If you really supported gender equality, you'd be in favour of family law reform.

But one of the biggest hurdles is alimony. And in particular, a form of alimony known as standard of living alimony, which lasts the rest of your life after a divorce.

This is in contrast to temporary forms of alimony that are meant to help out for a couple of years, or pay back one parent who helped pay for the other's college education (this one helps men quite a bit because they're usually the ones working to put their wives through college).

So why is standard of living alimony mainly for wealthy white women?

Well you only get that form of alimony if your income is significantly different from your partner's. So this represents a very small portion of alimony overall. But it is the main form of alimony that's relevant when upper class couples get divorced.

The realty is that most parents work nowadays, so most parents have incomes that are pretty similar to one another's. The only time you have big income differences are when you're wealthy enough to have one parent quit their job to stay home full time.

And this is a luxury that is mainly reserved for the wealthy, because it costs a lot of money to support a family on just one income.

Defending this type of alimony therefore benefits wealthy (and typically white) women.

It also supports the traditional gender norm of having a breadwinning husband, and a stay at home mom.

Defending alimony is regressive and conservative. It helps institutionalise traditional gender norms that harm both men and women. And it's a shame that we have otherwise "progressive" people who don't understand this.