Most of the time, women get custody because the couple agrees to it. This isn't surprising when national time-study data shows clearly that most women are doing most of the child care. So long as that is true, women will get custody more often than men and it won't mean that there is gender discrimination. In fact, if women were doing more of the child care and custody was equal, it would mean women were being discriminated against.

What about when the couple disagrees about who should get custody? The data suggests that men are more likely to win. There may be questions about these studies like is joint custody a win, but the research certainly doesn't point to women being more likely to win!

The original post suggesting that fathers in general lose custody because they're men and blaming feminism was irresponsible journalism.

sorry, but your wrong, and on so many levels...however, its your right to be wrong..

BookMama, I've heard that before as well--when physical custody is disputed, men have as good a chance or better to get custody, but much of the time, couples agree on the issue, and they agree that the mother gets physical custody. Legal custody is different, and often there is joint legal custody but one parent has physical custody.

The usual custom when pronouncing someone to be "wrong" is to follow it up with supporting evidence.

usual perhaps, but in this case an utter waste of time...my time.

Then, Mr. Busyman, you'll have to excuse us while we ignore your comments as meaningless crankdom.

read ANY of the other posts, however, i don't believe you will nor do i believe you would believe ANYTHING that did not fit your warped social agenda...thus, a waste of my time...

This post is an example of the propoganda that is being circulated to hide the impact of abuse and discrimination against fathers as a class. Everytime someone tries to raise this issue, the opponents of fathers having access to their children will try to redirect the conversation and rub the noses both of those who support fathers having access to their children in the filth of some specific individual like Rockefeller. Or they submit doctored statistics. It's as if most fathers don't even exist. Father's rights is the seminal civil rights issue of our time.

Make no mistake about the capacity of a society to deny the existence of an institutionalized human, constitutional, or civil rights infringement. Note the virulence of the responses directed at writers like Meghan O'Rourke for nothing more than expressing sympathy.

One of the strongest indications in any time of the violence and brutality directed at any oppressed group is the intensity of denial concerning the issue. Revisit for example Justice Brown supporting segregation in the Plessy vs Ferguson decision: "When summarizing, Justice Brown declared, "We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it."

So the logic follows: The badge of racial inferiority is all in the minds of blacks. The badge of parental inferiority is all in the minds of fathers...

I don't have a horse in this race, buddy. I'm grown, my parents are still happily married, and in the event my marriage broke up, the judge would have to decide which Mommy he is biased in favor of. (Guess what - it would probably be me, since I'm the one who bears the children. Even though I'm well aware that we'd both be perfectly decent parents. Them's the breaks.)

But your paranoid language... as if there were actually "opponents of fathers having access to their children"... it doesn't help me to side with you. I have never met anyone who thinks, in general, that "fathers should not have access to their children." That's just ridiculous. I mean, really. I laughed out loud when I read that. Who are these evil, black-hearted people? I bet they wear coats made out of puppy-dog fur.

Divorce - especially acrimonious divorce - sucks hard for kids. There's never a good answer, and it's always hard for an objective party to separate the truth from the mudslinging... but someone has to take care of the kids. 50/50 physical custody isn't usually a very good, or feasible, answer. It's unstable for the kids, especially if the parents don't agree on basic rules and philosophies of childrearing, or if they don't live close to each other. Even the sheer fact of split custody is a pain... would you like to live in one room one week, and another room across town the next?

Do mothers get primary custody most of the time? Probably - after all, they're simply more likely to have already arranged their lives around the kids, and to be the ones providing most of the actual, physical care, even if she works full time.

I love my dad, he's awesome. But if my parents had divorced when I was a child, I would hope that custody had been given mostly to my mom. That is what would have been in my best interest at the time. If my brother and sister-in-law divorced, their daughters would be better off with their mom, too. I just don't know of many couples with kids that I'd think, hey, if they divorced, the kids should really live with their dad. It's not that they're bad dads, it's just that Mom does almost all of the hands-on work of raising the kids.

Is this unfair? Yes, mostly to moms, whose careers suffer for it and who have to work a second shift when they get home if they do manage to have one. It's unfair to dads, too - not only because of the slight chance that they'll someday be involved in an acrimonious divorce with an unfit mother who will be granted custody anyway. A lot of dads would like to have the chance to be truly equal parents, but aren't really able to because they lack the skills, comfort level, and societal support. I would like to see this change, really, I would.

Are there mistakes made? Are the best interests of the child sometimes misjudged? Surely. But it's hard to tell which parents are just vindictive and/or will do anything to get custody, and which ones have valid concerns. If the judge always erred on the side of the Dad, the real primary caregiver would frequently end up with mere visitation. If the judge erred on the side of the Mom, the real primary caregiver would frequently end up with custody. Which is better?

So excuse me for not thinking this is the "seminal civil rights issue of our time" - here's a clue, dimwit, I can't legally marry my spouse. Oh, poor fathers, they do less child-rearing work on average and then in divorce court, where everyone is saying nasty things about everyone else, they occasionally suffer from the societal impression that... um... they do less child-rearing work on average.

It's a problem, but it's not a frickin' conspiracy against fathers by the feminist movement. It's a symptom that we're trying to FIX, so it would be helpful if you could stop demonizing women and, say, demand that your employer let YOU leave at 3:30 to pick up the kids instead of your wife.

so, you and your gay friends are trying to "fix" the sexist family courts so they will treat all parties fairly,,and i should believe that, why?

Oh, no reason. We just want the US to be real-world family-friendly and gender-blind. To have health-care coverage not so dependent upon a single, all-consuming, 40 hr + job. To have flexible work hours and locations not viewed as a bid to slack off, to actually take advantage of the technology that's there instead of hewing to old models, and to have a school schedule that makes sense for everyone, not for 19th century farm children. Having a society in which women or men can easily reconcile having a career and having a family is probably all part of a big gay conspiracy of me and my gay friends.