You seem to think men can just walk down to the "Fathers Who Want Custody Office" and declare "Give me form #1 please! I'll have it filled out and be with my child again by this afternoon!"
What is ignored when people make the "There's no bias in family court! Fathers just don't seek custody!" claim:
1. Who gets automatic custody? Custody of children born out of wedlock is automatically given to the mother. In most states custody of children in divorced families also goes automatically to the mother. In both cases the father must undergo a lengthy and expensive legal process (depending on how willing the mother is to allow him access - the father is at the mercy of the mother to allow him to be in his children's lives). It is then the father's "privilege" to sue for custody.
2. The price of seeking custody for men - fathers must pony up the cash, time, and emotional expense for:
* Hiring a family practice lawyer (thousands of dollars)
* Paying for a custody mediator (hundreds of dollars)
* Paying for supervised visitation (hundreds of dollars)
* Custody screenings (hundreds-thousands of dollars)
* Psychological evaluation (hundreds of dollars and the risk of thrusting oneself into the state psychological system)
* Drug testing (massive invasion of privacy).
3. While the father is busy jumping through these hoops and spending the required thousands of dollars, he is also expected to be paying child support (and alimony if he was married). If he fails to do so he will be jailed, have his state professional and drivers licenses revoked, and face public humiliation as a "dead beat dad".
4. Law surrounding domestic and sexual violence make it extremely easy for mothers to accuse fathers with a complete lack of evidence. This is extremely common ( http://www.saveservices.org/camp/faam-2011/false-accusations... ). Now the father is fighting a criminal charge while fighting for custody of his children. Thanks to VAWA/The Duluth Model, even with no evidence he will be arrested and charged.
Lets take a look at what it really means to be a father facing the family court system:
You are unable to see your child for months or even years, yet you are sending 25%+ of your income every month to their mother - the person who is preventing you from being in your kids lives. You are expected to continue sending these payments, while opening your life to rigorous inspection from the state and funding your custody battle. You are attending mediation and court hearings while holding down a full-time job - a job that if you lose, you will be unable to make your payments and end up a felon in child support arrears. During all of this your risk of being falsely accused of domestic or sexual violence is increased exponentially.
When people like yourself try and spin the horrific situation that men face in the family court system as "men just don't want custody" it makes my blood boil. You ignore the cost of the process, you ignore the unequal laws surrounding parenthood and reproduction, and you ignore the normalized alienation of fathers from their children that is increasing exponentially and having a disastrous effect on society.
If you are still confused about how family court works, I invite you to watch the documentary Divorce Corp. and get a more accurate understanding about how fathers are routinely alienated from their children by vindictive mothers with full support from the state.
Sorry, I forgot to check my privilege and self flagellate to atone for the sins of my ancestors. You're right! Separate but equal is the way ahead!
Maybe we can call in the national guard to escort these fragile and defenseless women through the streets on their way to code school too? We must not have men under the influence of toxic masculinity saying "hello" or "good morning" - they might shatter the women!
VVV - Gee you're going all in on this White Male Guilt thing aren't you? How many fair maidens have you rescued today?
VVVV - I thought it was an acronym for Very Vaginal Verbiage.
Oh noes! People who are different than me! How will I ever learn around them!? Funny how feminist concerns are essentially the same as the segregationists of 50 years ago.
This should be especially exciting to tech feminists who are striving for gender equality and are surely outraged about the crime sentencing gap which jails men for 63% longer than women who commit the same crimes.
Again - is it your assertion that our drastically changed social environment has had no effect on the stability of relationships?
I whole-heartedly agree with you that there are many factors that can help predict the success of a marriage. This is somewhat besides the point.
It's shortsighted and a case of "ignoring the elephant in the room" to pretend that a dramatic shift in our social environment is having no effect on the stability marriage or that factors which contributed to past-generation's successful marriages have been unaffected by this shift.
Are you arguing that our social environment hasn't changed since the 1970's or that our obviously dramatically changed social environment has had no effect on male-female relationships?
Either way, your advice is more of the same feel-good nonsense that we feed our young men, hand-waving away the outcomes of divorce and custody law, and pushing them towards a statistically likely devastating outcome.
It may feel good to preach the traditional loving family of your grandparents, but the data shows that they are the outlier. A much more likely outcome is a split family and emotional and financial devastation for the husband.
You should educate yourself about how the Tender Years Doctrine works as well as how custody is awarded to unwed parents if you think custody is not automatically awarded to the mother.
The difference is that your grandmother didn't have a guaranteed payday and a "strong independent single-mother's movement" awaiting her if she decided she was tired of your grandfather.
The quickly disappearing stigma against single-motherhood combined with the demonization of men as deadbeats and child molesters, when paired with massive amounts of state handouts to single mothers (wic, welfare, child support, alimony, state medical insurance, housing subsidy, single-mother scholarships, affirmative action jobs, etc.) has made divorce as inconsequential as possible for women while dramatically raising the consequences for men.
Marriage is broken and men who go into it without understanding the disparity of legal, psychological, and economic outcomes between the genders are in for a rude awakening.
What a sexist load of garbage. Women /want/ custody and men don't give a shit about their children, right?
The statistic touting men's success rate in seeking custody ignores the price of entry. Men /want/ to be in their children's lives, but must be wealthy to fund a custody battle (while also paying child support and alimony if he was married) in order to do so.
Women are the automatic receivers of custody, it is then the father's "privilege" to hire a family practice lawyer and sue for custody to the tune of thousands of dollars and invasion of his privacy via drug and psychological testing.
Exactly. Modern marriage is like a game of Russian Roulette for men. The difference is that your odds are worse, and the gun has financial incentive to destroy you.
Divorce rates are over 50%, divorce is initiated by women over 70% of the time, women get custody of children 90% of the time.
Laws like VAWA and the Duluth Model give women a surefire way to have you arrested and charged with zero evidence. Now you have a criminal record and no access to your children - 100% legal! Guess what happens to the suicide and addiction rates of men in these situations?
Enjoy your archaic life-long alimony payments, 'supervised visitation' with your children, drug testing, mandatory psychological evaluations, dumping thousands into a custody battle to end up with 4 days/month with your kids, and a child support system that rewards the payee for alienating your children from you.
Hey, your lawyer's kids will have no problem paying college tuition! Don't worry about yours.
Do you like the things you've earned over your life? Hold on to them by avoiding marriage like the plague its become.
What a load of crap. Shanley spews rude, toxic, curse-laden streams of hatred at people in the tech industry with her every waking-hour.
When someone returns the favor she has them stripped of their livelihood, tries to ensure he can't ever return to the industry, and then tweets her delight over the situation.
You want to talk privilege? How about Shanley is the founder and owner of a successful media company vs. this guy was a lowly contracting programmer at a startup nobody's heard of? How is Shanley at all oppressed in comparison to this dude?
Is this 3rd grade? "I use put-downs on other people to build myself up!" How about you don't reduce _anyone's_ agency and instead work to lift everyone up to the same level. Your zero-sum approach to gender equality solves nothing while increasing resentment, mistrust, and hatred.
Please. If his tweet with a naughty word constitutes a "harassment campaign" that contributes to an environment where someone is terrorized then what are we calling the streams of hatred Shanley and her group spew towards Ryan Block, Marc Andreesen, Paul Graham, etc.?
What is ignored when people make the "There's no bias in family court! Fathers just don't seek custody!" claim:
1. Who gets automatic custody? Custody of children born out of wedlock is automatically given to the mother. In most states custody of children in divorced families also goes automatically to the mother. In both cases the father must undergo a lengthy and expensive legal process (depending on how willing the mother is to allow him access - the father is at the mercy of the mother to allow him to be in his children's lives). It is then the father's "privilege" to sue for custody.
2. The price of seeking custody for men - fathers must pony up the cash, time, and emotional expense for:
* Hiring a family practice lawyer (thousands of dollars) * Paying for a custody mediator (hundreds of dollars) * Paying for supervised visitation (hundreds of dollars) * Custody screenings (hundreds-thousands of dollars) * Psychological evaluation (hundreds of dollars and the risk of thrusting oneself into the state psychological system) * Drug testing (massive invasion of privacy).
3. While the father is busy jumping through these hoops and spending the required thousands of dollars, he is also expected to be paying child support (and alimony if he was married). If he fails to do so he will be jailed, have his state professional and drivers licenses revoked, and face public humiliation as a "dead beat dad".
4. Law surrounding domestic and sexual violence make it extremely easy for mothers to accuse fathers with a complete lack of evidence. This is extremely common ( http://www.saveservices.org/camp/faam-2011/false-accusations... ). Now the father is fighting a criminal charge while fighting for custody of his children. Thanks to VAWA/The Duluth Model, even with no evidence he will be arrested and charged.
Lets take a look at what it really means to be a father facing the family court system:
You are unable to see your child for months or even years, yet you are sending 25%+ of your income every month to their mother - the person who is preventing you from being in your kids lives. You are expected to continue sending these payments, while opening your life to rigorous inspection from the state and funding your custody battle. You are attending mediation and court hearings while holding down a full-time job - a job that if you lose, you will be unable to make your payments and end up a felon in child support arrears. During all of this your risk of being falsely accused of domestic or sexual violence is increased exponentially.
When people like yourself try and spin the horrific situation that men face in the family court system as "men just don't want custody" it makes my blood boil. You ignore the cost of the process, you ignore the unequal laws surrounding parenthood and reproduction, and you ignore the normalized alienation of fathers from their children that is increasing exponentially and having a disastrous effect on society.
If you are still confused about how family court works, I invite you to watch the documentary Divorce Corp. and get a more accurate understanding about how fathers are routinely alienated from their children by vindictive mothers with full support from the state.