Court Opinion

ID: 9694723
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:52:48.728683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:04.875649
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Justice,
specially concurring.
It is not a “stereotyped assumption” that women are more likely to be economically disadvantaged by divorce than men: It is a plain fact, which has been established in study after study. See Beals v. Beals, 517 N.W.2d 413 (N.D.1994) (Levine, J., specially concurring) [citing gender bias studies from Colorado, Florida, Rhode Island and Idaho to support the proposition that “the economic consequences of divorce for women are devastating.”]. Women remain more likely to assume the role of homemaker, and it has long been known that the “willingness of the wife to remain at home limits her ability to develop a career of her own. If the marriage is later dissolved, the wife may be unable, despite her greatest efforts, to enter the job market.” Marriage of Morrison, 20 Cal.3d 437, 143 Cal.Rptr. 139, 149, 573 P.2d 41, 51 (1978); see also Marriage of Brantner, 67 Cal.App.3d 416, 136 Cal.Rptr. 635 (1977). Consequently, “divorced men experience an average 42 percent rise in their standard of *149living in the first year after the divorce, while divorced women (and their children) experience a 73 percent decline.” Lenore J. Weitzman, The Divorce Revolution 323 (1985). While it may be biased to award support to a disadvantaged wife based solely on the fact that she is a woman (a practice Bellino apparently would like us to endorse), it is not biased to recognize that women are more likely to fall into the category of “disadvantaged spouse” and that homemakers are more likely to encounter an inhospitable job market. The reality of gender-based bias, discrimination and detriment is not pretty, and we cannot make it go away merely by calling it a “stereotyped assumption” and closing our eyes to it under the guise of “blind justice.”