From: chris@psych.toronto.edu (Chris Hitchcock)
Newsgroups: alt.dads-rights,soc.men,soc.women
Subject: Re: Sexual Discrimination
Date: 27 Jan 93 16:37:12 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Psychology, University of Toronto

In article <93027.074324RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET> <RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET> writes:
>
>  I am afraid that we have in ted frank's case an example of the `gallant,
>male-bashing' male.  I do not know about other states, but in Massachusetts,
>women got custody in 90% of CONTESTED cases.  I am sure that there are
>others who know the statistics better, and the same pattern  probably
>holds in other states too.
>
>Rohit Parikh

There's a book which was advertised in Ms. magazine sometime during 91.
It was the issue on reproductive technologies. In the review of the book
it was claimed that the overall statistics for custody reflected mainly
a failure to contest, and that in 90% of contested cases, custody was
awarded to _men_. Rohit's statistics are dead against this. I haven't
done any research  in this area, but it seems worthwhile for the group
who are looking into a class-action suit to look up the book, and to 
check their references on various net-statistics.

I am grateful that some men are now expressing an interest in childrearing,
and I hope that makes it easier for all of us to be balanced people.
I still know women whose husbands walked out on them with small children,
and never discussed options about childcare, assuming that the woman would
deal with it. In one case she has persistently offered and insisted on him
keeping contact with his kids (who he claims to love, but never makes tiem
for). He still calls it "babysitting". I know a man who's partner left him 
with a child, and he has a hell of a time getting across borders, even 
with a letter written from the mother and legally endorsed to allow him 
to pass. And I know two divorce/custody cases in which the husband 
blatantly lied about his ex to try to get the kids and/or get out of paying
any support. 

Why do I list all of these? Well, partly to look at them myself, and partly
to point out that there's a lot of variety out there. In affirmative action,
the point is to find qualified candidates, and the onness is on the employer
to conciously override sexism and racism in implicit hiring criteria by
awarding jobs to qualified individuals from underrepresented groups. In custody
cases there *are* only two candidates to choose from, and you can't extend your
search to a larger applicant pool to find a superlative male parent. So long as
society tells women to be nurturant and males to be the bread- winners, 
and so long as most people buy those roles, I think that divorce
and custody cases will be biased towards women who have compromised their 
outside lives for the good of the family and men who have compromised their
family lives to support it. And when one parent has spent 5 years of their
life in daily contact with a child, while the other has spent that time
working and commuting for 10 hours a day, it's not surprising that the
former gets custody more often. It's not surprising that the former *wants*
custody more often, and that the latter sometimes recognizes a superior
bond and does not contest. I think effort expended ought to count for
something. For example, who took the child to the dentist and doctor more
often, who stayed home when the kid was sick, who compromised their 
career. 

Having said that, I rejoice that the world may be changing, and that that
role will not always be female. In academia I see a lot of men who are 
taking much more of a role in raising their children. I'm interested in 
what *their* children do in raising kids. 

Anyway, I'm all for a recognition of bias in the court systems against
men as custodial parents, and I support efforts to change that. I hope 
that only happens when there are qualified candidates, though.

Chris (who is putting on a flame-proof suit after thinking out loud about
such a touchy topic).
-- 
Chris Hitchcock, Dept. of Psychology     chris@psych.toronto.edu
University of Toronto      in my new life: clh@vax.ox.ac.uk                 
Toronto, Ontario          UseNet:  I only read it for the  
CANADA  M5S 1A1                         .signatures                         
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