|
Issues - Gender Bias - "Court-ordered sexism"
http://www.stpetersburgtimes.com/2004/05/16/Columns/Court_ordered_sexism.shtml
"Court-ordered sexism"
Except for the battlefield, family court has to be the last
bastion of
legally enforced sexism in our society. State statutes that
determine child
custody arrangements and child support may be written in gender-neutral
language, but they are not applied that way. Traditional concepts
of the
family - where the father is breadwinner and the mother controls
the
domestic sphere - permeate the process, often disadvantaging
men who want
an equal opportunity to rear their children.
David Blankenhorn, who wrote Fatherless America,
says absent fathers are
"the most destructive trend of our generation."
But our institutions are
adding to this crisis by overwhelmingly preferring the mother
as the
primary parent. Mothers make up five of every six custodial
parents, with
the system essentially telling fathers that their worth is
that of
check-writer.
Why is a father who gets up and goes to work
every day in order to provide
his children with a decent standard of living seen by the
courts as less
nurturing than the parent who stays home, enjoying the fruits
of that labor?
I see both acts as at least equally caretaking.
Yet due to a series of
unwritten and unspoken gender-related assumptions, family
judges tend to
give mothers both decisional control over the children and
financial
support after a family breakup. This gives women an incentive
to dissolve
their relationships, as demonstrated by the fact that women
initiate
divorce in about 70 percent of cases.
I can imagine what dads must feel in receiving
"visitation" with their
children. The very notion that fathers are just "visiting"
is deeply
disturbing, suggesting that a father's company is like a trip
to grandma's.
In a 1998 Florida State Law Review article on
gender bias in family court,
editor in chief Cynthia McNeely wrote: "If the treatment
fathers receive in
family court occurred in the workplace, an affirmative action
plan would
likely be implemented to rectify the pervasive discrimination
and barriers
fathers encounter as they seek meaningful access to their
children."
Interestingly, this is one form of sex discrimination
that is not only
accepted but jealously guarded by feminist groups such as
the National
Organization for Women. In a memorandum written by NOW's government
relations director in 2000, the organization denounced "men's
custody
groups" such as the nonprofit Children's Rights Council,
because they aid
"noncustodial dads in reducing their child support obligations
and (in)
taking away custody from moms." (According to its Web
site, the mission of
the Children's Rights Council is "to assure a child the
frequent,
meaningful and continuing contact with two parents,"
a dangerous notion to
those feminist groups that want fathers to pay up and shut
up.)
When men gain reasonable access to their children,
women's groups cry foul.
Last month, the California Supreme Court ruled that a divorced
mother who
had been awarded primary physical custody of two young sons
could not move
them to Ohio with her and her new husband.
In an eminently fair and reasonable decision,
the high court upheld a lower
court determination that moving the children so far from their
father would
preclude them from having an ongoing relationship with him.
The Contra
Costa County Superior Court had said the mother could move
but she would
have to relinquish custody to the father.
The California Women's Law Center called the
Supreme Court's ruling "a huge
step backwards" and said that a "legislative fix"
is needed that would
return to custodial parents a presumptive right to move away
and take the
kids.
Talk to Dan Montagna and the real costs of a
policy like that become clear.
A Pinellas County charter fishing boat owner, Montagna has
been battling
his ex-wife for years to prevent her from moving to California
and taking
their 7-year-old daughter. He says he is deeply involved in
his daughter's
life, accompanying her to school and gymnastics training.
"She's
everything," he says of his little girl.
Montagna's lucky. Since 1997 the law in Florida
has been changed to end the
courts' prior practice of favoring relocation for the custodial
parents. So
far, with help from attorney Peter Meros, Montagna has been
able to keep
his daughter here. But not every state has progressed to recognize
that
children need their fathers as well as their mothers to be
part of their
day-to-day lives.
Part of the problem is the legal standard used
to resolve custody issues,
where judges apply a "best interest of the child"
analysis and thereby
allow their inherent biases toward maternal nurturing to seep
in. To ward
against that, I suggest the adoption of a new standard recognizing
that the
children's interests are no more important than the constitutional
rights
of both parents to actively rear them.
Fathers are becoming an endangered species
in part because the family
courts don't fully appreciate their equal claim to their children.
Sexist
notions of gender roles inform too much decisionmaking, transforming
too
many men from engaged parent to alienated visitor.
|
