What Have Feminists Done to America's Fathers?

[MYSONSDAD]

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7713

Social & Domestic Issues
What Have Feminists Done to America's Fathers?

by Phyllis Schlafly
Posted Jun 10, 2005

On Father's Day, Americans should ponder the appalling fact that an
estimated 40 percent of our nation's children are living in homes without
their own father.  Most of our social problems are caused by kids who grow
up in homes without their own fathers: drug abuse, illicit sexual
activity, unwed pregnancies, youth suicide, high school dropouts,
runaways, and crime.

Where have all the fathers gone?  Some men are irresponsible slobs, but no
evidence exists that nearly half of American children were voluntarily
abandoned by their own fathers; there must be other explanations.

For 30 years, feminist organizations and writers have propagated the myth
that women are victims of an oppressive patriarchal society and that
marriage is an inherently abusive institution that makes wives
second-class citizens.  Feminists made divorce a major component of
women's liberation and their political freedom.

For three decades, feminists have toyed with the question that Maureen
Dowd chose as the title of her forthcoming book, Are Men Necessary?
That's just the latest version of Gloria Steinem's famous line, "A woman
without a man is like a fish without a bicycle."

College textbooks portray marriage as especially bleak and dreary for
women.  Assigned readings are preoccupied with domestic violence,
battering, abuse, marital rape, and divorce.

During the Clinton Administration, the feminists parlayed their hysteria
that domestic violence is a national epidemic into the passage of the
Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).  This created a gigantic gravy train of
taxpayers' money, known as feminist pork, that empowers pro-divorce,
anti-male activism.

Not satisfied with several billions from the U.S. Treasury, 67 feminist
and liberal organizations supported a lawsuit to try to get private
allegations of domestic abuse heard in federal courts so they could
collect civil damages against men and institutions with deep pockets.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court, in Brzonkala v. Morrison (2000), declared
unconstitutional VAWA's section that might have permitted that additional
mischief.

However, VAWA's billions of dollars continue to finance the
domestic-violence lobby, and there is a deafening silence from
conservatives who pretend to be guardians against federal takeovers of
problems that are none of the federal government's business.  Local crimes
and marital disputes should not be subjects of federal law or spending.

Billions of dollars have flowed from VAWA to the states to finance private
victim-advocacy organizations, private domestic-violence coalitions, and
the training of judges, prosecutors and police.  This tax-funded network
is, of course, staffed by radical feminists who teach the presumption of
father guilt.

Legislating a special category of domestic violence is very much like
legislating a special category of hate crimes.  Both create a new level of
crimes for which punishment is based on who you are rather than what acts
you commit, and the "who" in the view of VAWA and the domestic-violence
lobby is the husband and father.

A Justice Department-funded document published by the National Victim
Assistance Academy established a widely accepted definition of "violence"
that includes such non-criminal acts as "degradation and humiliation" and
"name-calling and constant criticizing."  The acts need not be illegal,
physical, violent, or threatening; "domestic violence" becomes whatever
the woman says it is.

The Final Report of the Child Custody and Visitation Focus Group of the
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges admitted that
"usually judges are not required to make a finding of domestic violence in
civil protection order cases."  In other words, judges saddle fathers with
restraining orders on the wife's say-so without any investigation as to
whether it is true or false.

The late Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN), a big advocate of VAWA, admitted
that "up to 75 percent of all domestic assaults reported to law
enforcement agencies were inflicted after the separation of the couple."
Most allegations of domestic violence are made for the purpose of taking
the custody of children away from their fathers.

The June issue of the Illinois Bar Journal explains how women use
court-issued restraining orders (which Illinois calls Orders of
Protection) as a tool for the mother to get sole child custody and even
bar the father from visitation.  In big type, the magazine proclaims:
"Orders of protection are designed to prevent domestic violence, but they
can also become part of the gamesmanship of divorce."

The "game" is that mothers can assert falsehoods or trivial marital
complaints and thereby get sole custody orders that deprive children of
their fathers.  This "game" is based on the presumption (popularized by
VAWA and the domestic-violence lobby) that fathers are inherently guilty
and dangerous.

Congress should not be spending taxpayers' money to deal with marital
disputes, and courts should not deprive children of their fathers on a
presumption that fathers are dangerous.  Congress can help us celebrate
Father's Day this year by refusing to reauthorize the costly VAWA
boondoggle.

Mrs. Schlafly is the author of the new book The Supremacists: The Tyranny
of Judges and How to Stop It (Spence Publishing Co).

[Brent]

A Justice Department-funded document published by the National Victim
Assistance Academy established a widely accepted definition of "violence"
that includes such non-criminal acts as "degradation and humiliation" and
"name-calling and constant criticizing." The acts need not be illegal,
physical, violent, or threatening; "domestic violence" becomes whatever
the woman says it is.

That's right, they want men to be afraid to slam a door or raise a voice because sure as hell they'll be accused of being "abusive".

If your wife screams and has a fit, she's "expressing herself". If you do it, you're a "dangerous and violent abuser".