Joanna Schroeder asserts that the viral story of a woman who was raped and made pregnant leads to many bigger questions about how states should legislate parental rights of rapists.
There has been a wildly popular news story making its way through both the Internet and mainstream media the last two days—that of the very brave Shauna Prewitt who is sharing the torment of women like herself, who conceived a child from being raped.
It’s impossible for most of us to imagine the trauma of a woman who was raped, and made pregnant by the rape (estimates of these occurrences range between 15,000-30,000 babies conceived via rape each year, depending upon data collection methods), and then legally forced to see her rapist on a regular basis while fighting for custody of the conceived child. It’s beyond comprehension, really, and it strikes a chord within our psyches as one of the most wrong things that could happen to a person at the hands of the law.
It’s natural to have a knee-jerk reaction and to think, “That should be illegal!” But we must take a closer look and examine exactly how a law against this would work.
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First, we should be clear that there are states with laws on the books that talk about custody in the case of fatherhood via rape. The Daily Kos blog details such data. This is going to be a long quote, but the information contained is critical to our discussion:
The latest case to discuss this issue is Shepherd v. Clemens, 752 A.2d 533 (Del. 2000). There, the court concluded that when a child is conceived and born as the result of an unlawful sexual intercourse as defined in the code, the biological father shall not be permitted visitation. This does not violate constitutional principles. “No court has held that the mere fact of biological fatherhood that was the result of a conception during a criminal act and that is unaccompanied by a relationship with the child, creates an interest that the United States Constitution protects in the name of liberty.” See Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U.S. 248, 259-62 (1983). See generally Deborah L. Forman, Unwed Fathers and Adoption: A Theoretical Analysis in Context, 72 Texas L.Rev. 967 (1994).
Other states have similar statutory provisions. Alaska Stat. § 25.23.180 (1999) court may terminate parental relationship if child was conceived as a result of sexual assault, and termination is in the best interests of the child); Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 361.5 (West 1999) (reunification not provided to parent of child conceived as result of sexual assault); Conn. Gen. Stat. § 45a-717 (1999) (court may terminate parental rights of parent convicted of a sexual assault resulting in the conception of a child, except in certain cases of statutory rape); Idaho Code § 16-2005 (1999) (court may grant termination of parental rights as to a parent who conceived a child as a result of rape); 750 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 50/8 (West 1999) (father’s consent to adoption not required if he fathered child as result of criminal sexual abuse or assault); Ind. Code § 31-19-9-8 (1999) (notice to father of adoption proceedings not required if child conceived as result of rape, incest, or sexual misconduct with a minor); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. Tit. 19-A, § 1658 (West 1999) (court may terminate parental rights of person who conceived child as result of crime involving sexual intercourse, unless court informed that the act was consensual); Mo. Rev. Stat. § 211.447 (1999) (biological father’s guilty plea or conviction of forcible rape of the birth mother is conclusive evidence to termination his parental rights); Nev. Rev. Stat. § 125c.210 (1999) (father has no right of custody or visitation if child conceived as result of sexual assault unless consented to by mother and is in the best interest of the child); N.J. Stat. Ann. § 9:2-4.1 (West 1999) (see infra text accompanying this note); N.M. Stat. Ann. § 32A-5-19 (Michie 1999); N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law § 111-a (McKinney 1999); Okla. Stat. Ann. Tit. 10, § 7006-1.1 (1999) (stating that the court may terminate parental rights if the child was conceived as a result of rape); 23 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 2511 (West 1999) (father’s parental rights may be terminated if child conceived as a result of rape or incest); S.C. Code Ann. § 20-7-1734 (Law Co-op. 1999) (father not entitled to notice of adoption proceedings if child conceived as result of criminal sexual misconduct); Wis. Stat. §§ 48.42, 48.415 (1999) (§ 48.42 stating that no notice is required to the father in a termination of parental rights case when the child has been conceived as a result of sexual assault or rape; § 48.415 stating that parenthood as a result of sexual assault or rape is grounds for involuntary termination of parental rights).
Now, let it be known that I am nowhere near a lawyer or member of law-enforcement. My degree from UCLA is in Women’s Studies, and so I obviously have to approach this conversation as a layperson, but I think it’s important to discuss what we really want, and need, in this situation in order to create a safer society, rather than react out of unreasoned emotion.
Most, if not all, of the states that have legislation about the case of paternity rights of rapists use wording that seems very helpful. For instance: “Conn. Gen. Stat. § 45a-717 (1999) (court may terminate parental rights of parent convicted of a sexual assault resulting in the conception of a child, except in certain cases of statutory rape)“. This statute simply states that the court has the right to block a man convicted of raping a woman from having parental rights to resulting child. Such was the case with Shauna Prewitt, her baby’s father’s rights were revoked. This seems like good language—it allows the court the discretion to determine whether or not said father should have paternal rights.
In Connecticut, the law applies to those convicted of the sexual assault that resulted in the child, but not to those who are accused of a rape. But many people on the Internet are talking about how these law should also apply to those who are also accused of rape.
This may cause another knee-jerk reaction. We think, no way can we make a law preventing fathers accused of raping the mother from having parental rights! They haven’t even been convicted, imagine the abuse this law could suffer. And while I maintain that the number of women who would lie about being raped and having conceived a child is relatively small, the possibility of any accusation having legal consequences to a person’s parental rights is frightening.
And so we return to the notion that a father should only lose parental rights or custody if he’s been convicted of the crime. But we have to bear in mind that there is a pretty serious gap between the time in which a person is accused of a crime and when he or she will actually be tried and found guilty or innocent of said crime. This interim time can often be up to 18 months, and being as a baby gestates for only 38 weeks, there’s a very real possibility that even in the most obvious cases of rape (i.e. a lot of physical evidence), a father could petition for parental rights and custody, and no law would bar him from doing so until he’s convicted.
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It seems nearly everyone can agree that our legal system is deeply fallible in determining guilt in rape cases. There are notable examples of women who have falsely accused a man of rape, only to recant after the man has served prison time. These cases are relatively rare compared to how many rape convictions are handed down with solid evidence that they are just verdicts, and yet they happen. Beyond that, as Prewitt points out in her article in the Georgetown Law Journal, the conviction rates of reported rape are startlingly low compared with other serious crimes. Can we depend upon our judicial system to find just verdicts in rape trials? Many—on both sides—say no.
Finally we land in the middle ground, full of questions and stuck in an ugly quagmire. Should there be laws allowing a judge discretion in preventing a father from contacting the mother whom he’s accused of raping, as well as preventing him from gaining custody or even visitation of his child? Possibly. Should the accused father have his parental rights terminated on the basis of the accused rape? No.
Here’s why: As it stands, a judge in a family court can still deny the accused father access to the child regardless of the conviction. If the judge deems the father to be dangerous, he or she can deny access as they see fit, from a judicial standpoint. In collecting evidence, the judge will hear testimony from the mother and consider the accusation and evidence and then rule.
If a father has not lost parental rights, he can continue to pursue custody and do what happens in some of the stories Shauna Prewitt relays—drag the alleged victim into court on a regular basis for the duration of the child’s dependency, causing further trauma (imagine if the victim were one of the many rape survivors who experiences PTSD as a result) and ever-mounting legal fees.
And yet without conviction, it’s hard to imagine that a law keeping an accused rapist from access to—at the very least—due process in his custody process would be constitutional. It is not a perfect judicial system, but it is the one we have. With our presumption of innocence until proven guilty, a lot of grey area exists in which exploitation can occur. And yet without this presumption of innocence, we are not a free society.
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To me, as an admitted layperson, it seems we need to look not only at laws like some of the states cited above have, but also elsewhere in order to protect rape survivors from further trauma. We need to look deeper, and get even more grassroots. We need to revolutionize the way we, as a society, regard rape victims. We need to respect them as we do victims of any crime. You know the old story, if a woman is mugged and her purse is stolen, we don’t say, “Why were you carrying a Louis Vuitton? Weren’t you asking for it to be stolen?” We need to see the victim as an innocent, just as the rapist is innocent until convicted. We need to be make the judicial system a safe place for victims of sexual assault—both men and women—to bring their cases as soon as they happen, when evidence is most available, so we have more accurate convictions.
We also need to understand that men can be victims of rape, even at the hands of women. If we’re talking about custody or parental rights being disallowed for either accused or convicted rapists, we also need to talk about what would happen in the case of a woman who became pregnant from raping a man. As far as I know there are no statistics about how often this happens, and if there are I’d bet they aren’t as peer-reviewed and replicable as we’d like them to be. But that doesn’t discount the fact that no doubt that pregnancies like this (even if rare) have occurred. Would that woman be exempt from laws that allow judges to terminate parental rights of men based upon an accusation or even conviction of rape?
There are no good answers here. We’re asking people to have faith in a very faulted system. We’re asking women who have been raped to return to court to face their rapists in order to determine custody and parental rights, at least until a conviction is handed down. But why do we do it?
For freedom and the equal right to due process for all individuals.
Because when we need the presumption of innocence, it is there for us, and it must apply to everybody.
What do you think of Shauna Prewitt’s mission to educate people about the suffering many mothers of rape-conceived kids experience?
Is “innocent until proven guilty” even the best system for maintaining freedom?
How best should we legislate parental rights and custody in cases of children who were conceived via rape?
How can we, at a grassroots level, change the way in which rape victims of both/any gender or sexuality are treated within the judicial system? How will this aid the process of protecting survivors of sexual assault who conceive?
For more reading, check out Yes, Rape Victims Get Erections, Too
Image of Custody of Child courtesy of Shutterstock
About Joanna Schroeder
There’s an awful lot of use of the word rapist, and not a lot of the word “alleged.” Can we call a man a rapist if he has been acquitted of rape? I don’t think so as he has been found innocent by a jury of his peers. I think one of the greatest problems with the media’s approach to alleged sex crimes is the fervent attachment to guilty until proven innocent which is still guilty because the court must have failed the victim.
Why is it that we treat alleged sex crimes differently? I understand the visceral repulsiveness of the crimes we’re talking about — violation of a person’s most intimate part of being — but the way these cases are treated is really an indictment on civilized society. The ONLY type of criminal charge I can think of where Blackstone’s formulation is essentially thrown out is one of a sexual nature.
It’s like the girl who outed the perpetrators who plead guilty to charges but were minors and got the whole media after them. We have people calling them rapists (they are not) and the world applauding the use of vigilante justice against children! Our justice system is flawed, but the fact that it doesn’t mete out revenge is not one of its flaws.
Do acquittals necessarily mean that it was a false accusation? No. Does it mean they are innocent? In the strict definition of the word, yes. We cannot have a system where guilt or innocence is determined by mob and that is exactly what we have when it comes to alleged crimes of a sexual nature.
Our judicial system is not designed to punish the guilty; it is designed to protect the innocent. As an innocent person who has victimized by that system, I cannot put into words the depths of helplessness that comes from being victimized by the very system that was supposed to protect me.
First, we need to discuss what “alleged” means. It means someone said it happened, but has not yet been proven.
In the case of this article, I say “accused” and “alleged” when it makes sense, but being as I’m not talking about any particular person, there is no need to say it when we are in a thought experiment about what would happen if a rapist were allowed to seek custody of the child he fathered through force. If he’s convicted, it’s no longer “alleged”.
I don’t even really understand why you would raise this point. Go scan it again, when I’m talking about a man who hasn’t been convicted, I say “accused” and strongly defend the “innocent until proven guilty” code.
Acquittals simply mean that there wasn’t enough evidence to support a conviction of the particular crime. We don’t say, “Jury, do you find Chris Smith guilty or innocent in the crime of murder in the first degree?” We say, “…guilty or not guilty” because we cannot prove innocence.
We should not presume a not-guilty judgement presumes a false accusation. We should be clear that not guilty simply means “not guilty”. Those words are not an accident.
However, there is always the opportunity for the accused to go after the accuser in civil court for defamation or wrongful whatever (again, not a lawyer) if he or she feels his or her life has been damaged by the accusation. That’s why we have civil court!
also important to keep in mind different burdens if proof in criminal court (beyond a reasonable doubt) and civil/family court (preponderance of the evidence aka “more likely than not”)
I wonder how the courts would handle the case of the twenty-something year old woman who began showing attention to a lonely, hurting, vulnerable twelve-almost-thirteen-year-old-boy. She was kind and gentle and caring and showed him love that he so desperately needed. When she started touching him and inviting him to touch her, he thought it was ok because she loved him and he loved her. It wasn’t long before the touching changed to other things but it was ok because she gave him pills to help him relax and told him she loved him and he loved her. It wasn’t long after that she took this boy to meet a friend of hers. He wasn’t sure about it but she said it was ok and he believed her because she said she loved him and he loved her. Then there were more friends and more pills but through it all she loved him and he loved her. Even after a friend of hers beat him so bad he couldn’t breathe, it was ok because she held him close and gently washed the blood and tears and other assorted bodily fluids from his skin. He knew she loved him and he loved her. There were more friends and parties and pills and alcohol. He was passed around from friend to friend but it was ok because he knew she loved him and he loved her. Not long after his sixteenth birthday she came to him and showed him a picture. It was a picture of the child growing inside her. She said it was his child and that they would be a happy family. This made him very happy because he knew she loved him and he loved her. She told him she needed money to take care of herself and the growing child inside her and she had ideas on how they could get it. He wasn’t sure but he knew she loved him and he loved her. He would do anything to help her get that money. He would take more pills and drink more alcohol and before long even the most depraved act no longer hurt his body. She would always wait outside the motel room until it was done and when her friends would leave she would come in and hold him close and tell him how much she loved him. She would help him in the bath and get him dressed to go home. It was always our secret because he would get in trouble if anyone found out. He didn’t worry about anyone finding out because he wasn’t going to tell anyone. He loved her and he knew she loved him. Then came the day when he did something wrong and made her angry. He couldn’t meet one of her friends when she wanted him to and she told him she was very angry and disappointed with him. She was very angry and didn’t talk to him for days. The next time he saw her she was still angry at him. She told him it was his fault. She told him he let her and the baby down and that she could not rely on him to get the money they needed. It was his fault so she said she had to get rid of the baby. It was his fault that their baby was gone. He loved her and he loved their baby but she didn’t love him and their baby was gone.
First, my heart aches and burns for the young man in this story. This woman is without a doubt a rapist, and a child predator and probably a pimp and a number of different types of incarnations of evil and should be in prison.
Second, I would hope that if the baby had been born, that all rights would have been stripped from her as I assume they would be if a male child predator had impregnated a young woman.
It’s a devastating story and I hope whomever’s story it is is able to find some semblance of peace.
Thank-you for your kind words Joanna. I wish I could’ve waited to write that post until I was in a better frame of mind. I am rather embarrassed and I apologize about bringing my own history into this discussion in that way.
Unfortunately, I have little faith that had our child been born my abuser would have been denied contact with her.
I hate being in this position really, but I have to point out another problem with denying parental rights in the case of a child conceived by rape. Even if he was convicted of rape, it would be very hard in many cases to prove that the child was conceived by that specific act of rape. The burden of proof would be to prove that there was no consensual sex between them at any point near the estimated point of conception. Hate to come down on this side, but there is the real possibility of consensual sex leading to conception and then very soon after a clear case of rape. The existence of other moments of consensual sex in no way means there was never rape. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t a rapist. But, saying that the rape led to the pregnancy may be much harder to prove.
I think that approach is a non-starter.
I actually disagree that it matters. If a person is convicted of rape, he or she is a rapist regardless of when the child was conceived. If a woman and man are married for ten years and then he rapes her and she can prove it enough to get a conviction handed down to him, he should lose access to his children until they are of legal age to choose for themselves.
It’s no difference if they had sex a week earlier and then he raped her and she couldn’t prove with intercourse was the impregnating one, he’s still a rapist.
Would you extend this to other crimes like if he stole money from her or others, beat her, etc or just rape?
It all sounds like a legal nightmare, I don’t think rapists deserve to have rights over children conceived by rape. With a father that conceived with consent, then rapes her…I dunno, becomes very tricky to deal with especially if those kids already have a strong bond with him, cutting off contact may hurt them, but keeping contact may hurt her. It’s one of those situations I leave up to the people in power to decide because it’s so troubling to think of, I have no idea what the right or wrong answer is except I wish rapists never existed.
Is rape a crime special enough to remove access to kids if they weren’t conceived during rape? I think it’d open the floodgate to other crimes being able to block access to kids, domestic abuse for one although there is a way to kick the abuser out n keep them away if they’re seen as a danger afaik which may be the law you could use to keep a rapist partner out of their lives?
The more I think about what I wrote, the less convinced I am about what I said. (So, maybe the solution is to stop thinking about it….) Once in a while I go all “ad absurdum” just to see where I wind up. In this case I should have taken a left turn at Albuquerque.
Hahaha. I do a similar thing. I take the opposite of any mainstream opinion (usually the opposite of a feminist perspective) and then I work through the logic. It’s the way that I know, even when people say I’m like a feminist-brainwash victim, that I’m certainly not.
think of it this way… there are a lot of pedophiles out there who fathered children with their wives. sometimes the pedophiles doesn’t believe in incest and that’s VERY lucky for their own children but not so lucky for other kids out there. so if this pedophile is a convicted pedophile, then his kids are usually taken away because we don’t want to take the chance that he might change his mind on incest being taboo.
Rapists and Pedophiles often share one thing in common–they like their victims helpless so that they can have a bit of power-trip over their own victims, often as a way to cover for their own inadequacies. They like being able to control their victims.
So if he raped his own wife/girlfriend or a total stranger who he met at a party… who are we to say that he wouldn’t rape the child he fathered once she got to be “old enough”? After all, it would be another way to retain power over the ones he raped… he’d be basically saying to the victimized mother: “Obey me, do as I say otherwise your daughter will experience the same thing you did.”
heck, he doesn’t even need to rape the daughter neither… all it would take is a few well-placed threats about the daughter’s well-being and the victimized mother would be right back in her “rightful place” just like he intended.
So that’s why I’m leery in giving any abuser access to their own kids, even if those kids were not born from rape. After all, Abusers will often do anything they can in order to keep their power over their victims.
Do we take kids away from women that mentally or physically abuse them? All types of abuse are damaging, not just sexual, so why only stop rapists from being around their kids and not the other abusers?
I hate rapists as much as the next person but this is a slippery slope methinks…You could find a reason to take kids from all kinds of abusers, is one slap enough? one punch?
I tend to think that kids should be taken away from abusers, no matter what the gender.
Although you’re right, in trying to define things there’s sometimes a slippery slope. but I think one way of getting around this is to look at the kids themselves. Abused Kids often exhibit signs of abuse, no matter how much they try to hide it within the family.
http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/signs.cfm this link provides very good examples of what signs to look out for.
and they do point out that the presence of a single sign does not prove child abuse is occurring in a family, but a closer look at the situation may be warranted when these signs appear repeatedly or in combination.
So if the kids seems healthy physically and psychologically, seems content with their family life, etc… then the chances is that they are not likely abused.
you should also ask them if they ever witnessed anything strange happening in their family household, in order to completely rule out that there’s abuse occurring with other family members that the kid may not be completely aware of. I think that seems simple enough, don’t you?
Yeah, I just find it strange there is a hyperfocus on sexual abuse as being the big baddie of the world whilst other abuse gets less of a mention or hatred. A child abuser is bad to me, whether they beat their kid or sexually assault them, even someone that demeans them with emotional abuse and ruins their self-esteem is terrible in my view.
I have to agree with you… all forms of abuse is bad no matter what.
I think the reason why sex abuse gets so much press is because it tends to be more visible physically. So it’s easier to prove, and is more harder to ignore as an result. Add on the whole horror of rape, and you got a media winner.
sometimes whereas things like emotional abuse is harder to pin down.
Heck, emotional abuse could even happen only once by people who thought themselves good parents. They could get mad at their kids one day, and then say things like: “God, I wish I had aborted you! you do nothing but bring misery to my life.” They would of course then promptly forget about what they actually said the next day, and move on as they didn’t just verbally/emotionally abuse their kids in a fit of anger. They have no idea that whatever they said while they were tired and angry actually stuck with their kids for a long time. So they often act so damn shocked when they find out that their kids think that their parents don’t love them at all!
Sometimes people act like the worst assholes ever one day and then is a perfectly “good” person the next day… so I think as an result more people are prone to making excuses for things like emotional/verbal abuse. so when somebody talks about how they were emotionally/verbally abused everyday, some people might say things like: “Oh, I’m sure that your father/mother was just super tired all the time and didn’t really mean what they said! Sometimes I say things like that and don’t really mean it, I was just tired/angry and had a bad day. so it’s probably the same way for your parents too!”
And some people also honestly don’t see a difference between a nagging mother who genuinely cares and an abusive mother who uses emotional blackmail. Sad, really.
Father and families has done a number of articles on this very topic, and it brings up some good points. It also brings up an example of a similar scenario with the genders reversed that lacks a certain sense of equality in the outspokenness of advocates. In the example, the mother is in jail for attempting to kill the father. The father is no longer a legal resident of the US. The courts have granted the father primary custody, but deny the father taking the child back to his native country and requires him to bring the child to the jail for routine visits.
Yeah, I read the Shawna Prewitt story in CNN. It seems she had to forgo a criminal trial of her rapist in exchange for him dropping his parental rights b/c, the story implies, her state would preserve his parental rights over the child post conviction. If true, that’s an atrocious miscarriage of justice.
But that’s if he were convicted, a critical nuance that is not stressed in the Prewitt story. I do fear that these earnest efforts to bring justice to the afflicted can potentially over-swing, particularly once they have the momentum and moral authority to bestow political capital to any champion. I would oppose an effort to cancel or suspend the parental rights of the accused. Because the crime does not depend on the act but rather the non-consent of one of the actors and state-of-mind yields little evidence, rape is particularly troublesome for an independent jury to assess. We should therefore tread very carefully with regard to expanding the severity of the already considerable jeopardy the accused finds him or herself pre-conviction.
Could always balance by making it: If you rape, you lose custody, If she falsely accusers, SHE loses custody. False accusations only, not the lack of evidence so charges are dropped stuff.
You mean that if she’s found guilty of a false accusation, with proof, then she loses custody. Seems fair, I mean, if you actually DO falsely accuse someone you could almost consider that attempted murder in some states where 1st Degree Rape is a capital crime. I mean, imagine if Brian Banks had been sentenced to death? Wouldn’t she be guilty of attempted murder?
On the other hand, if someone confesses to falsely accusing, there is that massive and horrible quagmire of whether to press charges. They deserve to have charges pressed, and yet if you press charges you create a major roadblock to other people being set free when people admit they were lying.
Ultimately, the good of the innocent person HAS to come before punishing the guilty. And in this case, the innocent person is the falsely accused who is just waiting for his victim to come forward and admit she or he lied.
Also to consider – a number of admitted rapists truly believe that they did not rape the person because of one reason or another. I hate the fact that we can’t ever know for sure who is guilty. It’s sickening.
Yeah if she willfully lied about it as a way to hurt him, eg the cases where a woman will say the father abused the child as an attempt to gain full custody of the kids. In my eyes that is an extreme perversion of justice, and should be punished heavily. If it’s a case where a woman misidentifies the rapist (if that happens?) then there’s no ill intent there and don’t think I’d want her charged, although he would need his life fixed somehow even if that means the courts have to pay for damages to reputation if it goes far enough.
Sex crimes, ESPECIALLY in regard to children are a very loaded crime where accusations are enough to severely damage a life and can lead to loss of freedom (jail) or loss of life (death sentence). To wilfully do that to someone to me is similar to assaulting them, stealing from them etc with the way our society is setup. One way to reduce the harm severely is a media blackout on accused for sex crimes, I really really really really hate when the accused are named. When they’re found guilty then go ahead, name them, scream from the mountains their name, but the accused and the accuser should be anon by law so we don’t get vigiliant actions, public opinion biasing the trial or jurors, or a persons life, reputation, business etc destroyed before even being found guilty.
If the trial goes ahead but there isn’t enough evidence, but they don’t find she made it up then she shouldn’t be charged.
I hate the fact too that it’s so hard to know who is guilty and innocent, especially in sex crimes where many I hear are he says she says (or he says he says, she says she says, etc). I guess still it’s better a guilty man go free than an innocent man goto jail, hopefully better methods to charge these sick fucks will be made and also hopefully we continue to reduce the amount of sexual abuse going on.
Another roadblock if the false accuser isn’t charged then simply it sends a message that you can try this and if it fails then all you don’t face prosecution, it reduces the barriers to committing that crime.
For example for the women who falsely-accuse the father of abuse in family courts, if they aren’t charged when it’s found out then doesn’t that let others who are considering it know that they can attempt it without fear of prosecution? Gives them a chance it’ll work and if it does then no biggie, no jailtime, no fine, etc.
@ Joanna
“On the other hand, if someone confesses to falsely accusing, there is that massive and horrible quagmire of whether to press charges. They deserve to have charges pressed, and yet if you press charges you create a major roadblock to other people being set free when people admit they were lying.”
I think that should be a mitigating factor and not automatically be a get out of jail free card. I think that if penalties were raised on false accusation such as whatever the falsely accused served plus 2 to 5 as a minimum, it might actually encourage false accusers to come clean earlier in the process. It would also give prosecutors the room to negotiate a plea.
That’s a good thought, John.
Random Stranger you’re so exactly right about the weird way that CNN and xoJane both completely averted the issue of whether her case even went to trial, it’s all inference. And also the fact that both articles COMPLETELY avoided conversation about whether the laws she’s proposing required conviction, and of course they ignored the fact that women can rape men and become pregnant and, you know, what then!?
I was going to write an article more scathing of the other pieces that ignored those facts but frankly, it felt sort of dirty to me because my guess is that she has some deal to not talk about aspects of her rape and I have to respect that.
I would rather just talk about the issues myself and folks who really care to dive into the subject and not just buy into the scandalous headlines would appreciate that effort (hopefully).
Anyone who says this isn’t an incredibly mucky and ambiguous situation is either not that smart or is too polarized to one side or the other to be a part of the realities of life as it actually happens.
Well, the courts have determined that women who have committed /statutory/ rape at least deserve to retain custody of their children, and sue for child support
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermesmann_v._Seyer
Make of that what you will, I guess.
Oh, I didn’t see that the woman in question was 16, and the boy 12/13. I don’t know if that still counts as statutory rape, since both were under 18 but he was below age of consent
Also note that most of the states have statutory rape clauses, because often that’s a totally different story.
Yeah, it’s a little bit different when both people in question are minors.
In a lot of states, female teachers who had slept with students are usually registered as sex offenders, and as an result they’re not allowed to go near any minor much less have custody of children. some states allow for that though.
I do know of one case where it was “allowed”, though, but it was in 1997 to 2004. And of course in 1997 there was plenty of people who still thought that males couldn’t be raped by females. by other males, sure…. but never females. After all, what sort of sissy man couldn’t fight off a woman?!
add on to the stereotype that all males, espeically young ones, are nothing but perpetual horn-bags who would hump anything if given the chance to do so. and of course, you can’t rape the “willing”! and that’s a strong stereotype that people have to fight to reeducate people about, even in 2012 today.
you have a lot of men out there who thinks that those young kids were lucky bastards who got to sleep with a super hot teacher. I think they have a tendency to view their own teenage years in rose-colored glasses, and only remembers the “adventures” they had while they were on their own teenage quest for sex, etc. They don’t remember all the times when they were so confused and scared over their own feelings, espeically at the very start as they were becoming a teenager. The times when they had no idea what a clitoris or a labia even was… they just knew that it had something to do with the female genitals. they had no fucking idea how the female reproductive system worked because they usually separated the females and males to give each separate sex eduction back then. and were only starting to learn their way around a condom.
Seriously, that’s the kind of teenage boy who isn’t ready for sex, much less one with a older woman who might know all sorts of way to control a young man who wasn’t relationship-savvy.
The more men start to realize that fact, then they’ll get over their own personal jealousy that those little boys got to act out the men’s personal porn fantasies. They’ll realize that just because the grass appears greener on the other side, doesn’t mean that the grass is actually healthy. They might find that when they walk to the other side, that a large portions of the grass had bald spots, due to malnutrition of the spirit and emotional well-being. They might find that their personal porn fantasies were more like a horror story for those young boys.
Only then, will you see a serious effort by in making all pedophiles, sex offenders and other forms of perverts equal in terms of how the genders are punished.
Yeah I disagree that the men need to change bigtime alone in order for change to happen. I think both genders need to change, countless women believe they cannot overpower a man thus they can never rape and that’s for adult-adult abuse, they even think a teenage boy can easily defend themselves against rape. The majority of people I’ve heard say that a hardon = he wants sex comes from women, so many women haven’t got a clue about the male reproductive system and assume a hardon = consent, I guess similar to some who think a woman being wet = consent.
Some may think he is a lucky bastard but there are plenty that know he isn’t. Although I would agree we see statutory rape as worse when it’s against females, they have been defiled whereas the guys sexuality means he should be out banging anything he can in stereotypical thought.
Yeah I know there are women out there who thinks that a man can easily control his hard-ons, and thus that if he has a hard-on he must be horny. I do agree that we have to reeducate people about that too.
However, most women I knew were easily appalled when they heard about some older woman going after teenage boys young as 13. Even if they thought that the little boy must had wanted it, they still recognized the fact that this boy was still too innocent and not quite ready for sex with somebody older at all.
Whereas I have heard tons of men commenting about how lucky that boy was, to have gotten laid by a older woman so young. Not once did I ever hear a man say: “Come on guys, he was RAPED!! it was clearly a rape!”
You might not want to see it, but this is pretty much a man’s world, even if we’re slowly changing that. So thus the laws and such are often written or approved by men.
There are still people out there who sees men as being this superior gender who cannot be overpowered by any other genders unless it’s Man VS Man.
And naturally, being such a powerful gender they simply just *don’t* get victimized in any way at all! Any man who talks about being victimized, *has to be lying* and is simply just a gigantic crybaby. The only way they can even imagine of any one of them being raped, is if another man does it….this way they haven’t become the “weaker gender” all of a sudden. It was just one powerful, macho man overpowering another powerful macho man in battle, that’s all. Heck, in war rape was often used by warring men to humiliate and debase the enemy men. In fact, that sort of tactic is still used in places like the Middle east. Rape is more than just sex… it’s also a power struggle, a way for the rapist to show people who’s the powerful one here. Women are seen as the traditionally weak gender… so that’s why those same people can’t even fathom the idea of a woman actually being a rapist!
Add on to the fact that some women tends to rape differently than men do, and it makes it even harder for men to imagine that it is in fact, an actual rape. Men tends to use their strength or waits when the woman or man cannot fight back. This is the type of rapes that Men can understand, because they could easily envision a man doing or even possibly a strong, tall muscular woman doing.
Women on the other hand… the majority of them tends to use things like alcohol, drugs, or emotional manipulation against the men to commit rape.
a lot of men don’t see drunken sex as being like rape espeically if the other person didn’t say no, which is why so many get shocked when the drunk woman they had sex with cries rape. They honestly don’t understand that if a person is so drunk that they’re unable to speak or even stand (which have happened) that the lack of a “No” does not mean that the person gave their consent. Just because that person is “awake” and stumbling about like they’re in a deep haze, doesn’t mean that you can just grab that person and start having sex with him/her.
a lot of college men have been raped this way, but doesn’t really report this because they’re unsure if they have been raped. because they actually believe that because they were unable to say no because they were too drunk to speak, that means that they consented. True, there can be such a thing as having only 2-3 beers and then being able to consent… but what about having 6 beers before having sex? I doubt that after that many beers they would be able to stand, much less be able to fight off anybody. any more after six? ha, you’d be hard pressed to find people who could speak a single understandable word after they’ve had 8 beers.
A lot of it comes back to the myth that most men are so fucking horny that they can and will fuck anything in sight. If we work hard to reeducate men and women on this, then they’d be more likely to admit that men do get raped too.
“but this is pretty much a man’s world”
Are you attempting to equate the entire world’s social structure into a single unified system applicable everywhere? IE, because china and india are largely male dominated, and they make up a large portion of the world, the world is male dominated. Or are you attempting to suggest, even western society, that largly bends over backwards to accomodate women, Who’s economic spending is largly controlled by (and thus driven by) women, who’s men die for the protection of women, who’s voter population is largely made up of women, and who’s leaders pander largly to the women voters and more closly, to their wives, that this is what you would call male dominated?
“So thus the laws and such are often written or approved by men.”
Who writes and approves them is meaningless if those laws are designed to ether be neutral or benefit women. Are you suggesting VAWA and Title IX are male dominated? Are you one of those feminists (as found in the book Feminist Jurisprudence (youtube the book name for a review on it by thecommonman)) that believes objectivity and neutrality are male aspects, and thus, laws which are neutra and objective unfairly discriminate against women?
“There are still people out there who sees men as being this superior gender who cannot be overpowered by any other genders unless it’s Man VS Man.”
And there are people out there who say women are the superior gender, that men are just broken/damaged women, and that men have become irrelevant. You’ve fallen into the standard feminist trap of only examining and looking for things that conform to your own bias.
The rest of this just seems to be you telling men what men are thinking. There are some truths, but generally it seems like trying to pin all the blame on men, as per usual.
“You might not want to see it, but this is pretty much a man’s world, even if we’re slowly changing that. So thus the laws and such are often written or approved by men.”
This is by no means a man’s world, at least in the west. Anyone who suggests so might want to take a long hard look at society. This is a humans world, with some areas favouring men, others favouring women.
In my experience it has been mostly women who have denied that women can rape men, when I tell women of the new stats of rape so many talk to me with absolute disbelief, whereas the men I know seem to understand it happens and a few are actually rape survivors from female perpetrators.
I suppose it also depends on the areas we live in. around here, if you suggested to any of the men that they could be raped by a female, they’d laugh you right out of the state! they’re swaggering lumberjacks, farmers, and every other macho stereotype that you can think of. they also invest heavily into the stereotype of the silent, macho man who doesn’t ever share his feelings. they believe in such a way of life to the point that they seriously believe that all men must be this way. and that those who doesn’t follow the “code of manhood”, is just a sissy! it’s almost downright comical how much they take that so seriously.
whereas the women seemed to understand that young teenager boys isn’t equipped mentally and physically to fight off unwanted attentions in the same way a older man might be able to. just like how an young lady doesn’t know what to do when she’s caught the attention of a predator but a older woman on the other hand would know what to do, if she did not panic. put it simply, it all comes down to experience and having the maturity/wisdom in knowing what to do in a scary situation. teenagers are stuck halfway between childhood and adulthood, and as an result they don’t always know what to do in certain situations. the women, espeically the mothers, seemed to understand this well.
I guess it helps with mothers, because they can easily imagine some older perverted teacher going after their baby boy…espeically with all the occurrences on the news lately. and that can easily stir them up, and make them want to fight so that male victims can be seen and heard… and not just as the subject line of a comedy movie/comic/novel. (seriously, it’s sickening how many times the media tends to portray a man being raped by a woman for laughs.as if it was just the most hilarious thing in the whole world.)
around here, if you suggested to any of the men that they could be raped by a female, they’d laugh you right out of the state!
Of course there are men like that. That is what happens when you are shamed into silence when it comes to being the victim of a sex crime based on their gender.
(Just to clarify. Yes women/girls are shamed into silence when it comes to being the victim of a sex crime based on their gender but it is very different shaming. A girl/woman is shamed by way of having her womanhood tarnished. She would be considered a “dirty woman” or what have you but she would still be considered a woman. On the other hand men/boys have their manhood taken from them. And it’s not always replaced with implications of becoming a woman either despite what some may say.
TLDR; How often do you ever hear someone say, “There is no way he could have raped her, women can’t be raped.” vs. “There is no way she could have raped him, men can’t be raped.”)
whereas the women seemed to understand that young teenager boys isn’t equipped mentally and physically to fight off unwanted attentions in the same way a older man might be able to.
That understanding that women have comes from being allowed to see that lack of mental and physical preparation to fight off unwanted attentions and more importantly respond with something other than, “He’s a man, he should be able to do it anyway.”
It does seem that women have a special level of understanding that men don’t when it comes to these things. But it’s really not that special. It’s a level of understanding that men/boys were actively denied access to whereas women/girls were sorta forced to access.
(How often do you ever hear someone say, “There is no way he could have raped her, women can’t be raped.” vs. “There is no way she could have raped him, men can’t be raped.”)
sadly I do hear a little bit of both a lot of times around here. my state has one of the highest drinking problems in the USA that we actually have been compared to Ireland in terms of how much we drink. No kidding. As an result, a lot of drunken rapes are more likely to occur around here.
and it can happen to both genders, where one of the other just grabs a random super-drunk person they deem to be attractive in a bar and drag him/her outside for a quickie or something like that. people here seems to think that if you’re still standing, then you’re “still sober enough to consent”. never mind if you were so drunk that you were unable to form a simple word like “no” and still have it be understandable.
so I hear a lot of “She couldn’t had been raped…. she may have been drunk, but she was still able to stand. thus she could had fought him off or said no! what was she thinking anyway, having drunken sex? she should have known better! to call that rape… how ridiculous!” and for the men we hear: “lol, a married man coming to a bar? he was too drunk to stay faithful, and ended up having a quickie… he’s in hot water now for sure! deserves him right.”
in those rape cases, the man is usually passed out or something, and some strange woman will usually offer to take him home, claiming that she knows him. she’ll drag him back to her place… well, you can guess at the rest. of course the men around here doesn’t want to believe that this could have happened… because that means that could had happened to ANY one of them! so they usually make up bullshit about the guy not wanting to be in hot water with his girlfriend or wife.
the sad thing is that most of the time the women and men will usually believe that they were so drunk that they must not have remembered consenting… that implies that they think they might have consented, but they’re not sure… despite the fact that they usually can remember their drunken night out pretty well. or worse, they believe the lies about how drunk you have to be before it’s officially called rape. it’s one of the reasons why I never drink at all…. never want that sort of thing to happen to me, ever.
so I hear a lot of “She couldn’t had been raped…. she may have been drunk, but she was still able to stand. thus she could had fought him off or said no! what was she thinking anyway, having drunken sex? she should have known better! to call that rape… how ridiculous!” and for the men we hear: “lol, a married man coming to a bar? he was too drunk to stay faithful, and ended up having a quickie… he’s in hot water now for sure! deserves him right.”
When it comes to using one’s gender as “proof” that they can’t be raped this is not quite what I’m talking about.
Now to be sure what you say here does happen and it happens way too often.
However what I’m talking about is the difference between.
“Look at the way she was all over that guy.”
“Look at how she was dancing.”
“She went to his apartment alone. What did she think was going to happen?”
“Did you see what she had on?”
VS.
“He had an erection so that means he wanted.”
“He’s a man. No man turns down sex from a woman.”
“Raped? He should feel lucky.”
“Raped? How can a woman possibly rape a man?”
What I’m talking about is how while a woman that is raped may be considered some type of “dirty” or “improper” woman (via slut shaming) she is still considered a woman after all the shaming is said and done. When a man is raped people attack his very manhood. If the rapist is male the idea is he was too weak to protect himself so he deserved it and if the rapist is female then it wasn’t rape in the first place because men don’t turn down women for sex.
of course the men around here doesn’t want to believe that this could have happened…
By “here” do you mean in your area or here at GMP? I can’t say much about the former but if you mean the latter I think you’re wrong.
It was a good post, pretty balanced. There was something that struck me that you made reference to later in your post. That is the rape of men and particularly boys. Feminists have perceived bias in the court system and so I guess MRAs also tend to read things and see how these laws can and sometimes do cause injustice to men.
“Most, if not all, of the states that have legislation about the case of paternity rights of rapists use wording that seems very helpful. For instance: “Conn. Gen. Stat. § 45a-717 (1999) (court may terminate parental rights of parent convicted of a sexual assault resulting in the conception of a child, except in certain cases of statutory rape)“.”
My first impression when reading that in the quoted article was that the exemption for statutory rape was included to specifically allow women to force support payments from boys they had raped. My first reaction was that the legislators considered the rape of adult men by women to be impossible (If women feel the legal system is against them in rape cases, think of how men are affected when the law implies that because you’re a man, you can’t be raped.), but recognize that rape of boys by women not only happens, but because of the resulting pregnancy is provable.
I would think that most incest victims would be minors and see no justifiable reason that minor children (and later adult women) should not at least be afforded the same protections as adult women. Protections might have been extended to girls, however, by including “certain cases” language. The fact that it doesn’t apply to all cases seems to indicate that the exemption was targeted at boys.
Let’s say that a woman rapes a man or boy. Evidence exists that is incontrovertible. She takes a plea deal and the case is wrapped up in a month or three. Can the courts force the woman to have an abortion and at what stage(s) of the pregnancy should this be allowed? If the answer is no, then there are certain rights that people don’t give up even when they commit rape. If the answer is no, then the feelings of the victim do not always supersede the rights of the perpetrator.
Some people will counter that in cases like these we could exempt the father from financial responsibilities, bit he has still fathered a child that he did not wish to father and had no ability to prevent. That fact remains unchanged. The argument then shifts to degrees of injustice. Is it worse to force a woman to abort or force a man to father and how can we mitigate the harmful effects on each party. I wonder why this standard isn’t applied to fathers who are rapists?
Why should his rights be automatically terminated even on a conviction? Isn’t he entitled to due process? Couldn’t the children be exchanged using an intermediary to reduce the effects on the mother? I understand that like the case of the man who was raped and was forced to father a child he did not want, there will be some strain on a mother in this situation, but couldn’t that be mitigated to a point that it no longer supersedes a father’s right to his child and yes, the child’s right to have a father?
I think part of that stems from society wanting to rush to protect women at all costs (to men), society’s devaluing of fatherhood, and society’s belief that men don’t need protections. Men never feel emotional trauma. They should just man up.
Court-enforced/mandated abortion is the WORST thing I have ever heard of and I can’t think of a single situation in which it would be justified. This is not a personal attack at you, John Anderson, nor an argument – just my visceral reaction to the idea of a court forcing a woman to have an abortion. I’m as pro-choice as they come and that just strikes me as wrong on every level.
I do understand that the victim in this hypothetical case “has still fathered a child that he did not wish to father and had no ability to prevent.” And I don’t have an answer to that. It’s very unfortunate for the victim, but it doesn’t put the victim’s life at risk – the burden would be emotional, and granted, a tough burden to carry. Not one that justifies enforced abortion, though.
The whole situation just makes my blood run cold and glad I’m not in any position of responsibility in the legal system.
There is only one way I’d accept it, for extreme birth defects known before the baby is born. If it ever happens that we know 100% a baby will be in nothing but pain and die soon after anyway, then I’d find it horrifying, sickening, and quite frankly evil that anyone would ever allow that pregnancy to continue. But I’d say it’s so rare it probably isn’t even worth mentioning, but yeah that’d be the only potential reason for a forced abortion, to stop a fetus/child developing into something that would be nothing short of torture.
Joanna:
“We need to revolutionize the way we, as a society, regard rape victims. We need to respect them as we do victims of any crime.”
Could you expand this? I don’t really understand what this means. Do you propose any changes in how law enforcement handles rape cases? How do we as a society view rape victims and how do we view victims of other crimes? Could you link to some evidence?(This might sound confontational, but it is not meant to be. I think we need a good clear image of the status quo, if we want changes.)
How, as a society, do we change our view of rape victims?
That’s the hardest thing of all, probably. Our society has this weird mis-match of outrage over rape coupled with shaming the victim. So they say, “No! We’re totally against rape in every way!” But unless the woman shows up bloodied and wandering around in a field or something, the claim of rape seems to always feel like it’s being doubted. Questions about how she (and especially so if it’s a he) might have asked for it or deserved it, etc.
You didn’t really answer my question, so I will reformulate my main one.
What behaviour do you wish I (meaning: some guy) would show when I get to know about an alleged rape case, I have no personal connection to (meaning: I have no personal relationship with either the alleged victim or the alleged rapist).
My current position is: I try not to have a opinion, as long as the is no verdict in court, and after a verdict I usually believe, that justice has been surved. This means that the alleged rapist is innocent in my eyes as long as he hasn’t been convicted. The alleged victim gets ideally exactly the same respect as any stranger, I know nothing about. Furthermore, as I am not Sherlock Holmes I try not to form an opinion on the case, but let people with skills and resources (i.e. law enforcement) determine the possible guilt of the alleged perpetrator. So what would you want me to change?
I think every single case is different. 99% of the time, I would say you gotta treat him how the court would. However, once I KNEW a guy (actually 3) had raped a girl I went to HS with. I knew her VERY well, I saw how she changed afterward, I knew the guys and it was very very obvious, but they got away with it because she’d had consensual sex with them before and other factors. They got some charge like serving alcohol to a minor. But I knew they did it as well as you can every know anything you didn’t see with your eyes.
I’m pretty confident OJ Simpson killed Nicole Brown, too. But I obviously don’t KNOW he did. However, he was found “responsible” for her death in civil court, so you could feel confident calling him guilty.
But yes, in general, I agree with you 99% of the time.
“Legitimate Rape”. With those words the political machine has started to churn out call for “Laws to be changed”, stories are written, mostly without actual facts, i.e. was there a conviction or not. Doesn’t matter because one dumbass senator said something totally ignorant and stupid and now all men (especially GOP men) must pay the price. What better time to call for action on rape , rapists, child custody, child support and of course a string of new laws all bound back to the words “Legitimate Rape”.
Yes, folks this is how things are done now. CNN posits a story, everyone picks it up, we start to talk about rape, rapists and child custody, problem is, no one is bothering to check the facts, “As someone famous once said ‘Never let facts get in the way of a good story”.
Joanna:
” Beyond that, as Prewitt points out in her article in the Georgetown Law Journal, the conviction rates of reported rape are startlingly low compared with other serious crimes. Can we depend upon our judicial system to find just verdicts in rape trials? Many—on both sides—say no.”
Did you read her links, because she doesn’t say the conviction rates for “REPORTED” rapes are low, if you follow her links, she is talking about rapes with of course the included, ‘estimated’ number of rapes in a year. She states that only 2% of rapes result in convictions, this includes the estimated number of rapes
Also your assertion that cases of false conviction are rare is also spurious.
http://nextyearsgirl.tumblr.com/post/25900972847/study-wrongful-conviction-rate-of-sexual-assault-much
Janet, the word “relatively” is there very purposefully. It means “relative to”.
Second, yes, you’re 100% right in my use of the word “reported” – I knew that she was using the estimated numbers, and while I understand why people use those numbers (people do it with both rape of women and rape of men) they are troubling numbers.
Other figures I’ve seen have reported 0.35% conviction rate from the combined estimated and reported numbers. None of these are good solid statistics, but the 2% I think is actually a better guess.
Also, tell me exactly how, even if I used the wrong word, it changes my assertion.
You’re picking and choosing details to criticize in my article, I want to know why? Was there a conclusion I drew that you don’t like?
It’s fictional BS like this that creates a self fulfilling prophecy, and it really bothers me that you would be willing to perpetuate it. Let me explain.
Reported rapes include false accusations. So when one argues the only X% of reported rapes get convictions, as if all reported rapes were, in fact, real rapes, one can often play this up as “rape isn’t taken seriously. This then deters real rape victims from coming forward, leaving a larger portion of those reported as being false. This then results in even less convictions, which makes it look like it’s even less taken seriously, thus deterring even more true victims from coming forward. When one starts adding in arbitrary “guesses” to account for those aped who didn’t report, with no real data to support these guesses, and often using the false accusations as real rapes in order to calculate non-reported rapes (IE, the 1 in 10 victims comes forward troupe would have each false accuser adding 9 fictional victims to the pool.).
I have an idea, how about stop lying to people, how about telling people the truth, that of those rapes reported that actually have evidence, and that go to trial, the conviction rate is actually higher than most crimes. Instead of scaring of victims and making them believe they are on their own (or can only trust the feminist organizations that will use them as a statistic to bilk more government money), encourage them to go to police.
Mark I don’t even disagree with you about the problems of statistics. In fact, I agree that there is a perpetuating notion to the idea that if we say “rape reports aren’t taken seriously” that we’re creating a world where they simply won’t be.
However, we need to look at the reality of the experiences people have in order to make change. It’s not different for victims of rape who are male. There simply are NOT good numbers on this. Does that mean we don’t TRY to explain its prevalence?
My issue is with your use of “they are troubling numbers”. They are not troubling numbers because they are not verifiable, and what parts of it are verifiable are lumped into a single category, IE any rape accusation is an actual rape. You might as well have added scare quotes for effect.
Acknowledging this is not the same as ignoring the issues, but to attempt to drive emotion, or worst policy and laws, based on nothing but conjecture is irresponsible. Now, admittedly your article does not appear to be trying to drive any such policies, but the statistics you use often are, and to repeat them, particularly with the appeals to emotion that are “they are troubling numbers” and similar phrases, only lends strength when others who are trying to create policy repeat them.
@ Joanna
“However, we need to look at the reality of the experiences people have in order to make change. It’s not different for victims of rape who are male. There simply are NOT good numbers on this. Does that mean we don’t TRY to explain its prevalence?”
That’s why I find the arguments between MRAs and feminists so amusing at times. I’m an MRA and if I was a misogynist as many feminists would assume, I would support the accusation = rape standard of proof that many feminists seem to be pressing. I think that it is much harder for a man to prove rape by a woman and so men would overwhelmingly benefit from the change. I also think that because it’s easier for women to prove, more male rapists would pre-empt rape accusations by making their own first, but I don’t think its men vs women.
When the CDC states that men are raped at about 80% the rate of women by female intimate partners, Just Detention reports that adult male prisoners are raped by female guards at a rate 3 times that of female of prisoners by male guards, and male juveniles at a rate 20 times the rate of female juveniles based on DOJ numbers, but men comprise only 10% of rapes (I’m assuming that this is reported numbers) either people don’t believe men or are complicit in their rapes. I would expect male under reporting to be about 15 times the under reporting rape of women.
There are numbers. They come from many different sources. What numbers do you have to see before they become good or even actionable? I have this problem with feminists all the time. They claim to be concerned about male victimization, but then oppose measures to protect men. They oppose infant MGC as a serious violation of bodily autonomy, but oppose a ban. They support education and trying to change society’s norms even though they concede that a ban would effectively eliminate routine circumcisions. It’s like they want to maximize the number of males victimized before society comes to its senses.
To get to your point, for example if 95% of guard/prisoner rapes are cross gender, why not ban cross gender supervision of prisoners in our jails. I think most feminists would oppose it because it would deny women jobs so jobs for women is more important than preventing the rape of men. What kind of numbers/research would you need to see before you would support this?
I’m a feminist who is against non-medically necessary circumcision in children.
And I think your proposal about not having opposite-sex prison guards is valid. I haven’t thought much about it, so I don’t want to make an assertion, but I’m hearing you.
Education about male rape victims/survivors is massively important. I just watched this movie called “Take Me Home Tonight” that I thought was really great for a mindless RomCom. But it had what I would consider a brutal female-on-male rape scene. I cannot make sense of how ANYONE doesn’t get that this is disgusting… To portray the rape of a man as funny? I get it that there’s this notion that the unusual or even “impossible” is funny because of the oddity, but a woman sitting on top of a man, raping him as he screams “NO! STOP IT!” and another giant man watching while the rapist slaps the man? I mean WHAT THE FUCK!?
And ultimately it’s not that unusual and it’s certainly not impossible. It’s not, as George Carlin said, Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd. Because that’s literally impossible. It’s a woman, with a man’s help, raping a man and even physically assaulting him.
For some reason some feminists don’t see this as problematic, and I think one reason is that there’s this “Take back the power” element to it… Like sort of teaching men how it feels to be scared. Because we are scared. We’re scared a lot. But the thing is, if you have to frame it as a detriment to women to make it seem important, it makes women look like sex-crazed rapist abusers with no empathy or regard for men’s ability to have sexual boundaries. Then, when some feminists laugh it off (PLEASE note I said some), it makes us look even worse. Callous, and like we’d do anything and harm anyone to get ahead.
The truth is, if I were to sit down one-on-one with ANY feminist I know in real life and all the feminists I know through GMP, they agree with me. But until they’re educated enough on the facts of rape against men, they won’t have empathy.
I think I need to write a piece about this.
The common problem of sensitive discussions like this is the failure to place the arguments in context. Thus already a substantial part of the discussion has been diverted to the extremely rare situations where women make false allegations or commit the rape. The main topic is how should custody courts respond in cases in which the father raped the mother. The fact that so many states would consider the rapist as just as qualified for custody and visitation as the mother demonstrates that the custody system strongly favors fathers.
I believe it would be better for custody courts to focus on the well being of children rather than the “rights” of parents. Significantly the research shows that fathers who rape mothers (even when the rape did not cause the pregnancy) pose a signficantly greater risk to the mother and child. This would be true regardless of conviction which as has been discussed is very difficult to obtain. It seems to me that if the mother can prove the father raped her, she should have the right to keep the father out of their lives. Abusers often use the courts to gain access to their victims (this is more often applied in domestic violence cases) which does enormous harm to the mother and children. We can only imagine the enormous harm to the rape survivor of havng to interact with her rapist and this cannot possibly be beneficial to the child who depends on the mother. The policy is easy to see if we focus on what is best for children.
The problem is that custody courts have heard a lot of misinformation and do not use critical thinking. Many judges repeat the false assumption that children need both parents equally. In the most common example children need their primary attachment figure more than the other parent. Separating a child from their primary attachment figure increases the child’s risk of depression, low self-esteem and suicide when older. Children also need their safe parent more than their abusive parent. Witnessing domestic violence undermines children’s ability to reach developmental goals and makes them more likely to engage in harmful behaviors when older. Ideological attempts to give parents equal rights and time with children thus cause tremendous harm. Again it is based on failing to do what works best for children.
The problem is compounded by the routine use of outdated and discredited practices by court professionals. The recent US Department of Justice study led by Dr. Daniel Saunders found there is a specialized body of domestic violence research available but evaluators, lawyers and judges do not have the training they need. They need not just generalized training, but specific training in topics like risk assessment, screening for domestic violence and post-separation violence. Signifcantly those evaluators and other professionals with inadequate training tend to focus on harmful approaches such as the myth that women frequently make false allegations, beliefs in unscientific alienation theories and assumptions that mothers seeking to protect children from abusive fathers are harming the children. The use of these bad practices results in outcomes that harm children.
This discussion will be helpful if it helps illuminate the present system is placing children in jeopardy by routinely promoting interaction of children with dangerous fathers. Every year 58,000 children are sent for custody or unprotected visitation with dangerous abusers and about 90 children are murdered by abusive fathers involved in contested custody often with the unwitting assistance of custody courts. This is the next scandal to be exposed. It is time we focus on what works best for the children instead of the rights of rapists.
Thank you so much for this. It is simply awesome and informative and we’re in your debt.
Think through what this guy is saying before you say it is “simply awesome.”
I am a working father while my wife is a SAHM. If we follow Mr. Goldstein’s model laid out above I would be relegated to a every other weekend visitor in my children’s lives if my wife chose to divorce me.
You may be in Mr. Goldstein’s debt but I and every other father out there who either lives under the threat of becoming a visitor to their kids or has been unjustly removed from their kids lives sure as heck isn’t.
There is copious research showing that children benefit from having equal time with their fathers. My Goldstein just chooses to ignore it. People like Mr. Goldstein are the reason there is an anti-dad bias in family court.
“Simply awesome” and “informative” do not describe what this man is advocating. “Primary Attachment Figure” is code for MOM and Mr. Goldstein knows it. Try “horrific, sexist and tragic” instead.
Thanks, Joanna for your kind words. I appreciate the contribution you have made with your article. The comments by Texpat demonstrate the problems caused in our custody courts by people including professionals who seek to make decisions based on the needs of the fathers instead of the well being of children and the use of unsupported “research.” I need to be familiar with the latest and most credible scientific research because I have written and edited some of the leading books related to domestic violence and custody.
There was initial research based on a study with a small sample under the most favorable circumstances that suggested shared parenting benefited children. Courts jumped on this because it was an easy solution to a difficult problem and abuser rights groups liked it as a way to get abusers equal access so they could continue harassing their victims. Later research based on larger samples and looking at longer term impacts on children found that this was harmful to children. They never had one home, their lives were constantly being disrupted and they often had what they needed in the other home. So under the best of circumstances this worked badly for children. Even worse, courts often do not know how to recognize domestic violence and routinely pressure victims to share custody with their abusers. This is a complete disaster for children. Ironically what we constantly see in contested custody cases is fathers who permitted or often required mothers to provide most of the child care suddenly claim she is unfit when she left him or complained of his abuse. And courts seeking to maintain equal rights for fathers show no skepticism to his claim that she was a good mother until she decided to leave him.
So Texpat, I can understand why you would not like the idea of having time with your children every other weekend, perhaps an evening during the week, holiday and summer vacations. Assuming you are a good father you would want more, but a good father would be willing to sacrifice his needs for his children’s benefit. Unfortunately, despite the lip service, the present custody court system is not working in the best interests of children because they feel the need to protect fathers’ rights. The example of rapist-fathers’ rights is just the most extreme manifestation of having our priorities wrong.
In Marriage:
1. My kids ride to school with me multiple days per week.
2. I put my youngest kid to bed every night
3. I have dinner with my children every night
All in my wife spends approx 3 hours more per day more with my kids because she is able to stay home due to my earning ability.
In Your ideal Divorce
1. My kids lose out on all time with Dad except for every other weekend- destroying a valuable relationship
2. My kids lose out on time with Mom because she’s gotta work a full time job now.
What is best for my kids and thousands of others is to maintain equal or nearly equal contact with both parents. Why destroy a solid parental relationship?
You’re supposed debunking of the benefits of shared parenting is weak. I’ve read the research and the outcomes are significantly more positive when parents maintain equal roles in children’s lives post divorce.
First, Texpat, you’re obviously (as far as we can see) not abusive. Second, you’re clearly involved in your children’s day-to-day lives and a huge part of their development.
What Barry is talking about in his main point is that ABUSIVE fathers who use the custody process to maintain contact with, and further control their partner are being given more import than needed because of what he believes are misleading statistics.
In your case let’s go back to the Both/And scenario and talk about what can hopefully come out of mutual growth and progress – you could ask for more/primary custody based upon your duties with your children and the judge would hopefully base this upon your fitness as a father and their attachment to you, and not base it upon your sex.
I am curious, Barry, because if my husband and I split up, I’d want him to be with my kids as much as I would be able to, because they’re equally bonded with him as they are with me. But they do spend the majority of their time with me, because he works late every night. I’m curious what happens when neither parent is abusive and the children are deeply bonded with both parents? Thank God my husband and I are not in this situation, and we always talk about how if we split up we’d be next-door neighbors so our kids could spend every morning like they do with him now, having breakfast, etc. But they can’t go to bed in one house and wake up in another…
I ask this not because of my own plans, but because I’m curious about non-abuse situations. Perhaps that’s not your specialty, but it is interesting.
Joanna,
Barry made statements that carry over to all fathers, not just abusive ones.
#1:I believe it would be better for custody courts to focus on the well being of children rather than the “rights” of parents.
#2 “Many judges repeat the false assumption that children need both parents equally.”
This has to be the worst statement I have ever read. Study after study proves conclusively that having a loving fit father in a child’s life leads to much greater outcomes.
#3 “Separating a child from their primary attachment figure increases the child’s risk of depression, low self-esteem and suicide when older.”
So, Barry is against using proven peer-reviewed studies to bolster fathers rights (and I’m talking about all fathers because Barry peppers his statement about abusive fathers with blanket sentences aimed at all fathers) and in fact advocates minimizing rights for all fathers, but he is also *for* using sexist stereotypes to bolster mothers rights.
The best way to stop child abuse is do away with the primary custody model and replace it with the shared custody model.
I wonder if the anti-shared parenting people realize the lack of a male role model is also very damaging, and one of the leading problems we have with boys success in schools at the moment, let alone in their life? Where exactly are these boys going to get a decent role model if even good fathers have their contact time with kids cut severely?
I had my father up until adulthood when he died suddenly, my mother cannot replace him or fulfill his role at all in my life, I am a male, I can’t relate 100% to her. There is stuff I learned from him that she couldn’t have taught me, I am just lucky they didn’t divorce and I at least got to 18 before I lost him because he was one of the 2 most important influences in my life, infact probably the most influential of all due to being same gender, similar interests.
Sure a mother can remarry but what about those who’ve already had their father around for a few years and have an incredible bond with them?
Shared parenting should be default unless extreme circumstances occur like abuse. Children already have an absolutely enormous lack of male role models, over 70% of teachers these days are female last I heard and the gender disparity is higher the younger the child. A father is an EXTREMELY important role model and person in our lives, made even more important by that lack of other adult male influences a child can goto. I can’t help but feel that if shared parenting disappeared then it’d cause an even larger problem with even less male role models for children, in non-abusive situations surely that would be a major harm probably worse than the disruption to life between parents?
One more thing- I certainly don’t need you of all people to tell me what a good father would do. A good father’s presence is more valuable to his children than his absence. What an asinine thing to say.
I completely agree with you that a good father’s presence is more valuable to his children than his absence. 100%. Barry was talking about abusive and controlling fathers who are given default custody or joint custody because the court determines that it’s better to have both parents, even if one is shitty and manipulative.
But women are just as often abusive as men are………So much for that whole argument.
Yes, by some numbers they are. By other numbers they are not.
Only if you choose to ignore / minimize female-centric methods of abuse. I’ve been on the receiving end…… and those that ignore / condone those behaviors are not part of the solution.
Yeah, the new CDC report states 50% more men report controlling and dominating behavior. Apparently, the CDC is not good enough a source, but incredibly small studies with shoddy methods and done by orgs with an invested interest to conclude as much male on female violence are acceptable.
Go figure.
My wife sputtered,hemmed and hawed when her therapist definitively stated that her self described behavior was emotional and physical abuse…..It’s not just women that get abused, men just don’t report it for a assortment of reasons…..In my case she had convinced me I’d lose my kids. Therapy is helping her….but I’m a mess….in tears as I post this.
So Barry, if shared parenting harms the kids as you say, would stay at home fathers be awarded custody automatically as the primary parent?
“Abusers often use the courts to gain access to their victims (this is more often applied in domestic violence cases) which does enormous harm to the mother and children.”
This is the kind of thing you think is absolutely awesome? This is the kind of thing I’d normally expect you to condemn. This article and your responses to it are very disappointing.
And before you try and claim this comment was specific to rape victims, read again, he is stating that abusers (read men, given the victims are mothers and children) use the courts to gain access to their victims, followed in the next sentence with imagine how much worst it would be for a rape victim. So no, this quoted line is not talking about the rape victims, it is talking in general, as a basis for comparison to rape victims.
This man (Barry) believes only men are abusers. He makes it clear with the above quoted line. He refers to fathers rights groups as abuser activists in his next post, as if any man daring to want time with his children only do so to further abuse the ex-wife. In making that claim, he effectively called texpat an abusers. And this is who you just called awesome.
Yet women are responsible for more than twice as many deaths of children as fathers. It increases when you include mother and partner as opposed to father and partner so are children really better off with their mothers or is that just an outdated myth? You can’t be much worse off than dead.
John, I was referencing the fact that a large majority of contested custody are domestic violence cases in which the most dangerous abusers who believe she has no right to leave are willing to hurt their children in order to regain control over their victims.
You are referencing more general statistics that fail to consider the fact that mothers provide the overwhelming amount of child care. If you used the context of the amount of time taking care of children with any harms, you would find mothers have a much better record. This is what I discussed originally about the importance of context.
Yes, this goes back to the often misunderstood notion of correlation and causation. I feel someone should write an entire article on just this. I did this over in another article:
This is very simple. I’m certain someone has explained it to you before, but anecdotal evidence—even when matched with a correlation of factors simply does not prove a causal relationship.
Doubt the truth of this? Try this thought experiment:
I’m going to tell you something that is absolutely true. According to well-documented trends, the bigger your shoe size, the smarter you are. You have greater reading comprehension, math skills and intellectual reasoning.
Why do you think that is? Because my husband who wears a size 14 somehow has a better brain than I, who wears a men’s 5, or my dad who wears an 8?
No.
It’s correlational. If you asses the above factors that make a person “smart”, and you assess a whole population, the smaller the shoe size indicates a younger person, i.e. children, whereas full-sized shoes indicate adults who have more of these skills.
This is correlation. Age of a person directly correlates with reading comprehension, math skills, and intellectual reasoning. It also correlates with having bigger feet. So while there is a general trend that relates these two, nobody would say that the FOOT actually makes the person smart.
In this case, women spend more time with children as a general trend, therefore have more exposure. To truly say whether women abuse more one would have to do a good study of time spent vs incidents of abuse.
More abuse of children by women isn’t caused by a woman’s female-ness, it’s caused by greater exposure (or so one would posit when looking at data which qualified the factors listed above).
Now, that does not say that the studies you’re citing aren’t true, and those studies are VERY important when talking about the idea that women could never harm a child. There is a notion that women would never hurt children and that men will hurt anyone they want. And that’s a bad stereotype that we actively work against.
Barry, when I was a kid, my neighbor was a single father with shared custody with his ex wife. The ex wife was mentally unstable and emotionally abusive of the children, this fact was clear. The kids would say, “I don’t want to go to Mom’s, she ignores us, she screams at us, she calls us names,” etc. Once she bit the 12 year old and left a mark. The dad was constantly in court trying to get primary custody and because of the bias toward mothers being better caregivers, the kids were in this situation for years until multiple signs of physical evidence were proven. By then the kids were in their mid-teens. The mother very obviously was troubled, and after the dad was given primary custody, she actually stopped her visitation even on holidays. It was just a game of “See, I won” against him.
While I think this is rare, it’s an example of why we need to get rid of the gender bias against fathers, while keeping in mind everything you’re saying about how important it is that the child remain with the steady, emotionally healthier parent. I don’t believe that Barry’s statement and that of MRAs have to be an EITHER/OR but can be a BOTH/AND.
We can raise awareness about the fitness of good fathers, while still talking honestly about abuse rates and determining what’s best for the child. I’m certain in many cases, especially those where the father is the primary caregiver – which we see more and more of – that the most fit parent would be the father.
Not everything is combat, guys. Both/And is a really effective means of coming to middle ground.
Joanna- here is an empathy moment for you. Imagine you’re a working dad with a SAHM as a wife. You spend every free minute with your family. You have a real and present relationship with your kids. You take them to school a couple days per week and you put the youngest to bed every single night. Your children come to you interchangeably with your wife when they’ve got problems or questions. All in you spend maybe 2.5 hours less per day with your kids because they’re in school most of the day.
Along comes a guy like Barry and tells you that in the event your wife divorces you a “good dad” would give up his time with his kids for their own good… Still think this is a “both/and
” situation?
There are MILLIONS of dads like me to every abusive jerk or rapist seeking custody. Barry doesnt want to just improve the court’s ability to ID domestic abuse, he wants to do away with equally shared custody. Barry wants Dads like me to become visitors in our kid’s lives if our wives decide to leave us and uses the specter of abusive men as his stalking horse.
I don’t need any both/and with a guy like him.
Maybe you need to reread what I wrote, and what he wrote in all his replies.
And if you want to defensive and combative and not listen, then fine. But that’s why people think that MRAs are combative and unreasonable. You feel strongly, I get that. But you don’t need to classify him as someone bad with bad intents.
Sometimes you can learn something from someone you disagree with. You can also respectfully agree with parts of his argument and disagree with others.
This whole “baby with the bathwater” thing just isn’t working.
I’m no MRA. I’m a late 30s dad of 3 who’s been married nearly 15 years. I take issue with Barry’s exact quote here:
“So Texpat, I can understand why you would not like the idea of having time with your children every other weekend, perhaps an evening during the week, holiday and summer vacations. Assuming you are a good father you would want more, but a good father would be willing to sacrifice his needs for his children’s benefit. ”
He’s saying that GOOD FATHERS should sacrifice time with their kids in the interest of the children. Yes, he talks quite a bit about what needs to happen to protect women and children from abusive fathers but underlying it all is the premise that shared parenting is a bad thing for kids.
The quote you list is troublesome, I can see that. I even asked him the same question regarding my own husband and kids, theoretically. You and I are both in theoretical situations (thankfully).
I’m saying, let’s not attack. Let’s look at how we can work together toward mutual goals and disagree respectfully and inquire rather than accuse.
I didn’t mean for this to be about me, but was trying to offer some information based on current research which often is very different from the information we see in the media and the courts. More than 95% of custody cases are resolved more or less amicably. Parents know their children best and in cases that do not involve abuse they are willing to sacrifice their preferences for the well being of their children. One of the reasons we know shared parenting works poorly for children is the frequency in which parents initially agree on shared parenting and later mutually agree to a different arrangment because they see it is not working well for their children. I am concerned that some people think shared parenting is the only fair thing to do and even that it benefits children, but the research shows otherwise. Some of the comments have spoken about exceptions and there are exceptions. I certainly don’t mean to tell good parents what to do but I would like them to be aware of how arrangements have worked for other children. I am sorry if I offended anyone because all I wanted to do is share current research to inform the discussion.
The underlying article is about abusive fathers and it is easy for me to get a distorted perspective because I am focused on contested custody cases which are mostly abuse cases and involve so many catastrophic decisions by court professionals who do not have the necessary training as the Saunders’ study revealed. My strong feelings against shared parenting are that it is so often used as an abuser strategy and the courts do not recognize the motivation. I congratulate the parents who are part of this discussion and place the needs of their children first. I hope that if any of you are ever in a situation where the relationship is ending that you can be open to looking at valid scientific research and be open to whatever arrangement would work best for your children. They could be the exception where shared parenting helps them but that decision should be made after considering the drawbacks other good parents have found.
Johanna and Barry,
Which statistics do you refer to when you say women spend the overwhelmingly more time with children than fathers? Where can I find statistics on that?
Here is Barry’s assertion which it sounded like Johanna agreed with:
The closest I have found is the American Time Use Survey from Bureau of Labor Statistics which states the following about time spent on child care*:
Women: 0.54 hours per day
Men: 0.24 hours per day
In short; women on average spend a bit more than twice the time on child care than men do.
The exact ratio is: 2.25
I for one would not call twice as much as overwhelmingly more, but your mileage may vary.
If we then go on to look at statistics on child abuse we find the following**:
Mothers acting alone: 37.7%
Fathers acting alone: 18.6%
So women spend 2.25 times as long time as men with children (in their household) and they commit on their own 2.03 times the abuse that men do on their own. So, a slight difference, but not enough to warrant a statement saying that women have a much better record than men.
* http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t01.htm
** http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm09/cm09.pdf
We said that based upon the data offered, that couldn’t be determined.
Your math seems correct, but in order for it to be a good calculation you’d have to have controlled for the same factors in the studies. It’s a good guide, however.
But yeah, no one in this discussion said women actually have a better record. I wouldn’t’ feel confident with that sort of extrapolation.
Joanna (apologies for writing Johanna in another comment):
I think you have read through Barry’s and my comment to fast and missed something. He not only said women had a better record, he said they have a much better record. I’ll quote Barry again:
Yeah, you’re right, I saw it when I read it again. I didn’t internalize it before because I understood the implication was that he was talking about abusive men. But yes, he said that, you’re right. But I didn’t!
I don’t have specific statistics about relative child care handy as this is not closely releated to custody issues I handle. I believe I have seen some articles in the Liz Library that might be helpful. I can, however speak to some more general info that I think it missing from the analysis. There are certainly more single mothers than fathers by a wide amount. As the abuser rights people constantly mention, mothers do more often receive custody, usually with the approval of the father. There are also more stay at home moms than dads again by a significant number. Finally I have seen statistics about what happens when both parents work outside the home. Mothers in these circumstances do far more work at home in addition to their paid job and much of this is caring for children. I think you would also find that mothers are more likely to take off from work when the children are sick or there is an emergency at school. I don’t believe the statistics you were looking at take any of these circumstances into consideration.
I’m having difficulty grasping your point. Mothers in general are great. I know. I have one. She raised 4 children mostly by herself. My father died when I was 2.
“Mothers in these circumstances do far more work at home in addition to their paid job and much of this is caring for children. I think you would also find that mothers are more likely to take off from work when the children are sick or there is an emergency at school.”
Fathers are also more likely to put in more time at work. Fathers tend to make more money so it generally makes sense for them not to skip work. In my personal experience, many fathers take time off work to care for sick children instead of the mothers, but my job allows people to utilize their paid sick days to care for their children. Some dads I know drag themselves to work when they’re sick so they can save their days in case their children need them. Two income families are usually families where neither parent has a really great job.
My point was based on the stats, a child suffers a high probability of severe child abuse when a mother has a boyfriend or other person in her residence. The probability of this is so significant as to comprise 2/3 of the abuse/neglect deaths that can be attributed to fathers. Yet, people who supposedly advocate for children don’t seem to support compelling women to live alone or not date in order to get custody. When it inconveniences mom, it suddenly becomes the right of the parent that needs to be protected instead of the safety of the children.
My mother never remarried because she was scared that her new husband would abuse her kids. Mothers are great, but maybe my mom had a point.
I believe the point is the women are facing the extra stress of dealing with kids all day, and having heavy workloads. But that still doesn’t excuse them from their abuse anymore than a man working hard at a highly stressful job comes home n beats his wife for not having dinner on the table.
Abuse isn’t gendered, both men n women are capable of abuse and with many forms of abuse the rate is close to parity. Some men n some women are violent, fullstop.
There comes a point though that being scared of the new husband abusing kids actually turns into misandry, and not very good at all. Are more than 50% of step fathers abusive?
“I believe the point is the women are facing the extra stress of dealing with kids all day, and having heavy workloads.”
Women also often have several more months than a man to consider the impact of a child on her life before deciding to have one.
Barry: Clearly you did not bother to look at the American Time Use Survey I linked to.
It’s an average for time spent taking care of children in the household for ALL women and ALL men. Hence it takes into account single mothers, stay-ad-home mothers and so on.
Well Joanna theirs another important aspect of statistics relevant to this conversation that may inform the discussion and help our friend Barry and his prejudicial studies.
Try this thought reality:
There is a very real and palpable force in our society separating men from children. People like Barry, who insist on a causal relationship between men who contest for custody of their children and men who abuse women and children (and let’s not sugar coat this, Barry is sure domestic abuse equals men), are active in our society discouraging men from taking an increased role in the live of children. According to Barry, a good father would and should relinquish his relationship with his child in a custody separation, as I’m also sure he would argue good men should also stay out of this children’s section of the bookstore, stay away from a play ground and happily switch seats on an airplane to move away from an unaccompanied child.
Okay, but how does this relate to stats? Its a concept called selection bias. The problem is Barry and co. have been successful. Good men self-select out of a role in children’s lives as at a disproportionate rate leaving a smaller population of more evil men in their place. Good men toil in the office, pay their child support and observe their children from affair without protest. This is the result of the confluence of a man’s traditional understanding of his limited care-giving role reinforced by a culture embracing Barry’s new-age bad social science.
The final tragedy in the math is that adverse selection becomes self-fulfilling prophecy. To illustrate, let’s say we have 50 good men (gm), 50 evil men (em), 50 good women (gw) and 50 evil women (ew) in the population. Lets say we start with a world where all 100 women care personally for their children but 20 good men pour themselves into work, toil for their families and sustain reduced exposure to their children b/c they’ve been told, that’s what a good man’s for. When Barry runs his study on abuse, he’ll say “my god men are (50em)/(30gm+50em) =62.5% as likely to be evil caregivers relative to women who are well known to be only (50ew)/(50gw+50ew) =50% evil. We must separate men from children!”. He’ll get a few more policies in motion and some PR and more good men will self-select out, let’s say 40 out of 50 good men. The next time Barry runs his stats he’ll say “my god! I was right and the problem is worse than I thought! Now men are (50em)/(10gm+50em) = 83% as likely to be evil caregivers relative to women who are well known to be only (50ew)/(50gw+50ew) =50% evil. We must work harder to separate men from children!”
See how it works? We need more good men in the lives of children not less.
@ Barry
“If you used the context of the amount of time taking care of children with any harms, you would find mothers have a much better record.”
But that would only logically follow if you believed that at some point everyone would eventually kill a child. Why don’t other child care providers, like day care workers (responsible for 12 deaths), who are constantly around children not have similar numbers to mothers?
The second problem with the argument is that it doesn’t consider what is best for the child. The question you ask is is a mother more likely to abuse a child rather than is a child more likely to be abused if given to the mother in child custody cases. I’m not sure of the former, but the answer to the latter is yes, a child is more likely to suffer the most severe abuse or neglect, the kind that results in death, if given to the mother.
The stats aren’t that easy to find, but I found them. Children killed by father and other 19. Children killed by mother and other 108. Children killed by male partner of parent 34. Children killed by female partner of parent 0. I’m assuming that all couples are heterosexual. Fathers killed 198 children, 19 with another person and their partners have killed zero for a total of 217. Mothers killed 337, 108 with another person and their partners have killed 34. Not even factoring in the number of deaths attributed to the mother, which is already 50% higher than the father’s total, we have 142 deaths deaths of children because the mother either participated in the abuse or failed to protect the child from an abusive partner. 142 is almost 2/3 the total for fathers.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm10/cm10.pdf#page=70
Page 60 table 4.7
If you want to consider the best interests of the child, ensure that the mother doesn’t live with anyone and isn’t dating anyone. How often is that covered in disputed child custody cases?
Comparing childcare workers is not equal, John. There are many factors that make them not comparable including state licensing procedures and regulations, the fact that they’ve chosen childcare voluntarily, whereas parenting is not voluntary once your child is born (mostly), and the presence of other childcare employees nearby to relieve a person if they feel stress or to monitor the worker’s behavior.
Your other stats are intriguing but the first is disingenuous.
“Your other stats are intriguing but the first is disingenuous.”
That’s why I also said.
“But that would only logically follow if you believed that at some point everyone would eventually kill a child.”
I understand what you’re saying but I was countering the argument that access is the primary indicator of child abuse rather than the character of the person doing the abusing. I don’t think that women are more predisposed to abusing people than men. I think that their options are more limited whether in fact or only in their minds is not something I’ll get into.
If women feel that they can only abuse children and vulnerable people like prisoners (the majority of guard sexual abuse is female guard/male prisoner in both adult and juvenile prisons), are they more likely to take the opportunity when presented? I think that’s a fair question to ask, but I think it would be unfair to say that women are more abusive than men because they are women.
@ Barry
“Abusers often use the courts to gain access to their victims (this is more often applied in domestic violence cases) which does enormous harm to the mother and children.”
People often claim abuse during a divorce, when the abuse was never documented prior to proceedings, to gain material advantage during custody proceedings. I think in cases like this the allegation should factor heavily in the favor of the other parent in gaining custody. At the very least, this parent allowed the child to live in an abusive home. The worst case scenario is that this parent is maliciously attempting to sabotage the relationship between their children and the other parent, which in my opinion is a form of child abuse.
John, you just summarized the myths that are the biggest part of the failure to protect children in custody courts and we have a lot of strong research so I hope you can hear this and understand your assumptions, which are shared by many court professionals could not be more wrong. In the book I co-edited with Dr. Mo Therese Hannah, there is an important chapter by Judge Mike Brigner who speaks about training other judges about domestic violence. The most common question he receives from other judges is what to do about women who are lying. When asked what they mean they cite cases in which mothers return to their abusers, file petitions for protective orders but don’t follow through, or as you were referencing do not have police or medical records. In reality all of these are normal behaviors of battered women for safety and other reasons and if this behavior is used as if it proves the allegations are false the courts will fail to recognize a lot of valid domestic violence allegations. This is exactly what is happening.
This point was strongly supported by the research contained in the recent US Dept. of Justice study by Dr. Daniel Saunders. They found that evaluators and other court professionals did not have adequate training in topics that include screening for dv. It is people without this training who use non-probative information like you suggested to discredit valid allegations of abuse. In reality deliberately false allegations by mothers in contested custody cases occurs between 1 and 2 percent of the time. An important study cited by Dr. Saunders and led by Nicholas Bala found false allegations by mothers to occur 1.3 percent of the time. Interestingly, false allegations by fathers in contested custody cases were 16 times more common. This finding initially may seem hard to believe until we look closely at the reasons. This is not about all fathers or all men but only fathers involved in contested custody. As I mentioned earlier, a large majority of contested custody, probably around 90% involve abusive fathers. These are actually the worst and most dangerous fathers because they are seeking to use the children to hurt and regain control over the mothers after she left. It is based on their belief that she has no right to leave. That is why these fathers are so dangerous and it is so harmful that the courts do not have the training to recognize the danger.
I think some of you may have been offended by what I said before, but I focus mostly on contested custody and this is where the system is broken. Even in the batterer classes I teach, the men once they hear the information support the position of protective mothers once they realize the extreme nature of the fathers involved in contested custody. Even most abusive fathers would not seek to hurt their children in this manner. They might initially seek custody to obtain a better financial deal but they love their children and won’t deliberately hurt them.
Contested custody involves only 3.8 % of all custody cases so I hope the fathers in this discussion can hear this information and not take it personally. It is not about good fathers or even abusive fathers but only about the worst abusers who believe their partners have no right to leave and they are entitled to use any tactic to force them to return or punish them for leaving. When you know the facts I would hope we could all agree that the custody court needs to be reformed just as we can agree that Akin’s statements were offensive and rapists should not be considered for custody.
Barry writes:
“An important study cited by Dr. Saunders and led by Nicholas Bala found false allegations by mothers to occur 1.3 percent of the time.”
Citations please.
Most family lawyers who are retired from the business and don’t face consequences state perjury of wrong-doing is a “go to” defense for most mothers. It has also been stated by family lawyers that restraining orders are given out like candy with no factual finding of harm or the threat of harm. Additionally, since TRO’s and ex parte orders are part of a civil process they use the preponderance of the evidence standard, not clear and convincing or beyond a reasonable doubt.
The search tool at fathers and families is literally peppered with dozens of studies and editorials inside the matrimonial lawyer clique and without who state the *precise* opposite of what you say.
Is *this* the study you were referencing?
ht tp://www.canadiancrc.com/PDFs/Parental_Alienation_Nicholas_Bala_Scholarly_Paper_Summary_12MAY09.pd f
I see no referencing of a rate of false allegations by mothers that substantiate your claim that only 1.3% of claims by mothers of father harm turned out to be false.
What the article does show is that roughly 53% to 64% of the time when the non-custodial parent stated that custodial parents were using false allegations and other tools to alienate the child from the non-custodial parents the court in fact agreed with them. The conclusion from that is there is *a lot* of false allegations going on.
Other highlights:
“Mothers are twice as likely as fathers to alienate children from the other parent, but this
reflects the fact that mothers are more likely to have custody or primary care of their
children; in only 2 out of 89 cases was a parent with only access able to alienate a child
from the other parent.”
“Where the court found parental alienation, the most common response was to vary
custody to either give the rejected parent sole (47/89=53%) or joint custody(14/89=16%);
whether the father or the mother was found to be the alienating parent, there was not a
statistically significant difference in the rate of variation of custody.”
Which basically says that when alienation by the primary parent was severe enough to modify custody almost 70% of the time.
If not for you Barry, I wouldn’t have found this study to bolster my arguments for shared parenting. I agree with Joanna, this is just *fantastic*. I am indebted to you for this. Thanks.
Here is another study by Nicholas Bala:
http://leadershipcouncil.org/docs/Trocme.pdf
Excerpt:
“Results: Consistent with other national studies of reported child maltreatment, CIS-98 data indicate that more than one-third of maltreatment investigations are unsubstantiated, but only 4% of all cases are considered to be intentionally fabricated.
Within the subsample of cases wherein a custody or access dispute has occurred, the rate of intentionally false allegations is higher: 12%.”
So, this study records a false allegation reporting of 4 to 12%, not 1.3% as you stated. Additionally, there are a third of allegations that are unsubstantiated. If false allegations have the requirement that the reporter must self-incriminate themselves then the rates could actually be MUCH higher.
I would really love to see some responses from Barry, but I doubt that is the case. If I were in his shoes I wouldn’t respond either.
Since when is the rape of men by women rare? In a one year period the CDC actually found 40% of rapists were female, that men n women were raped at equal levels and men being raped 79.2% of the time by females, if you include forcing someone to penetrate/envelopment as rape.
Or are you using the definition of rape that is forcibly penetrating someone, thus women cannot rape men unless they use an object, finger, etc?
I find it hard to take people serious when they seem knowledgeable of stats yet say rape of men is rare by women…my guess is the definition of rape you use is the highly biased form that dismisses an absolute shitload of male victims.
Barry Goldstein writes:
“The fact that so many states would consider the rapist as just as qualified for custody and visitation as the mother demonstrates that the custody system strongly favors fathers.”
Care to explain how fathers receiving primary custody 14% of the cases of divorce to mothers 80% is a “SYSTEM STRONGLY FAVORS FATHERS”??
Please let’s try to keep our feet on the ground. The simple fact is father is a four-letter word in family court, and despite biased statements like the quoted sentence, this is becoming much much harder to hide from most people.
Actually, I mis-stated. The typical result of divorce is mother primary custody 80% of the time, shared parenting 14% and father primary custody 6% of the time.
How in the world mothers winning primary custody 13 times as often is a system strongly favoring fathers as Barry states, I have no idea. But, I’d love to see a response.
Simple… Because it’s proven exceptionally difficult to completely remove fathers from the equation, the courts must favor men over women. IE, the courts favor men because they won’t marginalize them 100%. The fact that the rights of men and children to have even a trivial relationship comes before the mothers feelings is an assault on mothers.
I just spit up my cola reading what you wrote Mark laughing.
Good catch.
The cynic in me laughed, the human in me cried. What a fucking sad state of affairs huh? I truly hope if I get married n have kids….we all stay together.
That will depend on the whims of your wife, and if she decides you have no place beside YOUR children, you will have an uphill battle of thousands of $$$$$ and heart-wringing hours and still might lose all parenting time thanks to family lawyers need to feather their nests.
Agreed. I’ve always wanted kids, but the cynic in me doesn’t see it happening. I’ve seen too many family members lose their own kids and become indentured servants to vindictive ex’s to put myself through that. I’ve seen too many abuses of the child support system that would cost more to remedy then to accept, and even if remedied, would only solve the immediate symptoms and leave the problem still intact (as an example of what I mean, my Mothers husband is paying full child support, trying to get it modified down because his daughter is in uni and living in residence. His ex wife “expenses” the daughters res costs as well as her food costs, which the “family responsibility office” enforces payment of. And that same woman expenses her weekly groceries, of which the daughter never sees any because she lives in res at uni with a food card of her own. IE, my mothers husband pays for his daughters food 3 times (Regular CS, Uni Food Card and grocery expense. he’s been fighting to get reimbursed for this for over a year and has spent almost almost $50K trying to do so, the extraneous food (and other similar violation costs only totaled $30K, and she’s managed to stall and demand files and all kinds of other tactics to try and bankrupt him, all the while he’s still having to pay her and she’s STILL expensing groceries.
“Is “innocent until proven guilty” even the best system for maintaining freedom?”
This isn’t the first time I’ve sen it suggested that the presumption of innocence isn’t appropriate in cases of rape. And feminists wonder why men are turning on them. Why feminism is being seen as a hate movement.
First, Mark, I am not saying it is or is not, I’m merely asking in order to incite discussion.
And Mark, just in case you missed something, go reread my piece again and see how I believe we HAVE TO maintain “innocent until proven guilty” in order to keep a free society. Read what I wrote in the piece, read it with open eyes. THAT is what I’m saying.
A discussion question is not the same as an assertion and you’re a grown man and should know that. Don’t ever misrepresent me again.
I’m certainly NOT suggesting “innocent until proven guilty” is a better way, but the question isn’t only pertaining to rape. For instance, a friend of mine, when we were teens, was shot and killed by an intruder. That person was awaiting trial on another crime when he killed my friend, who was also a teenager.
In this way, we presume that between your being charged with a crime and being convicted, you are innocent.
You need to be careful when drawing conclusions dividing incidents by time spent, with regards to physical child abuse.
Having briefly worked in child care, knowing how to handle the stress of parenting is a skill learned over time. Watching young children is not a task for the ill equipped or novices. You often hear stories of non-related parents being left to care for young children and losing control.
Here are some key statements on child abuse that need to be incorporated into the thinking and discussion:
- Most reports of child abuse are from neglect
- About a third of the victims are under the age of 4
- Parents who are unemployed (financial stress) are two to three times more likely to abuse children.
Similar abuse multipliers are found in lower socioeconomic families.
And here is the one that turns a large portion of this discussion on its head:
“living with their married biological parents places kids at the lowest risk for child abuse and neglect, while living with a single parent and a live-in partner increased the risk of abuse and neglect to more than eight times that of other children”
It may actually be better for the children if we leave parental custody and rights with the biological rapist, rather than a new future stranger !!
That’s an interesting point, time spent gives people better ability to cope with the responsibility.
Regarding the abuse of children I think people are missing the point.
The 2006 Health and Human Services Child Maltreatment report shows that mothers commit 70% of parental child abuse (even when sexual abuse is included). Mothers also commit 70% of all parental slayings.
The issue isn’t child-minding hours. The issue is the winner takes all sole custody model. Last I read a study some 14% of the populace has undiagnosed mental disorders.
The sole custody model takes away a child’s best defense against a dysfunctional parent (or a dysfunctional live-in parental figure) THE OTHER PARENT.
The solution is shared parenting which fathers and families fights for. It is systematically the best way to protect the parental rights of *both* parents and the well-being of children.
Study after study has showed that children of divorce raised in shared parenting solutions fare the best.
Mothers are far more likely to abuse children because family courts has rampant mother bias and forces loving fit fathers out of children’s lives. This leads to tragic consequences for the women ill-equipped to parent alone (but due to their dysfunction vociferously fight against father involvement).
If fathers were getting primary custody 80% to mothers 6% (as is currently the case with the genders reversed) then I wouldn’t be surprised to see 70% of parental abuse coming from fathers.
This isn’t about playing the blame game, but fighting against a broken winner-takes-all system. Of course most bar associations and matrimonial lawyer asscns fight against shared parenting as it represents a huge loss of earnings for them.
The primary custody model maximizes earnings for 1000′s of attorneys. Of course it’s horrible for kids leading to wide-spread abuse and much worse outcomes and pathologies and criminal behavior, but as long as lawyers get more $$$$$$ it’s okay I guess.
Hi John D.,
I think you have an interesting point which rings true to me. You wrote:
Study after study has showed that children of divorce raised in shared parenting solutions fare the best.
which is the exact opposite of what Barry has claimed. I am hoping you can provide some cites for the studies you refer to, because they might become very handy and they will bolster the argument against Barry’s position.
I don’t have any handy right this moment. A good tool to use is the search tool at the fathers and families webpage as the previous executive director Glenn Sacks has been debunking this hogwash for 13 years and most of his links to studies and editorials was ported over to the F&F webpage. I think GS joined FF as exe dir in 2008 or so. Just type in shared parenting.
Just search for shared parenting or fatherlessness.
Also, keep in mind Barry hasn’t posted any supporting links at all. I didn’t even see him name the study that “proved” that only 1.3% of mothers alleging abuse/rape were proved false. I haven’t even seen a rebuttal comment.
I assume lawyers are very busy people. It might also be a case where he didn’t expect there to be shared parenting advocates who knew there stuff, and possibly does not want to defend a weak position (which advocation for the primary/non-custodial method surely is).
I am pressed for time right now, but later tonight can post close to a dozen articles that detail the harm that befalls families with no father presence.
For Tamen (or anybody else interested) here are some links to studies on fatherlessness (as well as a couple editorials from people thanking their fathers):
ht tp://www.physorg.com/news200849688.h tml
men who had close contact with fathers more likely to be emotionally stable
ht tp://www.projo.com/education/juliasteiny/content/EDWATCH_21_02-21-10_L CHFEIR_v9.2937bd2.h tml
“fatherlessness is a wound that doesn’t go away”
ht tp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31086977
devoted dads reduce teen pregnancy
ht tp://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-me-irby-mandrell8-2 009mar08,0,1865029.story
Barbara Mandrell honors her father’s love & support.
ht tp://open.salon.com/blog/amytuteurmd/2009/02/23/are_fathers_optional
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.
ht tp://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16219-time-with-dad-is-time-well-s pent.html
The more effort a father invests in his children, the smarter they are as kids and more successful as adults, new research shows.
ht tp://www.wfu.edu/~nielsen/divorceddad.pdf
Teenagers and young adults who have close relationships with their fathers are less likely to become clinically depressed, to develop eating disorders, and to develop anxiety disorders.
www. torontosun.com/life/2009/06/16/9809501-sun.ht ml
The toronto sun reports on a study that says loving fit dads are 90% the largest indicator of girls self-esteem.
ht tp://www.doctorslounge.com/index.php/news/hd/30659
Early father engagement with sons may shape later behavior for the better.
ht tp://www.philly.com/philly/health/HealthDay665780_20120615_Fathers_Can_Teach_Their_Children_Persistence__Study.html?cmpid=138896554
Fathers teach their kids persistence.
ht tp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/14/fathers-day/
50 year international study shows fathers contribute as much or more as mothers to children’s development.
ht tp://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8959489/Boys-raised-by-traditional-families-do-better-at-school.html
Boys education suffers worst in single parent mother lead homes.
The list goes on and on and on.
Thanks John D.
They are now bookmarked.and I’ll look through them at a later point.
And these assertions of fatherlessness having no effect results in articles like what is in the New York Times, rightly denigrated here
Barry Goldstein said:
“The common problem of sensitive discussions like this is the failure to place the arguments in context. Thus already a substantial part of the discussion has been diverted to the extremely rare situations where women make false allegations or commit the rape.”
Mr Goldstein with all due respect to your view, this statement alone really undercuts your entire argument. You use the term “extremely rare” when discussing false accusations. The best (i.e. feminst friendly) studies show false accusations at between 8 – 10% and I am sorry but no one would say that 8 – 10% of something is extremely rare, I have seen it written elsewhere on this site a perfect analogy, If 8 – 10% of the people who crossed a crosswalk were struck and killed by a car, no way in hell anyone would consider that extremely rare.
Why do you try and diminish the damage that is done by false accusation like this?
This whole rapist father getting custody thing is kinda a red herring, these fathers are getting visitation which isn’t near the same thing as custody, not even close.
But it does raise some interesting points regrading custoday , visitation and child support.
I wonder, how many people who oppose these men getting any sort of contact would still require them to pay CS, you know the whole responsibilities vs rights thing.
I was reading an article some months about about a men who found out he was not the child bio father and successfully fought it in court, the court continue the visitation schedule that was in place after their divorce, it kinda was funny reading the comments about how if he wasn’t paying CS he shouldn’t be gettting visitation and I couldn’t help but wonder if this is the main problem with the whole visitation thing, people believe visitation is for the father and not for the children and I wonder if this is how most courts see it too.
That is a very good question John.
It seems, to me at least, that when talking about visitation/custody and support visitation/support is classified as “for the father” and support is classified as “for the child”. There is no shortage of arguing that regardless of the conditions of the situation a father must pay that support because it is for the child but will then turn 180 and say that custody/visitation is for the father only so it’s not that big of a deal if he is not in the child’s life in any form other than money.
So to the people that make this separation what say you.
You have plenty of argument that a father not paying child support harms the child in the form of them not having what they need when growing up. What do you have to say about the harm done to a child to be cheated out of a fit father that wants to be there to raise them?
I don’t think that anyone is actually in favor of just striping parental rights of anyone “accused” of rape which is what you are suggesting here. What people don’t like about the laws is that they require the extremely high burden of proof inherent in a criminal conviction with it’s “beyond and reasonable doubt” standard. Most parental rights termination proceedings require only “clear and convincing evidence” which is still a high standard (higher than that required for most civil proceedings) but isn’t as high as “beyond a reasonable doubt.” If “clear and convincing” is good enough for every other termination of parental rights then I don’t see why it shouldn’t be good enough for cases of children conceived by rape. There is still a court proceeding, the rape victim still has to present evidence and that evidence has to be quite compelling — just being “accused” isn’t enough — there just isn’t the high burden of proof and plentiful procedural hurdles that would be present in a criminal case.
I think the reason for it is twofold:
1: The crime committed was not against the child, and in fact, was committed before the child was conceived. Stripping a parent of their rights for actions unrelated to their ability to care for the child… where does it stop? Can it be done for murderers (of some non-related individual)? What about car thieves? Can any felony conviction do it? Does it even need to be a felony?
2: The time has (presumably) been served and the debt to society has been paid. now, admittedly, that doesn’t do anything for the victim, but likewise, denying access to the father doesn’t do anything for the child, ether.