Breaking Society In Order to Save It?
Public officials evidence near-zero concern for men — even when neglecting men results in problems that hurt everyone.
While Hillary Clinton proclaims that “The future is female” and Marilyn Albright reminds insufficiently sisterly sisters that “There is a special place in Hell for women who don’t support other women,” male officials evidence near-zero concern for men — even when neglecting men results in problems that hurt everyone.
Joe Biden, as did Barack Obama before him, runs a White House Gender Policy Council that completely, unabashedly, assertively ignores the problems of all persons whose gender fails to be female. The Donald Trumps, on the other hand, see men in need or trouble as “losers.” By virtue of needing help, in the conservative view, men who need help must not deserve it.
Patriarchy is the omnipresent, over-arching, all-purpose bogeyman of Big Femma, that cadre of perhaps thousands of essentially professional feminists in Maryland government, education, social services, media and — most importantly — philanthropies and nonprofit organizations whose job and pleasure it is to always in every conceivable way make sure that in matters of public policy we hew to the archaic, ironically patriarchal notion of “Ladies first.” Still, in a crossword puzzle, “oppression” would be the answer to the clue “word with patriarchal.”
In case you are in the somewhat narrow space between the two opposing but complementary political platforms regarding the (apparently negligible) public policy needs of men, I offer a question you might pose to Maryland candidates this election season who tell you what great and courageous and visionary leaders they are. This question will be especially perspirogenic for male candidates. The last thing patriarchal men can talk about is Men’s Issues.
Mr. Candidate, you talk about Family Values but you have done nothing to reverse the devaluation of the two-parent family after divorce. Over the past twenty years a strong consensus1 has emerged among social scientists that the best way to preserve the value of families for the children of divorce is to establish a rebuttable presumption for Shared Parenting. Yet the National Parents Organization gives Maryland a grade of D-minus on its 2019 Shared Parenting Report Card. Would you like to explain your failure of leadership on ensuring the most likely favorable outcomes for Maryland’s children of divorce?
No male candidate today, other than one on a vainglorious mission of self-immolation, can afford to be seen as patriarchal, and insensitive to the needs of women. It is true that Patriarchy has been, no surprise, patriarchal. Gatherings of public-minded men (in legislatures, for instance) have been insular, exclusionary of women’s viewpoints. But their purpose has been exactly the opposite of oppressing women and children. Far more than to privilege a few powerful cronies, to say nothing — because there is nothing to say — about looking out for the vast majority of virtually powerless men who live their lives of quiet desperation, the goal of Patriarchy has been to protect women and children from danger, even from unhappiness.
And on matters of family and relationships, such as the fate of families after divorce, patriarchal men far too often, especially these days when men are well known to be obtuse and clueless, defer to the wishes and demands of women, whose power structure is not a hierarchy but rather a low-lying matrix of influence over the many fundamental issues of life supposedly outside the purview of male caring or understanding.
Here’s the thing about establishing a rebuttable presumption for Shared Parenting. It makes only Big Femma unhappy — along with, of course, the vested money interests of the Bar Association to which divorce conflict is very, very good indeed. It doesn’t make every woman unhappy. And it doesn’t always result in “forced joint custody” — as the wordsmiths of Big Femma put it — any more than a rebuttable presumption of innocence in criminal courts always results in “forced acquittal.”
For every divorcing mother who would no longer be able to diminish the father of her children to a mere visitor who problematizes her plans for parental supremacy, there is a paternal grandmother or aunt who will still get to see her grandkids, nephews and nieces, there is a second wife who does not have to live with a husband distraught over losing his children.
As for the children, a rebuttable presumption for joint custody is the best public policy solution we have for making sure they are as happy — oppressed by neither parent — as they can be in their unhappy situation.
Whether the effort to redress Maryland’s archaic custody laws is led by a man or a woman, it should be one of the first things the men in the 2023 General Assembly talk about.
It would make a great campaign issue… for a leader of any sex.
Braver, S. L. and M. E. Lamb (2018). “Shared Parenting After Parental Separation: The Views of 12 Experts.” Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 59(5): 372-387.
Fabricius, W. V., et al. (2018). “What Happens When There Is Presumptive 50/50 Parenting Time? An Evaluation of Arizona’s New Child Custody Statute.” Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 59(5): 414-428.
Fransson, E., et al. (2018). “What Can We Say Regarding Shared Parenting Arrangements for Swedish Children?” Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 59(5): 349-358.
Kruk, E. (2018). “Arguments Against a Presumption of Shared Physical Custody in Family Law.” Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 59(5): 388-400.
Nielsen, L. (2018). “Joint versus sole physical custody: Outcomes for children independent of family income or parental conflict.” Journal of Child Custody 15(1): 35-54.
Nielsen, L. (2017). “Re-examining the research on parental conflict, coparenting, and custody arrangements.” Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 23(2): 211-231.
Nielsen, L. (2018). “Joint Versus Sole Physical Custody: Children’s Outcomes Independent of Parent–Child Relationships, Income, and Conflict in 60 Studies.” Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 59(4): 247-281.
Warshak, R. A. (2018). “Night Shifts: Revisiting Blanket Restrictions on Children’s Overnights With Separated Parents.” Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 59(4): 282-323.
Warshak, R. A. (2014). “Social science and parenting plans for young children: A consensus report.” Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 20(1): 46-67.