I've written about this issue before. Over half the states have some form of putative father registry. Laws in those states require men who have had sex with a woman to whom they're not married to file a form with the state claiming paternity for any child who may be born as a result. If... »
Cosmopolitan Magazine just doesn't give up. And why should it, considering it's one of the most widely circulated magazines in the country? Maybe this article shows why (Cosmopolitan, 2/18/09). It's just a theory, but maybe women buy Cosmo because it reinforces their high opinions of themselves and their low opinions of men. I'm sure... »
The Alliance for National Defense has issued a call to the United States Department of Defense to allow women in combat on an equal basis with men. AND is a non-profit educational organization that promotes gender equality in the armed forces. Its position paper can be seen here. To AND's credit, the paper emphasizes that jobs... »
"David Nevers, of Hinsdale, Ill., was once featured on an ABC domestic violence special after his wife got his kids — even though she put him in the hospital, he said. “'Please, before you crucify Mr. Dickinson for his comments, listen to some of the stories divorced fathers have to tell,' he added." In a story... »
" also said that constituents who called him were in agreement, including a lawyer who seems to agree about the gimmicky nature of domestic violence. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to the selectmen that the calls they got from guys complaining about Starting Point were actually from perpetrators of domestic violence... "The... »
This time it's in Massachusetts (CNN, 2/16/09). The last time it was Pennsylvania. This time a boy took a phone photo of his partially clad 13-year-old girlfriend and texted it to his friends. Now he and they are up on charges of distributing child pornography. If convicted, they'll be labeled sex offenders, possibly for the... »
But the practical ramifications are that we (women) can't do the slightest thing wrong . . . And if we can't care for somebody who screws up, that makes our position on friendship very precarious. Those are the words of Joyce Benenson of the Department of Biological Anthropology at Harvard, discussing recent research published in the... »
From Chris Brown was just defending himself (www.monstersandcritics.com, 2/26/09): Chris Brown will reportedly plead self-defense in his court case, claiming Rihanna attacked him. The 19-year-old singer – who has allegedly been accused of beating his ex-girlfriend earlier this month – is waiting to hear if the charges will be brought to court and is set to... »
A few weeks ago I called your attention to an article on child support written by Albany Times-Union columnist Dan Higgins and suggested you write the paper. In Mothers skip on payments, too (2/23/09), longtime reader Chris Nelson of Clifton Park, NY writes: I appreciate that your recent article on unpaid child support included a... »
"It is bureaucracy gone totally insane." That's how domestic violence volunteer Pat Gaunt described orders from the Community Services Department of Brisbane, Australia to serve male victims of DV. Apparently the "Central Coast domestic violence intervention response team" has opted to simply stop providing services to anyone rather than serve a single man. Its constitution forbids it from... »
For Japanese salary men, the reward for a lifetime of long hours at the office earning a good living so their wives and children can be comfortable are... can anyone guess? A gold watch? No. A lavish retirement party? No. The correct answer is divorce and loss of half their pensions. Much like the Canadian man,... »
"Dr. Ned C. Holstein, chairman of the board of directors of Fathers and Families in Boston, said the child-support system is another form of war on poor people. The system turns low-income fathers into criminals, he said. "'The child support orders are so high, we will see more and more of this, particularly with a... »
I discussed teen singer Chris Brown’s reported assault of singer Rihanna on Rover's Morning Glory radio show in Cleveland, Memphis and other cities this morning. Rover is very tuned in to men's and fathers' issues, while his female co-host Duji is...less so. Rover was very interested in what happens to men who are accused of... »
New Hampshire local politician Crow Dickinson is being crucified for uttering some inconvenient truths about divorce and domestic violence--"There are a lot of women who use as a gimmick in divorce proceedings." Hundreds have responded to Fathers & Families' Recent Action Alert to write letters in support of Dickinson. According to an Associated... »
A child is owed a father, and any woman who is unable or unwilling to provide one is making a self indulgent, selfish choice to conceive a child. It's nice to read a piece that makes sense. Facts, logic and principled judgment are always so much easier on the faculties than the usual anti-father claptrap... »
Even as the concept of Parental Alienation Syndrome becomes more accepted and more familiar, anti-PAS forces grow more dismissive. Just in the past couple of weeks we've seen writers who are mostly ignorant of the subject sniff at PAS as a "discredited, pseudoscientific malady." This piece out of the Globe and Mail is another example (The... »
We'll probably never know the why's and wherefores of this one (The Washington Post, 2/15/09). What we do know is that 42 years ago, a woman, Sharron Diane Crawford Smith, murdered two young women in an ice cream shop in Staunton, Virginia. Apparently she confessed the crime and handed over the murder... »
I will be speaking at Fathers & Families' General Membership meeting on Tuesday March 10 at 7:00 PM. The meeting is free and open to the general public, and I would be happy to meet as many of you as possible there. Tell your friends, your significant others, and your family to come. Free refreshments will... »
In the blogpost "Outrage!" I reported on a case in the United Kingdom in which a man was accused by a BBC "personality" of raping her 40 times. He claimed innocence and she eventually recanted the allegations. His name is known to UK police as a suspect in a rape case. As such, he cannot... »
A heroic dad--let's hope he is able to solve the mystery and help his little girl. From DIY DNA: One Father's Attempt to Hack His Daughter's Genetic Code (Wired Magazine, 1/19/09): erious health problems have vexed Beatrice during her brief life. She was born with a rare genetic disorder, and at one point the Rienhoffs... »
" father is just as much a parent as a mother. Except when we decide he's not, as did Ms. Suleman and her medical enablers. According to media reports, the male friend who provided the sperm for all of Suleman's 14 children had begged her to stop after the first six -- to no... »
"The article speaks of the spiral of death in domestic violence, yet statistics provided in the article note that there were 8,000 DV events reported to police last year and only 8 DV related deaths. That's .1%." Michael Freeny, MSW, wrote me with an interesting commentary about the recent Orlando Sentinel article Questionnaire helps Orlando... »
A bill to allow biological fathers, whether married or not and whether married to the mother of their child or not, to ask a judge to order that genetic testing be done for the purpose of establishing paternity, has been approved in committee and awaits action by the Kentucky House of Representatives. Read the bill here and read... »
It's hard to keep up with all the male-bashing of late, but I can't let this one go by. A couple of researchers at Cambridge tested the saliva of London-based traders of stocks, options, derivatives, etc. and found that testosterone and cortisol levels affect their decision-making. To which, the less shrewd among us would say,... »
Here's an interesting United Nations report on human trafficking (Boston.com, 2/12/09). According to it, over 60% of those convicted of trafficking in human beings are women. The scope of the problem is not at all clear. Some of these people are used as sex workers and some are used in sweatshops, mines, farms and factories. ... »
In this story, a couple in the UK made the grave error of taking one of their children to the doctor. He had leg fractures due to a rare form of scurvy. But the doctor misdiagnosed the condition as arising from parental abuse. And presto! The child and his two siblings were taken from the home... »
Is there such a thing as hyper-hypocrisy? If there's not, there should be. Like hyper-inflation it would indicate hypocrisy squared, hypocrisy heaped on top of hypocrisy. If there is such a thing, Salon.com's Broadsheet blog has produced it in this piece by Judy Berman (Salon.com, 2/10/09). In it she bemoans the media's treatment of an alleged... »
That's what the Indiana chapter of the National Organization for Women is pushing in a bill before that state's legislature. This article recites the obligatory wage gap figure without explaining that it doesn't result from discrimination but from other factors such as lack of actually working, seniority, etc (Indystar, 2/5/09). It should come as no... »
The State of Michigan has recently enacted new guidelines relating to how the amount of child support is determined in divorce cases. Basically, they require family law judges to determine the amount of parenting time the non-custodial parent spends with his/her child in deciding the amount of child support to order. Generally, the more parenting time the... »
When last we heard from Lisa Belkin of The New York Times, she was uncritically repeating claims made by Parenting magazine's "Mad at Dad" survey. A little research on Belkin's part would have at least cast doubt on that survey's findings, but rather than do any actual work, her article almost exclusively quoted "data"... »
One of the biggest targets of feminists' criticism is evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology goes against one of the central tenets of patriarchy theory, that social conditioning drives all or nearly all gender differences in behavior. The feminist blogosphere reacted with predictable (and understandable) irritation to this article citing a study about how women orgasm more... »
An Oklahoma Department of Corrections official has just gotten a bright idea about how to save the state money - reduce the number of female prison inmates. That's right, female inmates, and it's not just her; apparently it's state policy to reduce the number of female inmates. Read about it here (The Hays Daily News, 2/9/09). It also... »
I hope someone's keeping a list. Someday it could have a prominent position in the Buck Passers Hall of Fame. This is another case of alleged statutory rape of a minor boy by his teacher, Carole Leigh Mayers (Delmarvanow.com, 2/4/09). Her defense this time is that he's now mature, so it must be OK for her to have... »
Penny Boudreau's boyfriend Vernon Macumber gave her an ultimatum - it's either me or your daughter. Now some women in that case would have told him to hit the road. Others might have asked the girl's father Paul to take over custody of their daughter Karissa (pictured). Penny Boudreau did neither. She took the... »
In a Fathers & Families Action Alert last week, I explained that journalist R.V. Scheide of the Sacramento News & Review, a prominent California weekly, labeled Parental Alienation a "discredited, pseudoscientific malady" in his article Down by law (2/5/09). I wrote "The author of the article, R.V. Scheide, probably means well but...doesn't know... »
Here's a piece in The New York Times Sunday Magazine that would like to convince us that, if you've got the money, single motherhood is pretty much an ideal arrangement for all concerned (The New York Times, 2/1/ 09). Like so many Times writers, Emily Bazelon seems to think that the world consists of a few privileged,... »
The State of Minnesota has instituted a pilot program at the appellate level that diverts family cases to mediation instead of being ruled on by the higher court. Read about it here. Basically, after the trial court has ruled on the case, if one or both litigants wish to appeal the ruling, they now... »
...except in this case. When it happens to a man, it's a riot. Just ask the guy who wrote this and the woman who drugged and raped her boyfriend. But that's no surprise for a guy who puts the Abu Ghraibesque picture at the right on his blog and who urges us all to "raise a... »
She says the balance of the court - once firmly in favour of granting custody to mothers - had tipped dramatically towards fathers. The Howard government's regime of "shared parenting" had given power to fathers at the expense of mothers. So, rather than appear in court, Australian Melinda Stratton kidnapped her son and fled the... »
This one is worse than most (Rockford Register Star, 1/31/09). In this case the father, Ralph Lowery, Jr. was actually entitled under Illinois law to notice of the adoption and an opportunity to contest it. That's often not true. Many states go out of their way to circumvent fathers' rights in cases of adoption, usually via the enactment... »
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