Is there statistical evidence that family courts are biased against fathers?

magus678 · 2019-12-30T20:55:53+00:00

I have seen others make arguments such as that father don't seek custody as much, and when they do they usually get it, among others.

I'm not aware of studies in this vein, but I can say anecdotally from working in a law office in college that there was a sentiment that they would try not to represent fathers in custody disputes because of how rough they were.

I can also anecdotally say that a friend recently went through a renegotiation dispute of a 10 year old divorce that besides spending 50k+ just to end up back at equal custody, he had to spend 2 years of his life in and out of court, recording phone calls, curating his facebook and overall living his life on trial that entire time.

She was living her life as a half deranged crazy person and would be literally fabricating evidence that he was a horrible father that he then had to be able to prove false, and not even showing up to court dates half the time. He ended up getting married to his girlfriend during this time, partly to stop her from being able to pick up his kids from school: the ex kept going up and taking her name off the list. Again, 2 years of this, a bucket of money just to end where he started.

I'm not aware of what the data says, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if most men simply don't feel like that's a marathon they can run/afford. The ones that undertake it are almost preternaturally determined.

2019-12-30T21:29:04+00:00

Discussed in this sub just a few days ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/egajr4/next_time_someone_tells_you_our_child_custody/

Oncefa2 · 2019-12-30T20:08:11+00:00

There are quite a few studies cited in one of the footnotes of this paper:

"Beyond Economic Fatherhood: Encouraging Divorced Fathers to Parent". [Abstract]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=569363, [PDF]: https://www.law.upenn.edu/journals/lawreview/articles/volume153/issue3/Maldonado153U.Pa.L.Rev.921(2005).pdf

See id. (noting that fathers who seek custody prevail in half or more cases); Mason & Quirk, supra note 228, at 228 tbl.2 (citing statistics showing that fathers won custody in forty-two percent of custody appeals, mothers prevailed in forty-five percent of cases, and twelve percent of the cases involved some form of shared custody, including 9.2% with split custody and 2.8% with joint physical custody); Massachusetts Report, supra note 227, at 825 (finding that fathers obtain custody in 70% of cases). But see MACCOBY & MNOOKIN, supra note 13, at 103-04 (finding that mothers obtained their preferred custodial arrangement twice as often as fathers); Bahr et al., supra note 208, at 257 (showing that fathers in Utah were awarded sole custody in only twenty-one percent of disputed cases, mothers received sole custody in fifty percent of cases, seventeen percent of fathers were awarded joint legal custody, and thirteen percent had split custody); Fox & Blanton, supra note 101, at 261 (finding that when fathers in California sought joint custody and mothers sought sole custody, mothers prevailed in sixty-seven percent of the cases)

The numbers differ because different states have different statutes and legal standards. One study for example only showed a small bias (42% vs 45%) but the others all show much larger differences (21% vs 55%, "twice as often", etc).

Also the Massachusetts study referenced above is known to be fraudulent, and actually shows men receiving custody six times less than women:

Rosenthal, M. B. (1995). Misrepresentation of Gender Bias in the 1989 Report of the Gender Bias Committee of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Breaking The Science. Retrieved October 21, 2019, from http://www.breakingthescience.org/SJC_GBC_analysis_intro.php

Also interesting from the first link is this claim in the abstract, which addresses why fewer fathers seek custody in the first place:

[S]he concludes that the law's and society's treatment and expectations of divorced fathers may be facilitating their disengagement [with their children].

Data from Canada shows a six-fold bias against men receiving custody in contested disputes:

Division, Research and Statistics. (2017). JustFacts: Child Custody and Access. Department of Justice Canada. Available at: [HTML] https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/jf-pf/2017/nov02.html, [PDF] https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/jf-pf/2017/docs/nov02.pdf

US government data shows that 41.3% of custodial fathers did not receive child support from non-custodial mother vs 28.8% of custodial mothers in reverse, and that only 17.5% of fathers who ask for custody get it:

Grall, T. (2018). Custodial mothers and fathers and their child support: 2015. US Census Bureau, Current Population Reports. Available from: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/demo/P60-262.pdf

And here are a bunch of studies about the opinions of lawyers and judges who overwhelmingly think men are discriminated against:

Franklin, R. (2015). Studies Show Judicial Bias Against Dads. National Parents Organization. Available at: https://nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/22457-studies-show-judicial-bias-against-dads

The law itself is biased in favor of split custody, and is defined in a way that women usually get custody (since it's based on how much time is spent at home, not how much time and effort is spent supporting and raising your kids). The national parents organization keeps a "report card" for US states and how biased they are:

https://nationalparentsorganization.org/information-resources/2019-shared-parenting-report-card

The laws are also flawed in other ways. For example:

Unlike women, unmarried men lack the right to have a legal presumption of custody to their children:

Jacob, Kathleen. (2019, July 7). Local dads fighting to make joint custody the default. Fox17 Nashville. Available at: https://fox17.com/news/local/local-dads-fighting-to-make-joint-custody-the-default

A woman can name an anonymous man as the father, regardless of biological connection, consent of the man, or even having ever met the man before (and then proceed to demand child support from him):

Welch, M. (2004). Injustice by Default: How the effort to catch "deadbeat dads" ruins innocent men's lives. Reason, February 2004 Issue. Available online at: http://reason.com/archives/2004/02/01/injustice-by-default

A man who wants custody of his kids can have them adopted away from him without his consent (a mom can put her children into foster care instead of letting the father have them):

Maillard, K. N. (2015). A Father’s Struggle to Stop His Daughter’s Adoption. The Atlantic. Available from: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/paternity-registry/396044/

Feminism bears a lot of blame for our laws being defined this way:

Franklin, R. (2014). Karen DeCrow, Last NOW President to Support Shared Parenting, Dies. National Parents Organization. Available from: https://nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/21752-karen-decrow-last-now-president-to-support-shared-parenting-dies

Reid, P. (2015). Opposing Shared Parenting: The Feminist Track Record. A Voice For Men. Available from: https://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/opposing-shared-parenting-the-feminist-track-record/

RECALCULATING THE GENDER WAR. (2016). Most powerful American feminist organization kills another shared parenting bill: N.O.W.’s crusade against actual gender equality slips into the limelight. Available at: https://recalculatingthegenderwar.tumblr.com/post/142883164331/most-powerful-american-feminist-organization-kills

u/ThePigmanAgain (2019, Oct). Feminists are trying to get parental alienation delisted from the WHO ICD-11. Here's how you can say "Hell, no!". r/MensRights. Available from: /r/MensRights/comments/dnl1b7/feminists_are_trying_to_get_parental_alienation

J-Unleashed · 2019-12-31T02:05:06+00:00

Look into the Tender Years Doctrine. At bare minimum, it's considered.

You should assess the parental alienation rate of both mother and father. Black Americans also have over a single motherhood rate. I'd also look at how child support is distributed by sex (do mothers receive more than fathers or vice versa). I'd also consider looking at suicides with a microscope because you will find parents who committed suicide over not being able to see their children.

Title	Is there statistical evidence that family courts are biased against fathers?
Author	Strikester101
Upvotes	19
Comments	11
Date	December 30, 2019 7:18 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/ehqktc/is_there_statistical_evidence_that_family_courts/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/is-there-statistical-evidence-that-family-courts.1064227 https://theredarchive.com/post/1064227

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