Women’s Tactics In Seeking Alimony: Part 1 - Domestic Violence

Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side. --Zig Ziglar

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It would be well to preface this posting with the statement that it is a known fact that all women do not sympathize with or endorse the misandrist tactics used by the feminists. They understand the irreparable damage being done under the guise of advancing the status of women. Unlike the feminists, we are not misogynists and do not condemn the whole of womanhood by implying that the material in this posting applies to all women.

This blog has gone to great lengths to present articles in a manner of gender neutrality. However, at this time, since the feminists point of view seems to garner the lions share of media attention, it seems only fair to present a counter-point to the feminists viewpoint that will hopefully tend to dispel some of the negative influence they have generated and level the playing field with some accurate facts and figures that show that there is another side of the story.

We know how the mainstream media and such women’s groups as NOW have attempted to demonize and emasculate men by placing false labels and belittling titles of dubious credibility such as deadbeat dads, women and child abusers, domestic violence perpetrators. This is in conjunction with feeding stereotypes, misinformation, and partial information. etc. to the public to degrade them for some self-serving purpose of building themselves up at the expense of men.

One apparent reason for doing so is to enable them to receive more favorable treatment from the courts when they seek divorce. There is an extremely high profit-motive for them to leave marriage and take the children with them. Statistics show that women initiate from 70–80% of the divorces.

In doing so, by taking advantage of the “no-fault” laws, they have achieved a way of benefiting by financially and emotionally destroying men. In addition, they can acquire not only half the assets, retirement funds, and other remunerations from child support, they can have a lifetime income stream (if they have been married for over 10 years) resulting from women’s receipt of preferential treatment in the family law courts.

Stirring up hatred towards men is totally consistent with feminists and feminist ideology; both of which also thrive on male hatred. The more male hatred, the better. Myths are propagated with the use of false or inaccurate statistics, and their mantra that Men = Perpetrator, and Women and Children = Victim. All this aids and abets the profit-motive’s goals by the woman seeking alimony and using these techniques.

Women of this sort are guilty of taking a few bad apples and condemning not only the whole barrel but the entire grove from which they came. Using this approach, they apparently want to throw the baby out with the bathwater in their quest for dominance in the divorce process.

And, the feminists have succeeded in their quest to degrade men. As we have seen in earlier blog posts, all of the successes in the demonization of men has resulted in a “Marriage Strike” backlash which portends an ominous future for the institution of marriage. This backlash was not anticipated by the feminists and evidence of it is starting to rear its head and stands ready to bite them in the tush. How else would you interpret the U.S. Census Bureau’s finding that for the first time in the history of the U.S. that unmarried households outnumber the married households in 2005.

What will happen to feminists when no one wants to marry them for fear of the potential for financial suicide that will be incurred? If men won’t marry them, where will they find the walking wallets to drain? No marriage = no alimony or child support. There are now new alternatives to marriage. They have reached the point of diminishing returns with their greed and demanding a lifetime of alimony welfare. As a result, their efforts have created the marriage strike backlash that is acting as a detriment and affecting all the good women who don't agree with their methods.

If co-habitation is the product of this marriage strike, what will happen to all the little bastards that will inevitably result from this arrangement? The percentage of births to unmarried women has steadily increased in the past few decades, from 5.3 percent in 1960 to 36.8 percent in 2005 according to Child Trends Databank.The ties that bind apparently no longer do so. If these little bastards represent the future of this country, what can we then expect?

Rather than stoop down to the level of the feminists and demonize “all” women, let’s start off with some article and statistics on Domestic Violence which seems to be a good offensive tactic they constantly use against men in divorce situations with seemingly total impunity for false allegations.

Granted, women are not the only target of domestic violence, yet they are the ones favored by the media and shown as the “victims.” Rarely, do you hear of them being the aggressor. Somehow when it is the man against whom violence is directed, it is shrugged off with an attitude that “he probably deserved it anyway.” Most times it is not met with the same legal enforcement and protection as that provided to women.

Apparently, society and the media can’t envision a man as being a victim. Not only that, but for the same type of offense, women receive a far more lenient sentence. See Winkler, Bobbit, Lefave, Peacock, and Others.

Here are a couple of good articles that give some background and shows how aggressive women target men:

Not the Era of the Deadbeat Dad but the Era of the Hero Father
By Jeffery M. Leving and Glenn Sacks

“Decades of research show that women are as likely to abuse their male partners as vice versa, and that heterosexual men make up a significant minority of those suffering injuries in domestic assaults. However, gender politics has kept this research from influencing government and law enforcement policies. Many men know that revealing their wives’ violence usually means the wife will claim that she was abused, and the system will side with her. Fathers are commonly arrested, punished or slapped with custody sanctions for their wives’ violence.

Some fathers face false charges of domestic violence or sexual abuse, which are commonly used as custody maneuvers in divorce. Those most vulnerable to these charges are dads who are their children’s primary caregivers. Such charges are often made to separate these dads from their children so a new custody precedent can be set with mothers as the primary caregivers.”

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RADAR ALERT: North Carolina Program Shortchanges Abusive Women

“If it's a good thing to teach boys that violence against women is unacceptable, one would think it should also be a good thing to teach girls that violence against men is unacceptable. Surely something is needed to counter the images Hollywood bombards us with showing women self-righteously hitting men, sometimes for a slight insult, sometimes for no reason at all.

The Winston-Salem Journal story tells us the city of Winston-Salem, N.C., Wachovia Corp., and Sara Lee Corp. all think that only boys need to be taught this lesson. Yet it's certainly a lesson that both sexes need to learn. The U.S. Dept. of Justice reports that 36% of those physically assaulted by an intimate partner are men. Clearly the women who physically attack these men were never taught that violence against men is unacceptable.”

Back in November, 2000, the same Department of Justice report stated that approximately 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States. That’s a lot of men being abused as well as women. To hear the feminists tell the story, men are never victims. This should dispel that myth.

Studies Shatter Myth About Abuse - by Karen S. Peterson, USA TODAY

The little-talked-about involvement of women in mutual aggression with men is "the third rail of the domestic violence field," says Richard Gelles, dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work. "Touch it and you get electrocuted." Both he and Straus have done studies that caused fiery controversies.

Gelles says the lifetime risk of a woman being struck by a male intimate partner is about 28%. And "depending upon who is doing the survey and how you measure it, you could get numbers of up to 50%." But he says a man's lifetime risk of being struck by a woman is also about 28%.

A few years ago family violence researcher Murray Straus, co-director of the Family Research Lab at the University of New Hampshire, wrote an essay called "Women's Violence toward Men is a Serious Social Problem." Not only did women engage in partner violence at least as often as men, but women were actually more likely to deliver the first blow. Indeed, "every study finds that women initiate violence in a large proportion of cases," Straus noted.

"Family conflict" studies may reflect a broader population, Straus says, and take into account lesser types of aggression that don't lead to arrests or broken limbs. These studies show about the same rates of aggression by men and women.

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It has been shown above and with the articles below that not only are men abusive but that women can just as violent. Is their aggression only directed at the man? Or, do you think they can be abusive and violent towards their children?

The U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Administration of Children and Families reports that " In 2005, of the approximately 899,000 child abuse and neglect victims, 57.8 percent of child abuse and neglect perpetrators were females and 42.2 percent were males. 40.8 percent of child victims were maltreated by their mothers acting alone whereas only "18.8 percent were maltreated by their fathers acting alone. Regarding fatalities, 30.5% were caused by women only and 18.2% were caused by men only.”

When you have households where the women are the custodial parent and no father is there, would you expect different statistics? Women can be abusive to their children just as well as towards men. And, the number of unmarried single parent households is growing each year. So, it doesn’t appear that there will be any mitigation to the problem.

In this blog, we have seen where women have total disregard for the institution of marriage and who seek alimony using tactics that involves deceit, false allegations, profit-motivation and debasing of men to do so. Rarely do you see or hear about the other side of the coin about the men who don’t want to get divorced or leave their children, and who get no closure to an emotionally draining event in their lives. They are seen as the perpetrators and aggressors and not as loving family men. Hopefully, this blog will show you that this false image is not always true.

In the final analysis, the battle of the sexes is a war that can’t be won by either side and until they come to that realization, there will never be peace among them and there can be no winners. The combatants are so engaged in the battle that they have lost sight of the requirements necessary to restore the family.

Letting the government attempt to provide a solution is “NOT” the answer. They’ve had their chance and have shown that they have no aptitude, capability or competence to adequately perform the job. The only ability they have shown is to be able to inefficiently squander outrageous amounts of taxpayer’s money with a high degree of incompetence.

The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.
--Henny Youngman

ABUSIVE WOMEN:

* Public heaps scorn on male victims of abusive women - Suzanne Steinmetz, now a sociology professor at Indiana University, called "husband beating" the most unreported crime in the United States.

* Studies shatter myth about abuse - the newest findings challenge the feminist belief that "it is men only who cause violence," says psychologist Deborah Capaldi of the Oregon Social Learning Center. " That is a myth."

* Women As Verbal Abusers

* Resolution 590: Why is Congress ignoring the needs of abusive women?

* Violence Against Women Act Ignores Epidemic Of Violent Women - By ignoring the male victim, the Violence Against Women Act does a gross disservice to men. That goes without saying. VAWA also violates one of our most cherished Constitutional protections: equal treatment under the law.

MEN AS VICTIMS:

* Programs to help abusive women, male victims - With the increased number of women charged with domestic battery comes an increase in the number of men battered. Males make up 37.5 percent of all documented abuse, according to the latest survey from the National Violence Against Women organization.

* Men in Intimate Relationships With Abusive Women: The Myths and Realities

* Men Abused By Women - In 2004, it was reported that in the previous five years more than half a million men in Canada had a female partner who was violent toward them.

* Men as Victims of Domestic Violence - American Television Programme on ABC Television 20/20 21st September 1997 – Barbara Walters hosting.

* Why Do Men Stay in Abusive Relationships?

WOMEN RULE: MORE ON THE SUBJECT:

* Ask Dr. Helen: If Moms Ran the World

DEOMONIZING OF MEN:

* What a Piece of Sh*t is Man

INTERESTING READING:

* After 40, it's wives who divorce the husbands

* The Scandal of “Unilateral Divorce”—How No-Fault Divorce Undermines Society

* Taking Marriage Private

* Husband Abuse Husband Assault

* Hawaiian Libertarian - The descent of Western Civilization into the social chaos and primitive existence of Matriarchal structured society is becoming more and more evident.

* Family Law Act 1996 – No-fault divorce responsible with divorce taking place on the basis of UNILATERAL UNSUBSTANTIATED DEMAND. Women’s mantra “I don't want you but I want your money.” So it goes in the UK as in other places of the world.

Be sure to visit these sites: www.abolish-alimony.org/ and www.alimonycentral.org

Take part our Forum discussion group:

Join the Alliance For Freedom From Alimony, Inc. to support the fight to abolish alimony. http://www.alimonyreform.org/membership.html

Do Not Marry, Do Not Have Children

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe." --Frederick Douglass

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In our ongoing attempt to keep you updated on the ever-increasing endorsement by men who are participating in a Marriage Strike, we present below an article by the highly respected author Stephen Baskervile, Ph.D., who is assistant professor of government at Patrick Henry College, which cogently explains why the present divorce laws are in need of reform. Simply stated: “they are destroying the institution of marriage” as this blog has long implied.

Advice to Young Men: Do Not Marry, Do Not Have Children
By Stephen Baskerville

Spreading this message may be the most effective method of saving marriage as an institution.

Marriage is a foundation of civilized life. No advanced civilization has ever existed without the married, two-parent family. Those who argue that our civilization needs healthy marriages to survive are not exaggerating.

And yet I cannot, in good conscience, urge young men to marry today. For many men (and some women), marriage has become nothing less than a one-way ticket to jail. Even the New York Times has reported on how easily “the divorce court leads to a jail cell,” mostly for men. In fact, if I have one urgent piece of practical advice for young men today it is this: Do not marry and do not have children.

Spreading this message may also, in the long run, be the most effective method of saving marriage as an institution. For until we understand that the principal threat to marriage today is not cultural but political, and that it comes not from homosexuals but from heterosexuals, we will never reverse the decline of marriage. The main destroyer of marriage, it should be obvious, is divorce. Michael McManus of Marriage Savers points out that “divorce is a far more grievous blow to marriage than today’s challenge by gays.” The central problem is the divorce laws.

It is well known that half of all marriages end in divorce. But widespread misconceptions lead many to believe it cannot happen to them. Many conscientious people think they will never be divorced because they do not believe in it. In fact, it is likely to happen to you whether you wish it or not.

First, you do not have to agree to the divorce or commit any legal transgression. Under “no-fault” divorce laws, your spouse can divorce you unilaterally without giving any reasons. The judge will then grant the divorce automatically without any questions.

But further, not only does your spouse incur no penalty for breaking faith; she can actually profit enormously. Simply by filing for divorce, your spouse can take everything you have, also without giving any reasons. First, she will almost certainly get automatic and sole custody of your children and exclude you from them, without having to show that you have done anything wrong. Then any unauthorized contact with your children is a crime. Yes, for seeing your own children you will be subject to arrest.

There is no burden of proof on the court to justify why they are seizing control of your children and allowing your spouse to forcibly keep you from them. The burden of proof (and the financial burden) is on you to show why you should be allowed to see your children.

The divorce industry thus makes it very attractive for your spouse to divorce you and take your children. (All this earns money for lawyers whose bar associations control the careers of judges.) While property divisions and spousal support certainly favor women, the largest windfall comes through the children. With custody, she can then demand “child support” that may amount to half, two-thirds, or more of your income. (The amount is set by committees consisting of feminists, lawyers, and enforcement agents – all of whom have a vested interest in setting the payments as high as possible.) She may spend it however she wishes. You pay the taxes on it, but she gets the tax deduction.

You could easily be left with monthly income of a few hundred dollars and be forced to move in with relatives or sleep in your car. Once you have sold everything you own, borrowed from relatives, and maximized your credit cards, they then call you a “deadbeat dad” and take you away in handcuffs. You are told you have “abandoned” your children and incarcerated without trial.

Evidence indicates that, as men discover all this, they have already begun an impromptu marriage "strike:" refusing to marry or start families, knowing they can be criminalized if their wife files for divorce. "Have anti-father family court policies led to a men's marriage strike?" ask Glenn Sacks and Dianna Thompson in the Philadelphia Enquirer. In Britain, fathers tour university campuses warning young men not to start families. In his book, From Courtship to Courtroom, Attorney Jed Abraham concludes that the only protection for men to avoid losing their children and everything else is not to start families in the first place.

Is it wise to disseminate such advice? If people stop marrying, what will become of the family and our civilization?

Marriage is already all but dead, legally speaking, and divorce is the principal reason. The fall in the Western birth rate is directly connected with divorce law.

It is also likely that same-sex marriage is being demanded only because of how heterosexuals have already debased marriage through divorce law. “The world of no-strings heterosexual hookups and 50% divorce rates preceded gay marriage,” advocate Andrew Sullivan points out. “All homosexuals are saying . . . is that, under the current definition, there’s no reason to exclude us. If you want to return straight marriage to the 1950s, go ahead. But until you do, the exclusion of gays is simply an anomaly – and a denial of basic civil equality.”

We will not restore marriage by burying our heads in the sand; nor simply by preaching to young people to marry, as the Bush administration’s government therapy programs now do. The way to restore marriage as an institution in which young people can place their trust, their children, and their lives is to make it an enforceable contract. We urgently need a national debate about divorce, child custody, and the terms under which the government can forcibly sunder the bonds between parents and their children. We owe it to future generations, if there are to be any.

WHEN THE SHOE IS ON THE OTHER FOOT

* K-Fed Sticks Hand Out....

* Reciprocal Violence can Lead to More Injury: studies show that women initiate domestic violence more than men.

* Men Shouldn't Be Overlooked as Victims of Partner Violence

* Teen violence predicts domestic violence

Be sure to visit these sites: www.abolish-alimony.org/ and www.alimonycentral.org

Join our Forum discussion group:

Join the Alliance For Freedom From Alimony, Inc. to support the fight to abolish alimony. http://www.alimonyreform.org/membership.html

The Four Stages Of Paying Alimony

The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus

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This following article from the Fathers-4-Justice gives an excellent perspective on the basic stages that a spouse paying alimony goes through when encountering the family law injustice system.

While the article is basically oriented towards child support, we have found that if you substitute the word “alimony” for those of “child support” it would pretty much parallel the stages encountered by a spouse burdened with alimony payments.

Here is the article:

“Often the first call from a father to one of our Fathers-4-Justice members begins as a two hour call as hopeless fathers explain the details of their story. Dads often just need someone to listen to them before they absolutely explode. As I listen to the stories a very similar pattern seems to emerge. I have noticed that most of the dads that are being kicked around by the family court machine have very similar personalities. I have noticed that these dads are usually very easy going; they are typically the "rule followers" of our society. These fathers tend to comply with the rules that society has laid out for them without question.

As fathers progress through the custody process they usually pass through four distinct phases. Even though the names, dates and facts of the cases are all different, the process is almost always the same.

Phase 1- The Devastated Dad

Initially, fathers are blindsided with an order of the court limiting their time with their children. They are often ordered out of their homes, their assets and paychecks are seized, and they are forced to find or borrow thousands of dollars to fund an attorney. Fathers in this stage are constantly asking themselves what they did wrong, how can "they" (the courts) do this? In many cases mothers have used the WMD of custody litigation - false allegations of abuse. Fathers are visited by social workers, Guardians ad Lit em, and ordered to counseling. This extremely cruel tactic is followed by court personnel and/or psychologists coaching the children to ensure that they, too, report that they hate their father. The result is a depressed, devastated dad who wears the effects of his battle on his sleeve.

Phase 2 - Hyper Compliance

As custody litigation progresses and psychological experts are further engaged, fathers move into a mode of hyper-compliance. They attend every counseling session and every minor court hearing with high hopes - only to hear that a decision on their case has been

delayed. Fathers assume that if they just do everything that they are asked to do that this whole ordeal will be over and they can see their kids again. They sign up for parenting classes, counseling sessions, and attend mediations often without being asked. Fathers volunteer for polygraphs, take drug tests, and comply with every conceivable program the system has to offer. Every father believes that if they just follow the rules, the truth will come out. It doesn't! Over time dads realize that no matter how many times they ask, no matter what they do, the "experts" can never put their finger on exactly what he must do to so he can see his kids again. They always end every statement to the court, no matter how unreasonable, with "in the best interest of the children".

Phase 3 - Legal Eagle

Eventually fathers get fed up with the slow moving custody machine. They start to Google everything from parenting rights that are guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, to the latest research on false allegations. Acronyms such as PAS, FOC, GAL, SAID Syndrome, and FERPA become part of their every day conversation. They collect evidence, photocopy documents, and start recording every conversation anxiously awaiting their day to present these facts in court. They spend hours researching information on other cases that seem similar to theirs and forwarding case law to their attorney only to be told to "stop playing lawyer". They can't understand why their own attorney allows so many continuances of their case. They can't figure out why filing

a motion for contempt because visitation was denied (again) would make HIM look bad. Many dads spend their life savings, children's college funds, retirement funds and go into tens of thousands of dollars of debt during this phase certain that if they can just get their story in front of a judge, the truth would come out.

This is the phase where the social workers, judges, and magistrates threaten that if "the two parents can't agree, they'll be forced to put the kids in foster care!" The lawyers all talk about how costly a trial would be and pressure all parties to settle. For the few

fathers that get their case to trial, they quickly find that the "evidence" they collected, the documents they've copied and the audio they've recorded can't be presented in court. They learn that "experts" that have never met them, and social workers who don't even have children, can make recommendations about the future of their children. Fathers learn that perjury in family court is never prosecuted.

Phase 4 - Combat

Eventually the money runs out, the lawyers come and go, and the pressure to give in grows. Some fathers just quit. They take the offer, they "agree" to minimal visitation, to a support order that is unreasonable, and every other restriction the "experts" throw at them, simply because they cannot afford (financially, emotionally, and psychologically) to fight any longer. These dad's balls have literally been busted.

Other dads decide to fight – with or without an attorney. These fathers decide to continue litigation pro se. They contact every father's group on the web and sign up for every Yahoo group on the subject. These fathers, once united, can have a major impact onthe "system". The hope of every judge, magistrate, counselor, social worker and attorney that profits from the custody industry is that the fathers that opt for combat won't organize. They have learned that they can squash each individual father like a lone ant on the pavement. What they fear is an informed, organized, determined army moving toward one goal like a swarm of fire ants. That would be unstoppable.

Sadly, too many fathers spend so much time in phases 1-3 that their children grow up in the background and they miss out.”

Source: http://daddy.typepad.com/daddyblog/2007/01/index.html

Commentary:

Of the hundreds of spouses who have joined the Alliance For Freedom From Alimony, Inc., the majority of members belonging to our group have come to us at stage one and have progressed to stage four. We have seen the transformation and it follows the pattern indicated above.

Unfortunately, it appears that the advances of these groups are having little effect in bringing about a change that will cure the country of the cancerous growth of the family law injustice system that is administered by the self-serving legal profession intent on filling their pockets at the expense of the American family members. Why should they? It is a multi-billion dollar cash cow that they find extremely lucrative.

How can you expect to change a system that is in itself a self-policing and self-perpetuation entity?

The lawyers in the legislature make the ever-increasing number of rules that feed a growing legal profession’s appetite with laws that create adversarial relationships requiring lawyers to handle them. These adversarial proceedings are then taken to a court, administered by a lawyer-turned-judge to rule in such a way as to retain jurisdiction on the adversarial parties thus insuring a tentacle-enfolding stranglehold on the parties for the rest of their lives. This process is a self-serving way to provide job security for the legal profession.

Should any of the parties find fault with the judges or lawyers tending to their case, a complaint can then be filed with the local bar association. What kind of relief can they find here? Well what do you think you can expect when a group of lawyers who regulate all the attorneys and judges are called upon to find fault with one of their own??

Personally, I have experienced where when one of my lawyers took several thousands of dollars retainer, totally bungle the representation of my case, walked away from his office and left town before finishing my case along with other misdeeds. For this the bar association only gave him a private reprimand and nothing more.

Many similar stories of lawyer incompetence and taking of money without any return of services are rampant among the parties to adversarial proceedings. Yet no relief is in sight for the aggrieved parties and the injustices will just continue pouring money into lawyer’s coffers.

Where will it all end? See the next installment of this blog for the answer.

MARRIAGE STRIKE: ALIMONY LAWS DESTROYING THE VERY FABRIC AND BUILDING BLOCK OF OUR SOCIETY AND NATION
* Troubling thoughts in midst of marriage crisis. :-(

EXAMPLES OF A JUDICIAL SYSTEM AND JUDGES GONE AWRY:
* Encouraging Signs From The Commission on Judicial Conduct (MORE ...
* Federal judge harassed woman for years, friends of victim say
* TX - How far did this federal judge go?

LEGAL INFORMATION AND RESEARCH CORNER:
* Disciplinary Actions in the Database of Sources

Be sure to visit these sites: www.abolish-alimony.org/, www.alimonycentral.org and www.cflap.org

Take part our Forum discussion group:

Join the Alliance For Freedom From Alimony, Inc. to support the fight to reform alimony. http://www.alimonyreform.org/membership.html

When Women Have To Pay Alimony

"An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere."

--Samuel Johnson

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Now that women are achieving parity with men in the area of having to pay alimony how are they reacting??

Government statistics show that approximately one-third of the breadwinners in the family are now women and this number is escalating every year. That indicates that a greater proportion of women who will be subject to paying alimony in divorce proceedings is increasing correspondingly. For this reason, a lot of women are indignant now that the shoe is increasingly on the other foot.

When it was the man who had to pay the alimony, no one seemed to be concerned with the injustices and burdens imposed. He was expected to take what was dished out to him and suffer in silence. Now it is the women who are treated in the same way by the courts and they are up in arms over it. It would seem that the saying “be careful what you wish for…you might get it” is apropos in this situation.

Below is an article written by Glenn Sacks, which gives an excellent perspective on the subject:

From WomenPayingSupport.com

Be a Man…Don’t Ask for Spousal Support
October 23rd, 2007 by Glenn Sacks

“You’ve never heard complaints about paying child support until it’s a woman who has to pay it.”–Seattle Family Law Attorney Lisa Scott

“The only way to abolish alimony is to make women pay it.”–Tom Leykis, nationally-syndicated talk show host.

When men work hard to support their families, they’re often accused of victimizing their poor wives who have to stay at home, chained to their children. The National Organization for Women and other feminist groups often argue that these men don’t deserve joint custody after divorce because they “never took primary responsibility for raising their kids while they were married.” When divorce comes and men have to pay child support and alimony, they dare not complain, or they’ll be accused of disrespecting their long-suffering ex-wives who sacrificed their careers for their families.

So if men who are primary breadwinners can’t win, what about men who are primary caregivers? As usual with the gender wars, men can’t win here, either. Primary caregiving men are often looked upon with contempt by society and sometimes their wives, while their value as caregivers is short shrifted, as mom is still the “real” parent.

(Example–I’ve been my kids’ primary caregiver for the past nine years, but whenever there’s a new employee at my kids’ schools, they call my wife at her office during the day if one of our kids is ill and needs to go home early.)

(Another example–I recall a meeting at my son’s school several years ago when a visiting female administrator walked in, warmly greeted my wife, and then looked at me and asked, “And who might you be?” I felt like replying, “The person who’s taken my kids to school, picked them up and done their homework with them every day, as well as having gone to every single Parent Conference/Back to School Night/Open House for the last I don’t know how many years.” I stifled it and just replied “I’m the dad,” at which point she said hello and then turned to my wife and began explaining the issues my son was having. I wish I had it on film.)

(One more example–A little while ago I actually read a feminist blogger criticize me for victimizing my poor, hard-working wife and sponging off of her, a phrase I’ve never heard her use when describing a woman who both works full-time and is the primary caregiver for her children. For the record, I earn a living with my writing, etc., and my wife wants to be a stay-at-home mom about as much as she’d like to test experimental parachute designs.)

As the press release below shows, when divorce comes, primary caregiving men had better not dare ask for child support or alimony, or they’re not “real men.”

Funny how when dad is the primary breadwinner, it’s poor mom who is the burdened one, yet when mom is the primary breadwinner, all of a sudden she’s the hard-working hero and dad is a lazy bum. In reality, despite the “lazy husband” myth, research clearly shows that both men and women contribute an equal number of hours towards their households–to learn more, see my co-authored column Are American Husbands Slackers? (Tallahassee Democrat, 3/22/06).

Unlike many in the men’s and fathers’ movement, I believe that alimony does have a place. I believe alimony is warranted when one partner–male or female–really has put aside or cut back his or her career to be the primary caregiver for his or her children, and is economically disadvantaged because of it. I certainly think alimony can be abused, usually by women but occasionally by men.

Below is a new press release I just received from www.WomenPayingSupport.com. In their view, men who receive alimony are lazy bums, and they attempt to shame men out of it by using the phrase always used to get men to do something which is not in their best interest–”Be a Man.” That being said, the ladies may well have a legitimate grievance. But if we’re going to tackle the inequities of divorce and family law in order of importance, we have many, many problems to tackle before we get all the way down to the problem of women paying alimony.

Women are Increasingly Paying Spousal Support;
WomenPayingSupport.com Launched

You don’t have to be as successful as Britney Spears or Reese Witherspoon to fear getting sued for alimony. Like the founder of WomenPayingSupport.com, more women today are obligated to pay their ex-husbands some form of financial support. Call it the dark side of the liberation coin.

SACRAMENTO, Calif., October 18, 2007 - The picture of equality looks awfully strange to a 36-year old State of California worker and business owner. (AKA “Ms. Bread Winner”.) She pays her ex, a 41 year-old fellow state worker, hundreds of dollars per month in temporary spousal support.

He’s not seeking alimony to help pay for their son’s after-school sports program or music lessons - there are none. Nor was he instrumental in building Ms. Bread Winner’s business as he sat on the couch, smoked pot and professed he was “sick” throughout their 15-year marriage. The daughter of an Air Force Master Sergeant, she started working for the state when she was 18 and has since risen and excelled as an IT Analyst. She’s also worked furiously to ensure the additional education and success of her home business while raising a family. Small wonder she is outraged at having to write a monthly alimony check.

“I thought spousal support was for people who were out of the work force, to raise a family for example. It might take them longer to support themselves.”, says Ms. Bread Winner. “Maybe it’s my upbringing, but it never occurred to me that I, as a woman, would have to pay spousal support. It was bad enough that I primarily supported him when we were married, but to continue when we are divorced?! I’m so mad that I created a pixel support website, www.WomenPayingSupport.com where people can vent and get a t-shirt with my logo on it!”

No doubt Ms. Bread Winner will find more than a few buyers for her t-shirts. The idea that men can receive spousal support from their ex-wives may feel like a freakish concept but as the alpha-earner woman by need, not desire as in the case of Ms. Bread Winner, have emerged, it’s increasingly common.

A lot of women are indignant now that the shoe is increasingly on the other foot, says Carol Ann Wilson, a certified financial divorce practitioner in Boulder, Colo. “There’s a sense of, “What’s yours is ours, but what’s mine is mine.” Wilson says, “My first response to that is, “All these years we have been carrying our families while looking for equality; well this is what it looks like upon divorce. I know women get angrier about having to pay than men do.”

The ordeal has been played up in gossip magazines and tabloids, which have closely followed countless examples of celebrity breakups in which men have sought, or have threatened to seek, spousal support. Teen idol Nick Lachey reportedly requested the right to seek spousal support from ex-wife pop singer Jessica Simpson last year. [Lachey is seven years older than Simpson and worth significantly less.] In another splashy case, Hardy Boy Parker Stevenson sought $18,000 per month from actress Kristie Ally when they divorced, just to cover the rent on his Bel Air home. As men set their sights on women’s earnings, women have become more protective of those dollars.

In fact, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 44% of all attorneys included in a recent survey said they’ve seen an increase in men wanting alimony and more and more women asking for prenuptial agreements over the last five years, where in previous decades, prenuptial agreements and alimony were almost always sought by men. Just as women object to men’s request for spousal support, some real men are particularly uncomfortable seeking it. Either they find it emasculating to ask, or they find the idea of receiving an allowance from their ex-wives humiliating. Right or not, as women’s earnings grow, so will their financial responsibility during divorce. That’s equality for you.

WOMEN PAYING ALIMONY: MORE ON THE SUBJECT:

* Women Increasingly Paying Alimony

* Men & Alimony--Aren't You Supposed to at Least Ask the Other Side?

* Breadwinning Moms vs. Alimony

MARRIAGE STRIKE: ALIMONY LAWS DESTROYING THE VERY FABRIC AND BUILDING BLOCK OF OUR SOCIETY AND NATION

* Misc. News & Views On Gender (At Male Matters)

* Who Should Get Married?

INTERESTING READING:

* Is Marriage A Dying Institution*

* Individual and Social Cost of Divorce in Utah

Be sure to visit these sites: www.abolish-alimony.org/ and www.alimonycentral.org

Join our Forum discussion group:

Support the fight to abolish alimony by joining the Alliance For Freedom From Alimony, Inc. http://www.alimonyreform.org/membership.html

Bloggers Who Criticize Government May Face Prison

Every law is an infraction of liberty.
--Jeremy Bentham

--------------------------------

On occasion, this blog will digress to show examples of how the government is eroding the freedoms granted us by the constitution. We have seen where the government has invaded our families lives to a great degree since the 1960’s under the guise of protecting the parties and the children. They did this in direct contradiction to the constitution in violation of the right to privacy matters related to marriage as pointed out earlier in this blog.

Practically, in every aspect of our lives are we seeing encroachment by the government. The same government that is supposed to represent the will of the people is guilty of this infringement.

But is the government really representative of the will of the people?? If so, where do they get the justification that implies we want to relinquish these freedoms? Or is it the fact that the government has become an entity unto itself and is now a self-perpetuating creature where the purpose of the people is to serve the will of the government?

The ways the government justifies this encroachment is under the guise of “protecting” us from some popular form of “evil” such as terrorism, safety or life threatening hazard, etc. By allowing them to do this, they become embolden to do the same in other areas of our lives. They do it with a technique called “nose of the camel under the tent.” Once you allow the nose to enter the tent, it is followed by the rest of the camel.

The fact remains that only one of two conditions can exist. Either the government serves us or we serve the government. You decide for yourself which statement is correct.

The following was taken from DaddyBlogger.com. Read it and draw your own conclusion.

Bill would allow rounding up and imprisoning of non-registered political writers

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, January 18, 2007

You'd be forgiven for thinking that it was some new restriction on free speech in Communist China. But it isn't. The U.S. Government wants to force bloggers and
online grassroots activists to register and regularly report their activities to Congress in the latest astounding attack on the internet and the First Amendment.

Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of GrassrootsFreedom. com, a website dedicated to fighting efforts to silence grassroots movements, states:

"Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself."

In other words Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats may redefine the meaning of lobbying in order that political communications to and even between citizens falls under the same legislation.

Under current law any 'lobbyist" who 'knowingly and willingly fails to file or report." quarterly to the government faces criminal charges including a possible jail term of up to one year.

The amendment is currently on hold. This latest attack on bloggers comes hot on the heels of Republican Senator John McCain's proposal to introduce legislation that would fine blogs up to $300,000 for offensive statements, photos and videos posted by visitors on comment boards.

McCain's proposal is presented under the banner of saving children from sexual predators and encourages informants to shop website owners to the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who then pass the information on to the relevant police authorities.

Despite a total lack of any evidence that children are being victimized en mass by bloggers or people who leave comments on blog sites, it seems likely that the
proposal will become legislation in some form. It is well known that McCain has a distaste for his blogosphere critics, causing a definite conflict of interest where any proposal to restrict blogs on his part is concerned.

In recent months, a chorus of propaganda intended to demonize the Internet and further lead it down a path of strict control has spewed forth from numerous establishment organs:

During an appearance with his wife Barbara on Fox News last November, George Bush senior slammed Internet bloggers for creating an "adversarial and ugly climate."

- The White House's own recently de-classified strategy for "winning the war on terror" targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to "diminish" their influence.

- The Pentagon recently announced its effort to infiltrate the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror.

- In a speech last month, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a "terror training camp," through which "disaffected people living in the United States" are developing "radical ideologies and potentially violent skills." Chertoff pledged to dispatch Homeland Security agents to local police departments in order to aid in the apprehension of domestic terrorists who use the Internet as a political tool.

- A landmark legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations seeks to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web – and their argument is supported by the U.S. government.

- A landmark legal ruling in Sydney goes further than ever before in setting the trap door for the destruction of the Internet as we know it and the end of alternative news websites and blogs by creating the precedent that simply linking to other websites is breach of copyright and piracy.

- The European Union, led by former Stalinist and potential future British Prime Minister John Reid, has also vowed to shut down "terrorists" who use the Internet to spread propaganda.

- The EU also recently proposed legislation that would prevent users from uploading any form of video without a license.

- We have also previously exposed how moves are afoot to clamp down on internet neutrality and even to designate a highly restricted new form of the internet known as Internet 2.

Make no mistake, the internet, one of the greatest outposts of free speech ever created is under constant attack by powerful people who cannot operate within a society where information flows freely and unhindered. All these moves mimic stories we hear every week out of State Controlled Communist China, where the internet is strictly regulated and virtually exists as its own entity away from the rest of the web.

The phrases "Chinese government" and "Mao Zedong" have even been censored on China's official Web sites because they are "Sensitive phrases". Are we to allow our supposedly Democratic governments to implement the same type of restrictive policies here?

Under section 220 of the lobbying reform bill, Infowars.net could be required to seek a license in order to bring this information to you. IF we were granted a license we would then have to report our activities to the government four times per year in order to bring you this information. Does that sound more like free speech or more like totalitarianism?

Take action:

As well as calling the Senate you should go to GrassrootsFreedom. com which has a petition that you can sign against Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill. Paul Joseph Watson contributed to this report.

MARRIAGE STRIKE: ALIMONY LAWS DESTROYING THE VERY FABRIC AND BUILDING BLOCK OF OUR SOCIETY AND NATION

* Who Should Get Married?

EXAMPLES OF A JUDICIAL SYSTEM AND JUDGES GONE AWRY:

* Georgia judge accused on misconduct by feds
* 2 judges under judicial scrutiny
* The Nevada Supreme Court suspends judge

Be sure to visit these sites: www.abolish-alimony.org/ and www.alimonycentral.org

Join our Forum discussion group:

Join the Alliance For Freedom From Alimony, Inc. to support the fight to abolish alimony. http://www.alimonyreform.org/membership.html