Two major online publications--Salon.com and Slate.com--recently did articles criticizing the men's and fathers movement.

My first two posts dealt largely with a misleading quote attributed to me in both pieces, and the two publications' commendable agreement to clarify it. In this post and others, we'll deal more with the arguments made by Kathryn Joyce of Double X/Slate.com and Judy Berman of Salon.com.

Both Joyce and Berman are feminist writers who consider themselves opponents of the fatherhood movement. Berman and Joyce summarize the fatherhood movement's views as follows:

that false [domestic abuse] allegations are rampant, that a feminist-run court system fraudulently separates innocent fathers from children, that battered women’s shelters are running a racket that funnels federal dollars to feminists, that domestic-violence laws give cover to cagey mail-order brides seeking Green Cards, and finally, that men are victims of an unrecognized epidemic of violence at the hands of abusive wives.

Let's take this point by point:

false [domestic abuse] allegations are rampant.

That's a reasonable statement--false allegations of domestic violence are a major problem, and many prominent family law experts have said so.

a feminist-run court system

It's inaccurate to call the court system "feminist run," though feminist and domestic violence groups do have a lot of influence. However, traditional chivalry is at least as powerful a factor as feminism. The average judge who separates children from the fathers they love and need is hardly a feminist, but instead a traditional man who believes, occasionally with justification, that he's protecting women and children from male perfidy.

...[the system] fraudulently separates innocent fathers from children.

Yes, that happens very often.

that battered women’s shelters are running a racket that funnels federal dollars to feminists.

This sentiment, which is often expressed in the men's and fathers movement, isn't fair to domestic violence shelter workers. Most of the people who work at battered women’s shelters mean well, and do some very important work on behalf of women and children. They aren't living the high life on government money, and generally their pay is nothing to envy.

However, their training and worldview are stilted against men, and this is a problem. And DV programs do funnel a lot of money to feminist-run organizations, and sometimes this money is misused.

For example, DV groups often lobby against any bill which helps unite children with their fathers, including shared parenting bills and bills to put reasonable limits on post-divorce move-aways.

DV groups also allow themselves to be the tools of vindictive women who employ false DV accusations and restraining orders as custody maneuvers. Those who work in the DV establishment deserve credit for their good work, but also merit criticism for some of the problems they create. Reform is needed.

that domestic-violence laws give cover to cagey mail-order brides seeking Green Cards.

I've seen plenty of men set up by foreign women they married who they thought loved them. That there are men who emotionally or even physically abuse women immigrants is also a problem.

and finally, that men are victims of an unrecognized epidemic of violence at the hands of abusive wives.

There's no "epidemic" of domestic violence going either way (man to woman nor woman to man), but domestic violence is a significant problem for both genders. Women are more likely to suffer injury in domestic violence by a 2 to 1 ratio, but research clearly shows that women instigate at least as much DV as men. Research shows that women use weapons and the element of surprise to help compensate for their lesser strength.

More recognition and services for male victims of domestic violence are needed. To learn more, see the Holstein/Sacks column A domestic violence victim (Washington Times, Baltimore Sun, 7/16/09).

Joyce disapprovingly quotes:

"It’s now reached the point,” reads a statement from RADAR, “that domestic violence laws represent the largest roll-back in Americans’ civil rights since the Jim Crow era!"

RADAR's statement is defensible. I don't know if the epidemic of false DV accusations and restraining orders is the "largest roll-back in Americans’ civil rights since the Jim Crow era," but it's certainly a major one. To learn more, see my co-authored column Restraining Orders Can Be Straitjackets On Justice (Newark Star-Ledger, 7/28/08).

Berman writes:

Joyce introduces us to Glenn Sacks...who she describes as "a former feminist and abortion-clinic defender."

That's an accurate statement--I was a feminist activist in my 20s and helped protect abortion clinics from Operation Rescue's Freedom Summer campaign against the clinics in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. I don't particularly regret my activism, but I'm ambivalent about abortion and don't believe that most pro-lifers should be vilified as anti-woman. On the other hand, I don't believe that pro-choicers should be vilified, either.

Fathers & Families takes no public position on abortion. I rarely write about abortion, but was greatly saddened last year to discover that a former student of mine at a Catholic high school I taught at many years ago had committed suicide after being expelled from the school for having an abortion. I wrote about it here.

Berman writes:

Dismissive of the Bernard Chapins of the world, he's working toward the comparatively modest goals of increasing shared custody and lightening divorced dads' child-support obligations during the recession.

I don't recall saying anything specific about Chapin, but I take it she's using Chapin as an example of the men's activists who blame feminism for all of men's woes, and to that degree this is a fair statement. Feminism did many good things but it has also caused much harm. But many other factors besides feminism have caused the family court nightmare. These include: traditional chivalry; monied interests; cheap politics; vindictive women; and the irresponsible and/or cruel fathers who really do mistreat their wives and children.

We do need an increase in shared custody--a big one. As for "lightening divorced dads' child-support obligations during the recession," many dads have lost their jobs or suffered significant drops in income. Because it is difficult for fathers to get their child support orders modified downward, many decent, loving fathers are being jailed because they can’t keep up with their child support obligations.

Ed O’Donnell, chairman of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Family Law Executive Committee, says that it “usually requires in excess of six months before a judge will say, ‘[The job loss] is possibly a real change in circumstances’… Six months is a long time, when you’re desperate.”

To learn more, see the Holstein/Sacks column Layoffs, courts put some dads in jail (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 6/21/09).

I'm writing several posts about the issues raised in the Slate.com and Salon.com articles--to read the others, click here.

The two articles are Kathryn Joyce's "Men's Rights" Groups Have Become Frighteningly Effective (Slate.com, 11/5/09) and Judy Berman's "Men's rights" groups go mainstream--Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability (Salon.com, 11/5/09).

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Feminism/NOW, Domestic Violence/DV System, Men and the Media, Divorce/Separation/Child Custody, Fathers & Families Advocacy Group. You can trackback from your own site.