woman, welled up in tears as she thanked me for hanging in there for nine years of constant abuse and contempt from my ex, and three years of trial by fire in an obviously feminist court system against the ex’s high-powered attorney and equally abusive and illegal millionaire 2nd husband. She told me that just about all fathers just pack their bags and walk out of their own children’s life.
I’m guessing her 40 years experience counts as much as you assert yours does.
No DA or DDA lifted a finger to help my daughter and I except to wisk the attendant child support case against me for my ex’s own abuse of custody completely off the table as she all but pled with me to sign a new order voiding every scrap of a claim my ex’s party ever brought.
Today the ex is again in contempt. The female DDA, as usual, is mum. Don’t you ever presume to browbeat me into compliance, Darleen.
6Gun…. parading your own persdonal conflicts in a particulary difficult and abusive instance, while informative, hardly constitutes a conspiracy. While I might agree the system is biased, I do not subscribe to your over the top, its all a conspiracy, the bitches are out to get us emotional gushing.
– And btw…. Darlene is a brilliant writer, one whom you’d be lucky to carry her water bottle for. Her rights to blog do not hinge on your personal approvals asshole.
I join the majority of posters on here, male and female that feel you have earned a well deserved:
– Go fuck yourself putz…..