Live From Glenn Sacks’s Blog: Child Custody, Part One
Published by Lisa Kansas October 16th, 2008 in Family, Feminism, Men's Rights ActivismPart One of my two-part series on child custody after divorce is up over at Glenn Sacks’s “Feminist Dissident;” I actually wrote it as one piece, but it was a trifle on the lengthy side so Glenn split it up into two parts. When Part Two comes out I will throw up a link to that as well; Glenn said he’d probably post it a few days after Part One. To allow those who wish to examine Part One from a pro-feminist/feminist-friendly perspective to actually be able to do so in a constructive fashion, the fabulous violet and I will be heavily moderating any comments made about the article over here on this thread at PAB.
As you’ll see, Part One is simply an in-depth look at what child custody requests are made by which genders and how often those are agreed to by the courts, and speculates as to why. Part Two will express my own opinions about how child custody should be assigned.
Aside: It’s kindof startling to me the number of comments at that site that are fixated on women (and by “women,” I mean specifically, “my ex-wife,”) are evil, evil bitches.
In terms of the post, the statistics aren’t especially surprising; I’m looking forward to your analysis. In particular,
It would be neat to address why those desires come to be in the first place; patriarchal institutions are effective not just because they keep us from doing what we want, but more significantly, because they tell us what to want.
I suppose that’s one thing that MRAs have going for them—at least some are questioning why it is that men are supposed to want these certain things, and whether that construction of masculinity is actually healthy or desirable for them.
Ick, and the first comment is about that stupid “child support break-down”. What, exactly do they want to know? I spent the 100 dollars you gave me as PART of the heat?
It’s impossible, of course. Currency is the most fungible commodity there is, intentionally so.
Violet, I wish more MRAs would look and see what damage the “masculine” stereotype does to them. However, my experience with them is, they want to keep the “cool” parts of it but discard the rest…while expecting women to keep all the “feminine” stereotypes to please them, and yet simultaneously nobly refuse any of the meager benefits such stereotypes impart to women.
Lisa thanks for the article. There are a few questions and comments that came to my mind as reading it.
1. Most parents seem to what their kids. I’m curious about the why on the ones that don’t. Maybe they don’t fell they’ll be a good parent, they’re incarcerated, the child isn’t their biological child, or they view themselves as unimportant to their child? I’m just guessing here.
2. I find it interesting that regardless of who makes the request, there’s at least about a 1 in 3 chance that the request will be granted (this 1 in 3 is from the mostly unlikely to be granted request). So even the most disagreeable of request from the judge’s perspective is still granted about a third of the time.
3. I’m curious about how much agreement there was amongst mother and father? How many times did both parties in the divorce make the same request?
4. The data shows us what the outcomes of the request were, is there any evidence on what the parties expected going into the divorce that would have affected the request they would make? Did the parties anticipate some form of bias?
That’s it for now. Once again thanks for the writing the article.
With (1), your guess is as good as mine…with (2), yeah, I noticed that too. I’m hoping that’s a positive sign…with (3), I wondered that myself–I think it must have been true some of the time at least; wish the study had provided that info. With (4) again, yeah, one thing this study highlighted (at least for me) is that just looking at court records doesn’t give anywhere near a complete picture of the dynamics of the divorce situation. (Still, it’s better than nothing, which was where the information level stood before the study was performed.)
That was a really interesting read, Lisa. There’s one thing that I always want to know when I see MRAs making arguments about child custody and child support: what are they doing at home?
I know very, very few people whose fathers put in as much work at home as their mothers did when they were children. After my mother died, I and my two siblings put far more work into caring for our home and each other than my father did, far more. I know few straight couples my own age where the man puts in as much work at home as the woman, but there’s more of them than there is of the older generation. Personally I despise housework and will do any amount of garden work to get out of it, yet I still do more than my husband.
I do not want this to be true, but it is. I do not want women to be the primary carers in heterosexual families, but they are. I personally have no firsthand experience of custody battles, but when MRAs talk about them they seem to see the presence of children in their lives as a privilege rather than what it actually is - a job. So if they were talking about stepping up, about doing the work at home, about being equal or primary carers, and if they did it and that started showing up in the stats, then I’d fully support their fight for fairer custody.
I want to see men embracing work at home to the degree that women have embraced careerism before I can believe this one, basically.
Just a reminder, folks–as it says in the post for this thread, the discussion here at PAB on the child custody articles is pro-feminist/feminist-friendly only. For the free-for-all discussion, hop over to Glenn’s site. Heavy moderation of this thread is in effect.
One of the limitations of a narrowly focussed quantitative study such as this one (and I happen to think the narrow focus and quantitative nature were also strengths of the study) is that there’s not a lot of room in the data for the stories that Lisa and thebigmanfred (and I) want. If you’re just looking at cases filed, you can’t really know what discussions happened before those cases were filed. You can’t know what the home situation was. I suppose you could look at the judges’ reasons for their decisions, one way or the other, and group those, and that might show you something, but that doesn’t seem to be in the data presented in this study—again, it might have been outside the scope of the study.
Thanks for the numbers. Looking forward to the analysis.
I think I will write up an in-depth “opinion” analysis of the number–I’ll post it over here, though, not at Glenn’s. No sense in raising the blood pressure over there any more than I already do.
I’m saddened by how many of the commenters there seem to think that there’s a gender war, and how many are prepared to make blanket statements about what women want and do—women “marry up,” etc. I wonder if feminists of the sort I hang out with make such blanket statements about men. I think I personally tend to be more specific in my denegrations of groups of people, but I’m now going to watch my language and that of my fellow feminists very carefully.
Zingerella, there is no shortage of men who not only think there is a Gender War, but also that feminists “started it” and are currently fighting it. Your perspective counts by the way.
By way of example, I’m sure your average Iraqi has a far different perspective on the “War on Terror” than your average American. Being in the “power position” allows all sorts of self-delusion. Surprising I would have to explain this to a feminist actually.
“Zingerella, there is no shortage of men who not only think there is a Gender War, but also that feminists “started it” and are currently fighting it. Your perspective counts by the way.”
Factory,
I don’t know of any feminists who want to wage war with men. What many (possibly most) feminists want - if we really must speak in these terms - is for men to stop waging war -on- us…”us” being women.
“I know very, very few people whose fathers put in as much work at home as their mothers did when they were children. After my mother died, I and my two siblings put far more work into caring for our home and each other than my father did, far more. I know few straight couples my own age where the man puts in as much work at home as the woman, but there’s more of them than there is of the older generation. Personally I despise housework and will do any amount of garden work to get out of it, yet I still do more than my husband.
I do not want this to be true, but it is. I do not want women to be the primary carers in heterosexual families, but they are. I personally have no firsthand experience of custody battles, but when MRAs talk about them they seem to see the presence of children in their lives as a privilege rather than what it actually is - a job. So if they were talking about stepping up, about doing the work at home, about being equal or primary carers, and if they did it and that started showing up in the stats, then I’d fully support their fight for fairer custody.”
Thene,
You put into words damn near my exact feelings on this matter. My experience with sooo many men is that they are barely interested in the children until -after- separation begins to take place. Then suddenly they want to have equal time with the kids even though they put in far less work on childrearing than the woman involved. I also don’t think MRAs see having children as a privilege. I believe they see it as an -entitlement- (I also believe that far to many men see children and their wives as possessions). The fact of the matter is that being a parent is both a job and a privilege; it is not a right.
One must earn the privilege of being a parent. One does not earn that privilege simply by donating a bit of sperm. One doesn’t even earn that privilege by giving birth. Women aren’t entitled to raise our kids if we do a lousy job at it either.
Factory, I’m not sure what you mean by “your perspective counts.” Do you mean that my views on gender are feeding into the perception that there is a gender war and that feminists started it? Or do you mean that, in the grander rhetorical scheme of things, my perspective has value?
If the former, I’d be most interested in the particulars of how you see my personal perspective as contributing to the notion that feminists wage war on men. If the latter, well, thanks ever so. You’ve alleviated my deep existential insecurities ;P
Faith, too much is still dependent upon which judge and which lawyers are involved in the case, as well as how much money the father has to fight for something that should be a basic right, the right to be a parent.
A direct quote from Lisa over at GS’s blog, a quote with which I agree completely.
Treading a thin line here, folks…however, if you want to keep treading it or even cross it entirely, it’s up to you–this thread was initially made feminist-friendly upon request, not ’cause I had a preference one way or the other. Thene, Zing, Faith–do you want to engage with non-feminist-friendly folks on this thread? Or not? Let me know!
“Thene, Zing, Faith–do you want to engage with non-feminist-friendly folks on this thread? Or not? Let me know!”
It’s your ballgame. I personally don’t terribly mind reasonably civil remarks from MRAs. As long as the thread doesn’t get swamped with MRAs screaming, “The Feminists are great big meanies and we don’t like it and it’s all their fault we’re angry and our life sucks!! Feminazis!!”…I’ll probably be o.k.
For my part, Lisa, I’m fine with reasoned, polite argument, based in accurate reporting of facts and people’s previous statements. I’m fine with civil answers to direct questions.
I grow weary of ad feminam statements and wild generalizations about what women believe or do and what feminists believe or do.
I shall, however, do my best not to bait or steer the questions closer to that line. It were perhaps better that I not comment on affairs over at Glenn’s blog here—that’s not playing fair, I guess, as the commenters there would then have to come here to explain their reasoning and rhetoric to me.
Cool. Thread will be moderated for insults and overgeneralizations; those making such insults and overgeneralizations will be warned once. If they fail to take heed, all future comments by said person(s) in this particular thread will be replaced with HypnoToad vids.
“Faith, too much is still dependent upon which judge and which lawyers are involved in the case, as well as how much money the father has to fight for something that should be a basic right, the right to be a parent.”
Mjaybee,
As I’ve already stated, I’m not sure that being a parent is a basic right. Rights can not be taken away from a person for any reason. I believe that people have the right to reproduce, but being an actual parent is a job and -privilege-. If one does not do the job adequately one can lose the -privilege- of being a parent. I’d honestly like to know why MRAs believe that men have some right to being a parent if they do not put much to any effort into being an actual parent before a divorce (and possibly may not put much effort into parenting after divorce even if they receive partial, or even complete, custody). As I’ve also already stated, I believe that this attitude comes mainly from so many men viewing children and their wives as possessions and status symbols rather than real live human beings. It has also been my experience that many men will only fight for custody simply because they are abusive and want to punish the mother by taking away the children.
And as far as money is concerned, women are far less likely than men to be able to afford court costs/lawyers, etc. Men still control over 90% of the capital on the entire planet…
Being a parent consists of financially supporting a family as well. Why should someone automatically have primary rights to parentage if she shirked contributing financially to a family before a divorce?
Regardless, there are numerous cases where female child molesters and abusers received custody preferentially over fathers of children. Gender should not confer automatic rights to parentage.
Also?
Gracious, there’s a lot of information up on the Canadian DoJ’s site on this subject!
I’m not sure I have time to read many of these documents (I have a book to get to the printer’s before closing today, several literacy documents to edit and spec., and it’s after 16h00 already), but some interesting-looking ones for any who care to do more homework than I have time for in the gaps between proofs:
Federal / Provincial / Territorial Consultations on Custody, Access and Child Support
The Survey of Child Support Awards: Interim Analysis of Phase 2 Data (October 1998 to March 2000)
Keeping Contact with Children: Assessing the Father/Child Post-separation Relationship from the Male Perspective
All the current research and data a research wank could desire.
Faith:
You said, “And as far as money is concerned, women are far less likely than men to be able to afford court costs/lawyers, etc. Men still control over 90% of the capital on the entire planet… ”
That is incorrect. For instance, by 2010, women will control the majority of wealth in the United States. See the Allianz wealth management survey cited here:
http://knowledge.allianz.com/en/globalissues/demographic_change/gender_diversity/women_money_us.html
As male Baby Boomers die off and their wealth is transferred to their spouses, this wealth transfer will only accelerate in coming years in the US.
Also, see here (http://tinyurl.com/5eywr6) for more info, including the following:
# Women account for more than 50 percent of all stock ownership in the United States. By 2010, women will account for half the private wealth in the country, or about $14 trillion. By 2020, you can expect that number to reach $22 trillion as wealth continues to shift from men to women.
# When women and men of equal education, abilities, and similar social status are compared, the pay disparity disappears. Those women make as much as, if not more than, their male counterparts. Forty-one percent of the 3.3 million Americans with incomes exceeding $500,000 are women.
# Women control or influence 67 percent of household investment decisions. Forty-three percent of Americans with $500,000 or more in investable assets are women.
# Women control 48 percent of estates worth more than $5 million
Clearly your 90% figure is wrong, certainly for the US, the country with the largest GDP on the planet.
You also mentioned, “I’ve also already stated, I believe that this attitude comes mainly from so many men viewing children and their wives as possessions and status symbols”. I don’t know where you get your beliefs from.
When I look at female celebrities adopting children from abroad, I can’t think of a more grotesque status symbol. Your comments are also quite self-contradictory where men are concerned - if they presumably care little for their children, why would they consider them status symbols?
Lastly, given the custody entitlement family courts grant women, one could much more reasonably frame the situation as children being the chattel of women during a divorce, whose upkeep is financed by their father with the enforcement of the state behind her. Certainly not the chattel of their disenfranchised fathers.
Let me say also, in the interest of full disclosure, that I have lesbian friends who have been devastated by their partners (the birth mother, usually the primary caregiver) moving away after a divorce and generally trying to cut their children out of their partners’ lives.
Likewise, all the people I know who have been harmed by Parental Alienation Syndrome are women, whose vindictive ex-spouses continually badmouth them to their children.
These issues cut both ways, and to argue that one group or another is somehow deficient or incapable of parenting just because of who they are is, in my opinion, biased and wrong, and ultimately harmful to children.
Mjaybee:
It’s telling that you used the pronoun “she” in this. But, that’s aside from the point: contributing financially to family has very little to do with who raised the child, and if all one parent did was financially, and very little emotional “heavy-lifting”, what precisely would be the change if s/he lost physical custody and provided child-support? This might be sarcastic, but it’s deadly serious: if all one was to a child was “a wallet” before the divorce, why should it suddenly change after the divorce?
I’m sorry, but PAS is bullshit, and dangerous bullshit at that. No legitimate psychological institute considers it a disease; it is the last (but unfortunately, probably not the final) in a long line of made-up psychology for a political point. It is very true that you should not badmouth the other parent in front of children, but it’s a big leap from “you shouldn’t do that” to “you’re causing your child psychological harm”.
There should be no gender preference in custody. However, the primary caregiver standard has NOTHING TO DO WITH GENDER. I’ve seen the course precedents: never once is gender used as a standard.
Antigone using that standard of evidence i can disprove every instance of sexism that you might claim that happens against women.
Antigone:
That depends. Were there circumstances that prevented the parent from being more than “a wallet”? If one parent works in a occupation that hinders them from being more involved with their child before the divorce what kind of custody should they get after the divorce? This is one option. Another option is that the parent has changed. Maybe the parent no longer wants to be “a wallet” and wants to be more involved?
“That is incorrect. For instance, by 2010, women will control the majority of wealth in the United States. See the Allianz wealth management survey cited here:”
According to that -one- article, it states women will control 60% of the wealth in the U.S. by the year 2010. I don’t buy that for one damn minute, but it also does not take into consideration that the USA is not the world. I do not see the point in discussing these particular subjects from a US-centric view. It’s as if some people believe people outside the US don’t exist or do not matter. And even if this article is true (which I flat-out don’t believe), it still does not take into consideration that over 60% of the people living in the US who are actually poor are women and children. Single women, particularly single mothers, are far more likely to be poor than men.
http://poverty.suite101.com/article.cfm/feminization_of_poverty
http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/
“When I look at female celebrities adopting children from abroad, I can’t think of a more grotesque status symbol. Your comments are also quite self-contradictory where men are concerned - if they presumably care little for their children, why would they consider them status symbols?”
I don’t believe female celebrities adopt children abroad as status symbols. I believe they do it because they actually care about the kids. My comments about men seeing children as status symbols are not contradictory in the slightest. I said they tend to only care about them -because- they view them as status symbols. They also tend to view them as someone they can use, abuse, and control…like their wives.
“Lastly, given the custody entitlement family courts grant women, one could much more reasonably frame the situation as children being the chattel of women during a divorce, whose upkeep is financed by their father with the enforcement of the state behind her. Certainly not the chattel of their disenfranchised fathers.”
Or one could see this as recognizing the reality that women do more of the actual childrearing than men (not to mention that whole pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding stuff…I know how unfair right!) than men.
“I’m sorry, but PAS is bullshit, and dangerous bullshit at that. No legitimate psychological institute considers it a disease; it is the last (but unfortunately, probably not the final) in a long line of made-up psychology for a political point. It is very true that you should not badmouth the other parent in front of children, but it’s a big leap from “you shouldn’t do that” to “you’re causing your child psychological harm”.”
What Antigone said.
I’ve said this on another post here, but the man who originated the idea of PAS all but came right out and announced that he is a pedophile.
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/pas/RAG.html
leta
I don’t know what standard you’re suggesting. I don’t think I wrote in a legal standard, (aside from primary caregiver, but I didn’t come up with that one).
thebigmanfred
Does this matter for the well-being of the child? If a parent’s wants suddenly change after a divorce, does that mean s/he should get to uproot the child?
I am not against joint custody, but as a presumed legal standard, there are a number of problems. For one, if one or the other parent wants/needs to move (for a job, to go where s/he has family) there are plenty of things that are harmful and expensive that a child has to put up with (travel, money for travel, bickering over travel-time and money for travel, two schools, two houses, no stability). I had to move so many times as a kid, I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone. There are lots of good reason for primary custody not to be a legal presumption, and there are even better reasons for primary care to be the standard in determining custody.
Lisa - I generally agree with the other feminists about what sort of discussion there should be here, but I’d sooner this were the ‘feminist discussion thread’ rather than the ‘defending Feminism 101′ thread. leta, for instance, is trolling by this standard, and is posting off-topic anyway.
thebigmanfred - if a parent wanted to change from being ‘just a wallet’, why didn’t they want that before the divorce, when there was unpaid work that had to be done and only one parent was doing it? The fact is that since the middle of the 20th century, women have gladly been doing ever more paid work, because having a paid job is something most women see as necessary and worthwhile. If the unpaid work at home - caring for home and children - were seen as being as worthwhile and necessary for men, then men would be doing it. They’re not. We know they’re not because every statistic ever collected says so, and because we’ve all personally seen our own fathers and/or husbands not doing it. And until they are doing it, I’m not going to take their complains about how dreadful it is to not be given the job of raising children in the divorce courts very seriously.
Faith - I disagree with you about the female celebrities. If nothing else, it’s class privilege at work; if you or I felt the need to have six children, we couldn’t do it - couldn’t afford the time or money to care for them, or the career blow that so many pregnancies would mean. A celebrity can just pay money in exchange for children other women have birthed, and pay other people to do the caring as well…and note that the celebrities in question are always white, and both the foreign birth parents and most paid domestic workers are people of colour. There’s a lot of feminist, anti-racist criticism to be done of the international adoption industry. That’s an aside from the subject at hand, though.
I don’t think I’d say this. It seems pretty likely that the court’s decisions are based to some degree on our constructions of gender w.r.t. child care, which undoubtedly give women the role of caregivers.
I suspect that the bias remains even in cases where the responsibilities for child care really is split evenly before the divorce. Of course, those are tiny fraction of cases—the fact is that women are expected to have children, provide them with care, and generally sacrifice everything else in their lives for those two goals, and so many women do exactly that. And so when courts look at who provides child care, they find that in the vast majority of cases, it’s women—thus reinforcing those gender roles.
But that structure and those assumptions are something men can work against to a degree, primarily by choosing to work against the constraints of masculinity and share in the labor of childcare. Certainly, it seems reasonable to expect that men who dislike the effects of our gender roles ought to work conscientiously and continuously against enacting them on a personal level—by, for example, taking on “women’s work,” and actively seeking justice in their personal and intimate relationships.
Of course, men who do that aren’t magically shielded against people and institutions—including the courts—writing those gendered assumptions onto their lives anyway. And the thing of it is, the people and institutions doing that have good reason to do so; the fact that these structures exist means that most men will enact them, and so inherent skepticism of men who claim to be, in this instance, primary caregivers, is rational, if sad.
That’s the problem of anyone trying to work against the injustice caused by their privilege. People of color have every reason to be skeptical of white people who claim to be anti-racist allies; people with disabilities have every reason to be skeptical of people without them claiming to be anti-abelist. Hell, women have every reason to be cautions when we’re interacting with men, not because we think this particular man is a rapist or a misogynist, but because men rape, there’s a pretty significant chance that we will be raped or killed by a man we know, and so we have to be cautious of which men we let into intimate spaces.
There’s no doubt that this can be hurtful to allies, but if you’re genuinely working against your own privilege, you can’t be doing it for cookies. You have to be doing it because your justice is entangled with theirs—because you want to enact that justice in your relationships and life. You can build authentic relationships on that foundation, but it’s an active process. And part of that process is understanding your privilege, and how the power imbalance associated with it is going to influence those relationships.
Faith:
If you choose not to believe facts put in front of you, that’s certainly your choice. We all can deny the reality of whatever we want. That doesn’t invalidate the objective facts you refuse to acknowledge.
Also, PAS has been successfully cited in case law in disputes across the country. With regards to the APA, their position on this syndrome (taken from their website) is as follows:
Statement on Parental Alienation Syndrome
The American Psychological Association (APA) believes that all mental health practitioners as well as law enforcement officials and the courts must take any reports of domestic violence in divorce and child custody cases seriously. An APA 1996 Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family noted the lack of data to support so-called “parental alienation syndrome”, and raised concern about the term’s use. However, we have no official position on the purported syndrome.
The jury’s out, in other words, where they’re concerned.
Antigone, if you are independently wealthy and can provide for a house and children without working, well, I wish I were in the same boat. Taking care of kids, both in terms of day to day labor and the financial costs involved is expensive no matter what currency is being counted. At the end of the day, it is often financially better for a family to have one full time job being taken than two part time jobs, which often don’t provide benefits and pay less per hour.
Antigone, you said:
I am not against joint custody, but as a presumed legal standard, there are a number of problems. For one, if one or the other parent wants/needs to move (for a job, to go where s/he has family) there are plenty of things that are harmful and expensive that a child has to put up with (travel, money for travel, bickering over travel-time and money for travel, two schools, two houses, no stability). I had to move so many times as a kid, I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone. There are lots of good reason for primary custody not to be a legal presumption, and there are even better reasons for primary care to be the standard in determining custody.
Well, the type of legislation parenting rights groups are lobbying for (in California they are 40% female in constituency) is for “presumptive and rebuttable joint custody”. That means that is a default starting point, but can be rebutted by either party. Because of abuse, because of parental alienation, or whatever - there are no restrictions on the rebuttal. Another reason to argue against such an arrangement, in my opinion, is what you cited - the parents are far away from each other.
Moving all the time as a kid, not having friends in one neighborhood, etc. - I agree with your personal take on that kind of situation, in that it is not good for children. I’ve told some of my divorcing friends, two of whom had their ex-wives move out of state, “Find a job near her, move down the block, and get a restraining order preventing her from leaving the school district.” Worked like a charm for two guys I know, and now they have a 50-50 arrangement that their daughters are very happy about.
If a man (or woman) has been travelling for work 50% of the time, or is in the armed services (where they have little choice about their assignments), then perhaps they are not cut out for being a primary caregiver. Similarly, if there is a stable arrangement where both parents are in proximity, I would state that it is abusive for one parent to move far away and push for the same arrangement. Unfortunately, bills protecting the right of one parent to disrupt such a staable arrangement have been sponsored by feminist groups in California many times in the past.
On the other hand, if both parents DO end up in the same neighborhood, and agree on paper to be in proximity for the sake of the children, it makes perfect sense, if both parents can work out a parenting plan and can get along - everybody benefits.
Many fathers never get that chance,however, because, out of the gate, their ex-wives get full custody, which in most states mean they get very high amounts of child support, and the father is left financially unable to pay attorneys to challenge the initial award. Often a primary caregiver has a significant financial incentive for taking their child away from the other parent.
That is an injustice, and again, to quote Lisa, “too much is still dependent upon which judge and which lawyers are involved in the case, as well as how much money the father has to fight for something that should be a basic right, the right to be a parent.”
My previous citation of her quote seems to have vanished in my earlier post, so I am re-citing it here.
antigone:
Antigone, I’m sorry to hear that. I too had to move a lot when I was a child, on average every two years. I understand your sentiment. My family had to move because of my parent’s jobs. Both of my parents were in the military. I’ve experienced being without either parent for some time, my dad for a few months (multiple times though) and my mom for a year. I know neither parent wanted to be away from me or my brothers, but circumstances forced them to do so. It still sucked not to have the other parent around at the time. I’ve had both parents essentially become nothing more than “a wallet” in my life at one time or another. For jobs that force a parent not to able to bond with their child even though the that parent my want to, I wouldn’t want to see the opportunity taken away from that parent to bond. Not only on the basis that “you were just a wallet.”
I don’t have an answer to either of these questions. I’ll have to think about it some more.
Antigone said:
Does this matter for the well-being of the child? If a parent’s wants suddenly change after a divorce, does that mean s/he should get to uproot the child?
In the past, at least in California, the answer to this question was YES. The courts previously ruled a custodial parent (usually the mother) had the right to uproot the child, and groups such as California NOW fought hard to make sure that “right” to uproot a child, remained in place.
You can read about the legislative history behind this battle in the courts here:
http://www.accama.org/
“ACCAMA was organized on July 11, 2004 for the purpose of defeating SB 730, which would have abrogated the California Supreme Court’s decision in In re Marriage of LaMusga (2004). Under SB 730, it would be very difficult for a non-custodial parent to prevent his or her children from being moved hundreds or thousands of miles away. ACCAMA’s campaign was successful, and SB 730 was withdrawn on August 16, 2004. The campaign also drew wide media coverage.
In 2006 ACCAMA opposed SB 1482, a similar bill which would have made it difficult for children of divorce to retain the loving bonds they share with both parents. ACCAMA’s campaign generated over 4,000 opposition calls, letters and faxes to Sacramento, and on May 9 SB 1482’s author pulled the bill.
ACCAMA recognizes that there are some situations where custodial parents should be allowed to move, particularly in cases of dire economic need or domestic violence, or when noncustodial parents show little interest in their children or do not avail themselves of their visitation time. What ACCAMA opposes are frivolous, selfish, vindictive, or bad faith moves which tear children away from loving noncustodial parents. ”
Glenn Sacks paid a major role in helping to fight legislative changes that would have made it very easy for a custodial parent to uproot a child away from her/his neighborhood, friends and other parent’s household.
What i was pointing out and i wasn’t trolling was that i believe that there is a confirmation bias happening. And it isn’t an insult since no one is completely unbiased. Maybe you should have a written standard by which evidence is valid or invalid. As it appears you have one standard for evidence that confirms your bias and a much harsher standard for evidence that goes against your bias.
Thene, while Ieta has certainly “trolled” on other threads, I don’t believe she’s doing it on this one, and this is the only one that I am moderating heavily.
“If you choose not to believe facts put in front of you, that’s certainly your choice. We all can deny the reality of whatever we want. That doesn’t invalidate the objective facts you refuse to acknowledge.”
I didn’t deny facts. I said I didn’t believe what you were saying based on one article. There is a difference. Even if the numbers you presented are anywhere near accurate, that still doesn’t do anything about the fact that the majority of people who actually -do- live in poverty are women.
“Also, PAS has been successfully cited in case law in disputes across the country.”
The fact that it’s been “successfully cited” does not indicate that it is a reality.
Just want to throw in a personal anecdote:
I was raised by both parents. My mother worked the same full-time job for over 30 years. My father also worked a full-time job from about 9-5 in the morning. My mother, however, got up at 5:00 every morning so that she could be at work by 7 in the morning. She then came home in the evenings around 5 and went straight to work cooking dinner, cleaning house, and caring for her two children. My mother’s job involved hard physical labor including heavy lifting, climbing ladders, and standing all day. By the time she arrived home she was exhausted. Yet still she did not stop moving until 8-9 at night, or later.
My father came home in the evenings, fixed himself a drink (he was not an alcoholic, but he did drink one to two drinks most evenings), sat down in his recliner, turned on the tv…and that’s where he would remain until he went to bed.
If my parents had divorced, even though living with my mother would have meant living a much reduced quality of life, I would have chosen to live with my mother. My mother was the most devoted parent. It was my mother who actually cared for me and made sure that my needs were met. It was also my mother who dealt with all the heavy stress involved with raising a girl child, including discovering that I had begun to have sex at an early age. It was my mother who was there for me directly, while my father whom I did love (even though he was as sexist as most men to some degree), was just kinda there…
Lisa,
I don’t want to cross post or anything, but I have responded to your thoughts on this issue on Glenn’s blog. I’m interested in what you think about my analysis of the data you provided (in particular I think large sections of the data do not actually address the underlying judicial bias in the system and I attempted to isolate the components that do address that point).
To sum up my analysis, the skewing was closer to 100% and not the 19% you noted once we look at contested custody cases. I am functioning under the belief that no one cares about disparity when the mothers and fathers agree on what to do with custody. Bias in the system only shows up when the mothers and fathers dissagree and the courts decide for them.
If you would like I can copy my response from there and bring it over to here as well, I’ll leave it up to you.
Antigone and Faith,
I realise that this thread isn’t about PAS, but since you’ve brought it up I’d like to say that I can cite literally dozens of peer reviewed papers detailing the subject.
Whether or not the guy who originated the concept is an unsavory character as Faith implies has nothing to to with the validity of it any more than the reality of evolution or relativity relies upon the moral character of Einstein or Darwin.
I get it that PAS isn’t something feminists like, but there are many legitimate studies which support it.
If you are interested in citations I can provide a long list of them, all by various authors from different institutions and backgrounds. That being said I am sure like many other psychological syndromes, it is often misdiagnosed and/or misused in court… but that is no different than many other syndromes including but not limited to PTSD.
Jason:
I’m interested in this analysis. One thing though, how reasonable is it to assume that when mothers and fathers agree, that both got what they really wanted. What if mothers and fathers are going in with the expectation of bias so that the custody they really want is different from the custody both agree upon? Regardless, I’m still interested in further analysis of contested cases.
Thebigmanfred,
It is one of the last comments on Glenn’s blog. If you want to look at the numbers yourself they are on page 40 of the study under the column which details contested cases.
All of the rest are some form of agreement met between the mother and father (or fall into the “unknown” category).
When just looking at the contested cases it turns out that mothers end up getting some form of physical custody about twice as often as fathers do (that is where I get the 100% skewing from).
I also agree with you that what probably happens in many “agreements” is the father is advised that if he contests things he will probably lose (which is valid given the contested figures) and should therefore agree to whatever deal is presented to him.
It is difficult to fight for something when you think you are likely to lose… so many of those agreements might not even be *real* agreements.
Either way, I think just examining the contested custody figures gives a better picture of judicial bias than to include all the situations where the parents agree on custody.
Ultimately no one cares what happens when the parents are in agreement… people care what happens when the courts have to decide for the parties involved when they cannot agree. The data in this report suggests that women are twice as likely to obtain some form of physical custody in those situations.
“I also agree with you that what probably happens in many “agreements” is the father is advised that if he contests things he will probably lose (which is valid given the contested figures) and should therefore agree to whatever deal is presented to him.
It is difficult to fight for something when you think you are likely to lose… so many of those agreements might not even be *real* agreements.
Either way, I think just examining the contested custody figures gives a better picture of judicial bias than to include all the situations where the parents agree on custody.
Ultimately no one cares what happens when the parents are in agreement… people care what happens when the courts have to decide for the parties involved when they cannot agree. The data in this report suggests that women are twice as likely to obtain some form of physical custody in those situations. ”
I agree with these statements, but I want to say I once saw a California study that showed men often, unfortunately, took to heart their attorneys’ advice to give up on custody, and, overall, the study implied they should fight harder.
It’s hard to fight for the children you love when you are painted as an abuser for seeking custody in the media, you’re out of money, and your kids are being told you’re a bad father, all of which is quite common in custody disputes.
But going to the mat often means you will have a great time seeing your kids grow up instead of being reduced to a paycheck with occasional visitation. Unfortunately, the latter is considered “parenting” by many state government bodies and groups who oppose co-parenting.
Faith, I am sorry your father wasn’t a more loving parent, but there are many fathers who are loving parents who are shut out from their children’s lives by vindictive mothers and the state government agencies which are party to their divorce.
It’s always sad when a parent doesn’t step up, whether of personal issues or because the legal system and vindictive people shut that parent out of a child’s life.
As bad as it is in the US, the situation for divorced fathers is worse in the UK. You can see that in some of the pieces Bob Geldof produced at these links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-MGHd5rz84
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgUudpHFkXw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8kjvgSyuMo
We’re not discussing PAS in this thread.
“My father also worked a full-time job from about 9-5 in the morning”
Erm…just in case there is any confusion, that should have read…9-5 in the evening.
The study I referred to earlier was cited in Maccoby and Mnookin’s ‘Dividing the CHild: Social & Legal Dilemmas of Custody’ (1992).
In it, the authors mention a substantial percentage of fathers who would prefer sole or joint custody do not actually request such custodial arrangements. See id. While over thirty percent of fathers want sole custody, fewer than forty percent of those men actually sought sole physical custody.
It is an interesting book, because it deals both with the legal and social issues around child custody, which most works fail to do.
Faith, you said “even though he was as sexist as most men to some degree”.
It would seem from your comment that sexism isn’t peculiar to men only.
“Faith, you said “even though he was as sexist as most men to some degree”.
It would seem from your comment that sexism isn’t peculiar to men only.”
Ok, huh? Are you saying that I’m implying I think most men are sexist and that stating such is a sexist statement. Well, sorry, but it has been my experience that most men are sexist to some degree or another. As a matter of fact, I have yet to encounter a single heterosexual man who did not seem to be suffering from some degree of sexism.
Stating that this has been my experience is not a sexist statement. It’s a point of fact.
“-ism” = prejudice + power
Which isn’t to say that women can’t participate in sexism; it’s to say that women can’t participate in sexism against men.
Violet-
I’m not sure I agree with that statement. I think a woman can participate in sexism, against both genders. I am familiar with the school of thought that says “ism” has to be the one in power, but I don’t agree with it. Every time a woman calls a man a “fag” or “baby” or says “don’t be such a girl” is participating in sexism against men (of course, by using woman or woman-like slur). Woman can be sexist.
Jason,
I can pop back over to Glenn’s, find your response (hopefully–if I can’t I’ll pop back over here and let you know that) and either respond or tell you why I don’t think it’s response-worthy there.
Jason:
There are factors at work for both parents, which is where I think part of problem is. Both parents make a request with some since of an expectation bias. It’s probably a lot like playing a rigged game. Everyone from start expects a certain outcome so they make their moves expecting that outcome. Women can expect that no matter what move they make the odds are in their favor, greater than 59% in their case. Men just have lower odds in this regard about a third in their case.
I understand your analysis here, but I think there are some pieces that are missing. Lisa seems to have indicated some of the points I would make at Glenn Sack’s blog.
Both are important. The real problem with the data here, whether we look at contested custody figures or agreed upon custody figures is that we don’t really know what both parties wanted. In the contested custody situation we don’t know what both was contested, what each request was. In the agreed upon custody situations we don’t know what the expectation bias was. Both are equally important to understand where any gender biases are at in the system.
I agree with bigmanfred. Probably a lotta people over at Glenn’s got tired of hearing me say it, but I’m saying it again: what we really, really, really need is more data.
Lisa Kansas
“Violet, I wish more MRAs would look and see what damage the ‘masculine’ stereotype does to them.”
… and I wish that more feminist groups like NOW would stop perpetuating gender-based stereotypes as a means to accomplish their goals for issues like child custody, domestic violence, etc. I really don’t understand the hatred that they obviously feel for a group of people who want the very things that they profess to want, the right to not be discriminated against just because of your gender.
“Woman can be sexist.”
This is getting a bit off-topic, but I agree with Antigone. A woman calling a man a fag or baby is being sexist. That type of sexism is, however, also a result of patriarchal conditioning.
I personally have difficulty believing that any man, or woman, could be raised in our current society without internalizing negative messages about women. It would also be next to impossible to not internalize negative messages about men (negative messages that come from patriarchal conditioning, not feminism). I personally know that I suffer from some internalized misogyny. I also have not encountered a single woman in real life who did not seem to also be suffering from some degree of internalized misogyny.
If you also notice, even women have difficulty deciding what is or is not misogynistic at times…if women are so damaged by patriarchal culture that even we can’t figure it all out, how could the men possibly understand?
Dave:
This is your one and only warning for hostile overgeneralization. Future violations will result in future comments being HypnoToaded. Have a nice day.
Lisa:
Thanks Lisa. Is this something you’re going to talk about in your next article? If not, please consider adding something in about it. I for one think it would be useful to talk a little bit about what the data doesn’t tell us and what info we should look for to filling in the missing chunks.
Reminder…yet again…this one, particular thread is for feminist-friendly debate only.
Forbidden (plagiarized from zing): ad feminam statements and wild generalizations about what women believe or do and what feminists believe or do.
Allowed (plagiarized from zing): reasoned, polite argument, based in accurate reporting of facts and people’s previous statements, and civil answers to direct questions.
Have a nice day, even if it just kills you.
Bigmanfred and Lisa,
I agree with you both that we need more data. What I am trying to do is use the data we have available to get the best understanding of the legal bias that is possible.
Legal bias by definition isn’t going to show up if the parties agree to custody before they even show up in court (this would be a sort of psychological bias where each party *expects* certain results and then plays along accordingly… it is still a problem, but not the one I am interested in figuring out at the moment).
I am primarily interested in what happens when both parties cannot agree on custody and need to have custody decided for them by a third party (i.e. the judge or a mediator). In those situations the only relevant columns are the ones where consent was mediated, an agreement was established via court proceedings, or the custody is contested but judicially assigned.
I actually eliminated the first two situations from my analysis because I put those under a sort of agreement. If I had actually included them the skewing in favor of mothers would have been *more* prevelant and not less.
All that being said, more information would be nice to have… I just don’t think it would adjust things by such a remarkable amount as to make the social implications any different. Let’s say we went from 100% skewing down to 60% skewing… does this really imply that court mandated custody is fair and unbiased?… not by a long shot.
Sorry, folks, that this one particular thread is feminist-friendly is not debatable.
Have an offended, pissy anti-feminist day. On another thread.
Mjaybee, you will no longer be allowed to comment on this one, particular thread. And may I suggest that you consider therapy?
Jason, you too. (sigh) This is reminding me why I was never even slightly drawn towards a career in child care.
Antigone, Faith—
I dunno. I’m inclined to think a black person telling a white person, “You’re such a fucking nigger,” isn’t being racist against white people. Likewise, a gay person calling a straight man a fag. I think that “fag,” “baby,”, “girl,” etc. used as insults are sexist not because of who they’re directed at, but because of what they imply about the people they ostensibly refer to.
“I’m inclined to think a black person telling a white person, “You’re such a fucking nigger,” isn’t being racist against white people. Likewise, a gay person calling a straight man a fag.”
Violet,
I’m sorry, but I’m just scratching my head at this. The reason that a woman calling a man a fag is sexist is due to the belief that homosexuality is unmasculine. Same thing with being a “baby”. Nothing wrong with being homosexual, a baby, or a girl, but when the words are directed towards a man (by a woman) as an insult it is sexist because the intent is to insult. Obviously none of those words should be insulting to anyone in the slightest, but in our current society those words can be used as sexist slurs against men. In a world that made any damn sense it would be a non-issue.
Right, but what’s being implicitly impugned there isn’t masculinity itself. She’s saying that he is less masculine—that is, less good—by virtue of exhibiting some quality associated with the feminine. Which means she’s being sexist, yeah, but against women. Even though the insult was directed at a man.
Typically, when people talk about women expressing anti-male sexism, they cite examples like women saying, “you’re such a guy,” or, “men are pigs.” Those comments are misandric, but they don’t support systematic oppression against men, which is what’s meant by sexism.
[ Edit to clairfy: I mean, “sexism refers to systematic oppression on the basis of gender,” rather than, “sexism refers to systematic oppression on the basis of being a man.” ]