From: shedevil@leland.Stanford.EDU (Anne P. Mitchell, JD)
Subject: About the Fathers' Rights & Equality Exchange (F.R.E.E.)
Reply-To: shedevil@gw.home.vix.com (Anne P. Mitchell, J.D.)
Organization: Fathers Rights & Equality Exchange
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 16:50:41 GMT


              -- About the Fathers' Rights & Equality Exchange --

        The Fathers' Rights & Equality Exchange (FREE) is a non-profit
   organization dedicated to the premise that parenting is a 50/50 
   proposition.  As such, both fathers and mothers should share equally in
   the parenting and support of their children.

        While there are many highly visible interest groups advocating the
   very real plight of single mothers, few groups speak out for the
   problems encountered by single fathers.  As a result, society has come
   to not only overlook the problems of single fathers, but to view single
   fathers as the root of all evils visited upon the single mother.  To be
   sure, FREE recognizes that there are indeed some fathers who don't pay
   support, or who skip town.  However there are a great many fathers who
   want to parent their children, who are willing and prepared to pay their
   fair share of child-support, and who wish only to be treated with
   respect, fairness, and dignity by the State, the Family Law System, and
   by society.  It is these fathers for whom FREE stands up and advocates.

        FREE is an international membership group with members throughout
   the United States, Canada, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
   Members stay in constant communication via an international computer
   network known as the Internet.

        Local groups respond to the needs of their area members by
   providing meetings, attorney referrals, and advice and support, as
   needed.

        In addition, FREE members have used their collective power of
   the pen to work to educate others as to the concerns of single
   fathers, and the very real inequities in our current family law
   and social service systems.  Examples include letters written to the
   United Way regarding an anti-father advertising campaign, and members
   getting involved and offering their services to the President's
   Commission on Urban Families.

        FREE's director, Anne Mitchell, founded the organization in 1991.
   Ms. Mitchell, a 1992 graduate of Stanford Law School, and herself a
   single parent, has been involved in fathers' rights advocacy since 1987.

        FREE may be reached by electronic mail at: free@vix.com

   If you would like to be on the FREE list, please forward the following:

   Your name
   Your address
   Your preferred email address
   Is it ok to share your email address only with other FREE members?
   Your telephone number
   Your interest in this area (i.e. are you a divorced father?  The wife of
   divorced father?  The adult child of a divorce in which you saw the
   inequities of the system?)

   If for some reason you prefer not to include one of the above pieces of
   information, that is ok too, but please mention that you are
   omitting it intentionally.

   Please be sure to make your subject line something like "Add Me To the
   List".

   Also, if you haven't already done so, please feel free to ftp the
   fathers' rights oriented paper from gw.home.vix.com.  The directory
   is /pub, and the file is "dads".


Xref: sparky alt.dads-rights:3263 alt.child-support:4307 soc.men:22456