Back in "the day," women had zero child custody rights. Custody automatically went to the father. I think the courts have come a long way.

By the way, last I checked, Ms. O'Rourke wasn't the voice of Feminism. In addition, I think it should be noted that many third wave feminists would heartily disagree that a mother should automatically gain custody of children in a divorce, and instead say the the court should be gender-blind. So doesn't that answer her final question?

Absolutely, the courts should be gender-blind. But in CA, where I dabbled a bit in family law, I also see that, however unintentional it may have been, some of the rules of family law favor the women. One is the ratio of child custody to amount of child support. The less you see your children, the more you pay, the more you see the less you pay. It's all done on a computer program and I believe in CA you HAVE to do it that way, although there may be some exceptions.

So what you have, and what I experienced, was many women lying about abuse or anything else they thought would give their ex-husbands (or ex-lovers if it was a paternity case) LESS time with the kids thereby giving them MORE money for child support.

So it may not quite be feminism's fault, but there is something wrong with that system.

See once you bring up abuse and if you can lie well enough for the judge to believe you, all red alerts go off because of the concern for the child. Which is fine, but it makes everybody go nuts, there's child custody evaluations to be done, maybe you wind up with SUPERVISED visitation, and you have to fight and fight and fight to get more and more visitation. All of which costs you MONEY.

Frankly, before even filing for divorce and getting the courts involved, couples should be forced to work it out on their own through mediators. Then, if they show that it can't be done for good reasons, then the court can help out, especially if the issues are complicated and some can be. If the couple is just being stupid and stubborn, then the final judgment should be made quickly - 50/50 custody and 50/50 everything else, and you don't get a chance to argue whether something is community property or not or community debt or not.

If people know that the law is not going to deal with stupid, BMWing and the inability to act their friggin' acts together, then it should be that easy and in and out and done.

We should encourage GOOD behavior. But we don't. We encourage BAD behavior and then we wonder why our country looks and acts like it does.

What day was that, liar? Why, when the conversation turns to feminism and "the day", do feminists always lie so much?

I always suggest people go ask their grandma, or great grandma, what kind of shit she dealt with from her man. Show her some of those old pictures that told women how to act toward their men, and ask granny what she thinks about those. I've done this experiment with a few older ladies, and I generally get a pretty interesting reaction. I won't ruin it for you, but suffice it to say that I don't get the idea that women really lived the way feminists claim. Maybe a few did -- upper-middle-class white momen with wealth and priviledge to protect, but that's always been a small minority of people in any generation.

"however unintentional it may have been", or however intentional.

:)

Well, Fax, I thought I'd leave the conspiracy theories to others. It's always possible that there is a conspiracy, but then again, there is also possible that there isn't.

;)

Cheers.

FaxMeBeer,

Perhaps you should learn your history. This, exactly is "THE DAY."

Pennsylvania v. Addicks was an 1813 custody case decided on the basis of the best interests of the child. Before that, American legal principle was that the father had custody after divorce, with few exceptions.

Next time do your homework before you call me a liar.

In fact, when women claim domestic violence, it is rarely given weight so it is not being used by women to gain anything. in fact, batterers DO receive custody.

this idea of women making false allegations has no basis in research (and a long history in the courts--considering women as liars goes back to at least the 1700s.)

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As an aside, only 13% of rapes in the US and 5.7% of rapes in the UK end in conviction.....you decide, do judges BELIEVE women?

Well, I know of at least a handful of women who did and while it didn't get them anywhere because the lies were exposed, it still costs money and there is still that threat.

Ever think that men may agree to less custody and more child support if threatened with months of court time and attorney's fees just to litigate the issue?

And family law is one of those things that many try to do WITHOUT a lawyer, which makes it more likely that a dad without a lawyer may just agree to anything so he can avoid the hassle.

It's nothing more than bullying.

Again, I've seen it first hand. And, yes, I've seen the deadbeat dads as well.

But I knew one kid who got a girl pregnant. Young 20s. He was industrious and sweet and his parents were a joy. He worked hard and he wanted to do right by this little baby girl. The girlfriend had like 3 or 4 other kids by other fathers (that should have been a sign to him, poor thing). Because he did some reading on his own and read that mashed up avocado might be good for the baby when she was starting solids, the mother freaked out and tried to say that it was a bad thing and it was going to hurt the baby. His custody time was cut and he had to struggle to get it back up again. The mom was a total skank (sorry to be so harsh upon my sex, but there you go). She would demand more custody, but most of the time, when he would drop the baby off, she wasn't home and one of the older teenage kids of hers would be home to "babysit".

The point really is this: one gender is not worse than the other. We have to stop trying to paint one side as the saint and the other as the sinner. There are just as many deadbeat moms out there as deadbeat dads.

How about just saying "deadbeat parents"?

The law needs to be more understanding of that. Instead, they have laws, that, as I've said, have the unintended consequence of encouraging bad behavior. Whether that bad behavior reaches the results intended is not always the point. The point is that it takes months to get through that process (hearing dates scheduled and continued, etc.) and that costs a lot of money. Tens of thousands of dollars are spent in divorce proceedings.

The point is we should be encouraging good behavior - you don't get the court's help unless you've shown that you really need it - you tried mediating, etc. before coming to the court. When you are in court, the frivolousness needs to stop. People bring motions for just the dumbest things, all as strategy to wear down the other side.

The justice system in this country is very good in many ways. But it still has flaws that need to be worked out.

As for your last comment about rapes: It's not about the JUDGE believing anything. In the US, there is the jury. Plus there is EVIDENCE. Sometimes, if the only evidence is testimony from the victim and the accused, well, the burden of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt". Should we lessen that burden in the hopes that it might catch a few more guilty people, even if it catches more innocent people as well?

It's not that I don't believe women are not raped, it's just that the system is there to protect the innocent - you are innocent until proven guilty by the government. Would you want it easier to for the gov't to find people guilty? I doubt it.

Cheers.

When people say "back in the day", I don't think normal people imagine that they're talking about 200 years ago. Try to be more specific next time.

Also, you need to read up on that case a bit, and the way things actually worked. The legal principle was not that the father automatically had custody, it was that the children belonged to the father. That's a statement of ownership, not of custody. Women would still tend to raise the children, though the legal rights to direct their lives were left with the non-custodial father (if he was, in fact, non-custodial).

Thanks for playing, though.

"The point really is this: one gender is not worse than the other. We have to stop trying to paint one side as the saint and the other as the sinner."

Exactly right ladykrystyna.

It never ceases to amaze me how supposedly ardent feminists view women through an almost Victorian era prism of angelic character. That world view is not equality.

As a lawyer whose done family law, I can echo that men and women can do some really awful and nasty things when their backs are against the wall.

Part of equality involves taking women off the pedestal. They are human beings with human failings, just like men.

A Dude:

"The point really is this: one gender is not worse than the other. We have to stop trying to paint one side as the saint and the other as the sinner."

Exactly right ladykrystyna.

It never ceases to amaze me how supposedly ardent feminists view women through an almost Victorian era prism of angelic character. That world view is not equality.

As a lawyer whose done family law, I can echo that men and women can do some really awful and nasty things when their backs are against the wall.

Part of equality involves taking women off the pedestal. They are human beings with human failings, just like men.

How right you are! Especially about the Victorian era prism. It's so ironic, isn't it?

We are, as you said, human beings first.

And as human beings we have this way of "backlashing". IMHO, first and second wave feminist "backlashed" against their paternalistic society but in such a way that de-valued motherhood or any kind of femininity. Yes, those things were used to keep women down and I certainly appreciate the ability to vote and own property, get a job and have a career, etc. But that doesn't mean that those women who don't want to get a job and have career are evil.

So there is a backlash now against that and a backlash from men about how they are now being treated in general.

We have to stop going from backlash to backlash because it really gets us nowhere.

As others have pointed out, the situation is not that great for men, especially men with families, either. The business model is still one from the 1950s and earlier, mostly of the middle to upper classes - where the man can just stay at work all day and all night and it's the woman that takes care of the children and the household chores. Of course poor women worked anyway and had children and cooked and cleaned (and that goes back to MY grandparents on both sides).

How many men missed out on things they would have liked to have seen, but couldn't for fear of losing a job or not advancing and being able to provide?

The "gender war" and all of its descendants and cousins needs to end. We are HUMAN BEINGS and we need to work together in order to make a better society for all. Not against each other.

It's not ALL or NOTHING.

Next time don't be such an asshole.

It's my nature. When people say things out of their ass and create historical context to justify modern-day abuses, I tend to get a little pissy. Next time, don't be so dishonest.