LovePrevails Posted August 18, 2013 Posted August 18, 2013 Hi anyone care to write a reposte to this article? post here and send to author? https://everydayfeminism.com/2013/08/bias-against-fathers/?upw
Kevin Beal Posted August 18, 2013 Posted August 18, 2013 Do you wanna write a letter to the Nation of Islam magazine about their flawed articles? But it's not for the benefit of feminists, a response would be for people who are on the fence or just learning about the "debate". It certainly would be crazy to expect to change their minds, but like Stef's response to John Stewart's 19 tough questions for libertarians isn't actually to convince John Stewart. I do have some criticisms of the article though. Just some thoughts, nothing too rigorous. In the part of the article where the author points to three major problems with Men's Rights arguments concerning the family court being biased toward women, she summarizes them as: 1. They Draw Incomplete Conclusions from the Divorce Statistics 2. They Demonize Women 3. They Value Fathers’ Rights over Children’s Rights In the first response she simply states that it's biased against men, but only because of patriarchy since it's a "patriarchal" notion that men are not meant to be caregivers. She does not explain how the voluminous articles on the courts bias against men draw "incomplete" conclusions, nor does she explain how her explanation is more complete. All she does is say that because the courts favor women, it's because of patriarchy. If they had not favored women, I can imagine the explanation would be *drum roll please* patriarchy! There is no null hypothesis, it's simply always patriarchy. In the second "counter argument" she claims that Men's Rights advocates who talk about the courts bias against men are demonizing women. She does this immediately after accusing her opposition of drawing incomplete conclusions based on limited information. Obviously there are some people who blame women for it all, but that's not the position of the fathersrights.com organizations she links or any other men's rights organization that I'm aware of. She is guilty of exactly what she blames men's rights advocates of. Further she misrepresents fathers rights advocates when she says: Saying that all mothers – or even most mothers – who file for divorce want to keep their children from their fathers out of spite with utter disregard for the children’s best interest and relationship is unfair and unfounded. Then she cites a Huffington Post article that draws the same conclusion she does. It does actually make a case I can't dismiss entirely, but it's clearly guilty of "drawing incomplete conclusions from the divorce statistics" as it is only a few paragraphs long, cites only one source and it's conclusion isn't necessarily justified from the argument she makes and stats she presents. As for "counter argument" number 3, she simply asserts that men care more about themselves than their children when they are fighting for fathers rights to be in their children's lives. There is no argument made here, just some pretty gross malevolence for father's rights advocates. That is except for something implicit linked earlier in the article that states that men spend less time with their children on average even though both parents work, so they must only care now that it's affecting them negatively. She states this almost explicitly in this section. She also mentions that some fathers rights groups advocate reducing child support payments, and without reference to any reasons these groups would be for that concludes that this is anti-child and anti-woman. From that point on she goes into gender roles and how men are to blame for not being in their kids lives enough, and it's not like that's entirely untrue, but the point of the article is clear. She's blaming men for the way the family courts are biased against men. Mostly she does this by making men out to be selfish and not caring about their own children. The only piece of evidence or reasoning she provides is implicit in the average time fathers vs mothers spend with children. I have my own bias if that wasn't completely obvious, lol, but that's what I have to say about the article. If I've got something completely wrong, please let me know. I know that a lot of men (including my own father) gave up as soon as the mother says she's keeping the children because men know that the odds are stacked against them. Not that I would have chose living with my father over my mother necessarily, but still. Speaking personally, I didn't receive much child support until I was old enough that I was moving out. I never had new clothes, and I often went without food in the early years, so the child support money that did come in went toward rent and paying off my mother's debts. The back child support just went to my mom who had no children still living with her, for a few years until my father took her to court over it. I wouldn't defend either of them, and I imagine that a lot of people's experiences are like mine, and that maybe sometimes there is an unfair bias toward the women. That they must care about the children since they live with her, and the father must be some kind of deadbeat because they don't live with him. I don't know how these kinds of situations should be solved, I just think it would be great if there wasn't so much propaganda around the issue.
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