By Ethical Justice
Since the days of sufferage, across all western democracies women’s rights movements have made mad progress in promoting the rights of women. Sensitivity towards the rights of women and girls is now enforced rigidly in the workplace, as well as now being taught in schools right from kindergarten on up. Decidedly feminist messages have even become a mandatory part of television, radio, and all other media. The Father’s rights movement is like an under-performing bastard step child in comparison. The movement’s been around since at least the 1950′s, a quick survey of your friends will likely confirm your suspicion that few men know anything about the issues behind it.
Why this huge difference in visibility? Some will say it’s because the Father’s Rights movement is newer. Others will say it’s because the issues facing men are not comparatively as important or limiting. To some, a father wanting to see his kids more than the standard every other weekend doesn’t seem to be a matter of life and death. A father haing to pay more in spousal support or child support than he thinks is fair doesn’t seem like something that would prevent most fathers from being able to pay their rent or eat, and if it did … couldn’t they just move to cheaper accommodations or eat less? The fact is the same argument could be applied to most women’s rights issues and this hasn’t slowed them in the least. On top of that, the rate of suicide and depression for men after divorce is significantly higher than for divorced women. The argument that the issues aren’t a matter of life and death is misleading. In an unfortunate number of cases they can be.
I argue that the reasons for the difference in the visibility of the Women’s Rights and Men’s Rights causes are more subtle, a mixture of biology and the democratic process itself. Regarding biology, the developing field of evolutionary psychology reflects on behaviours that the human species evolved to better adapt to its environment, paying particular attention to how gender differences in behavior reflect different evolutionary strategies. Whether gender differences in behavior are innate or a result of environmental influences is a controversial topic to be sure, but there is no debate that the differences exist. Men overwhelmingly tend to be more strongly motivated by the desire to accumulate resources (money and power) and thereby increase their access towards potential mates, while women tend to be more strongly motivated by the desire to harness the money and power of men.
Accordingly, the problem with men’s rights is not that men are lacking in political influence or lobbying muscle, its that all their lobbying efforts and interests are dedicated to furthering their interests in ways that will increase their capacity to compete against other men. Women simply are far more motivated to contribute to social causes that require cooperation in the interests of other women.
That brings us to one of the fundamental limitations of democracy as it currently exists. Lobby groups are an important component of democracies as they ensure visibility of issues between elections. However even modern democracies fail to account for the fact that groups representing different demographics have differing predispositions to organize and work cohesively. Therefore two lobby groups representing the same proportion of the population may have WILDLY different levels of influence on government. A lobby group’s success at having their position become adopted into public policy has less to do with what the majority feels is more just, than it does with the group’s political impact. One demographic acting as a cohesive group may have greater impact, while another being far more individualistic may look to solve its own problems outside the political process and have little impact whatsoever. A quick comparison of the most influential american lobby groups, and the relative proportion of the corresponding demographic in the population will confirm this.
In general men very conspiciously ignore mens rights issues until they themselves are directly victimized. Historically it’s always been true that once their individual complaints have been resolved most men again drop out of the men’s rights movement. But we are now at an interesting point in history.
Marriage rates have continued their steady decline while divorce rates have hovered near all time highs. The issues surrounding divorce and separation that have rallied men’s rights groups around the world are now personally affecting more men than ever before. The result is that slowly consciousness is emerging about the financial impact of a split of assets resulting from divorce, and from the ongoing payment of spousal support and alimony. This impact makes divorce a bigger financial event by far than any investment, any promotion, any career change, and any business venture that the vast majority of men will ever experience. It even has a bigger impact on one’s future prospects; with divorce many men effectively lose the legal right to choose their own careers, to pursue lifelong ambitions, or even to retire, not to mention the emotional impact of the loss of any meaningful role as a father which can be devastating.
Equally devastating is the feeling of being abused by the court system. Most of us grow up swallowing the coolaide of our society’s lofty moral position. We look condescendingly on countries like Iran and China, believing that our governments are models of fairness and democracy. For many men family court will be the first time they deal with the justice system. Before that, without examining evidence to the contrary, they have faith in the court system and believe that the law is fair and dedicated to justice. Afterwards, the realization that their children, possessions, and labor can be stripped from them at the whim of a judge is a brutal shock that leaves them feeling desperate and victimized. Some men never quite recover from learning that in reality, there are no rights that are “inalienable”.
Luckily some men will never have to face this kind of adversity in court. But it is dangerous for those men to believe that their positive outcomes reflect the fairness of the system. Judge’s neither have the time nor the inclination to exhaustively review the facts of every case, and even if they did the sad truth is that courts have not yet evolved to the point at which they can add up the facts of any case and objectively come to any conclusion. In fact a judge’s right to make any ruling they see fit, or to essentially rule at their whim, is absolute law in most jurisdictions. Judges call this “judicial discretion” and defend it unrepentantly, saying they must have this latitude if the judicial system is to work properly.
Yet its a fact that judges are generally appointed or elected as the case may be because they have one bias or another and that their bias heavily prejudges most outcomes. The statistical correlation of outcome with the leanings of each individual judge is indisputable. Worse still, the bias can completly subvert justice. It is virtually impossible to discipline a judge for ignoring evidence, for ignoring the law, or even for colluding with their colleagues to ensure litigants have no recourse against an unjust sentence.
The stories of the kind of injustice that result are horrific. Men have come home to find their partner in bed with someone else only to have the courts evict him from his own house then force him to pay spousal support and child support so that the ex can live there with her new partner. The father may be lucky to get supervised visitation while the boyfriend sees the kids more than he does. Sons grow up either believing that men are uninvolved fathers or that father’s have no rights to their children. Then there are the stories of men going to prison or being made homeless because of child support owing for children that paternity tests show are not theirs. And of course there are many stories of men who just give up fighting and accept that they will never see their children again.
Researching how to make the inherent randomness of court proceedings more predictable might be a challenge we won’t solve immediately, but the wisdom of avoiding court in the first place if possible is something we can all agree to right now. A presumption of shared custody is one of the most central tenets of the father’s rights movement. It is in all of our interests because this presumption avoids puttting judges in the position of adjudicating on family matters which by any and all measures judges have shown themselves to be very poor at resolving.
Perhaps making this link between men’s rights issues and an equitable divorce being more important in any man’s financial well being than any other issue he will face in his lifetime, will finally help bring this issues the visibility required to make a change. Time will only tell.
