Given that men invented laws, and the court system, does anyone believe it is gender neutral in its decisions?

[sakura]

I've been reading articles here and there about Family Courts (mainly in America, but also in Europe) and about how abusive fathers are given custody of their children becauseaccording to the judges- the very accusation of abuse "proves" that the mother is trying to alienate the father aka "Parental Alienation Syndrome". There are so many sad and moving stories of innocent mothers who don't see their children at all.

One interesting thing I've found is that the women are often given a "gag order" meaning they're not allowed to discuss what has taken place in the courts. It's all very hush hush.
The other interesting thing is that very often the father has a criminal record for violence and still receives custody.

Here are a few links:
Annual battered mothers custody conference video
angelfury.org/

Courageous kids network (the testimonies of adult children who were taken from their mothers when small and given to their abusers)
www.courageouskids.net/

As I've begun reading these articles, I got the feeling that this was being hushed up to the extent that women don't have a clue what they're letting themselves in for when they decide to have children. If it was more public and more of a "known" thing, then it's possible that women would reconsider having children, given the risks. (Women gain custody in cases where the father doesn't dispute it, which is the majority of the time. If he does dispute custody, he is basically guaranteed the children-- in other words, he gets what he wants in both cases.

Also, abusive fathers tend to aim for sole custody, whereas non-abusive fathers agree that the mother is important to her children)

Anyway, I guess my point is, at first I was shocked and surprised to hear of the way the family courts abuse women, but then I thought about it and realised that I was being naïve to think that a system designed by men (and presided over mainly by men-- judges, lawyers, evaluators etc) would give women a fair trial. It's obvious it's not going to, isn't it!

www.divorcepeers.com/stats18.htm

I found this quote on a feminist site, from Lundy Bancroft, a domestic violence counsellor who thinks the whole edifice around family law and custody rights, from the courts themselves to psychological counselling, operates to the benefit of abusive men and works to minimise their responsibility for their violent behaviour:

Perhaps the most widespread myth is the belief that mothers are favored by courts in custody disputes, which stopped being true decades ago. It is true that for roughly the first half of the 1900s the ‘Tender Years Doctrine’ was influential, and mothers had some advantage in gaining custody of young children. (Prior to about 1900, mothers had no rights regarding custody at all.) But in the 1970s the tide was turning back, for various reasons, and by the 1980s fathers were winning at least joint custody in a majority of the custody battles they undertook, and winning sole custody more often than mothers, a situation that remains today. And the fathers who are taking advantage of this imbalance are largely abusive ones; researchers have found that abusers are twice as likely as non-abusive men to seek custody.

[…]

Courts are highly reluctant to curtail fathers’ access to their children. As a number of court employees have said to me over the years, ‘There are so many fathers out there who abandon their children, and here I have a dad who wants to be involved; you’re telling me I should discourage him?’ As a result they tend to hold fathers to much lower standards than mothers. Supervised visitation is not often imposed, and usually gets lifted within a few months as long as the father behaves well under supervisions, as most abusive men do.

Lundy Bancroft, When Dad Hurts Mom: Helping Your Children Heal the Wounds of Witnessing Abuse, 2004

The part about courts being reluctant to curtail even abusive fathers' access to their kids rings true in my (limited) experience, as my cousin's abusive husband was granted access to his two young daughters, despite the fact that he'd been violent towards her and their children and made threats against my cousin's life after she left him. He once threw the younger girl (then 3) into a wall when she interrupted him while he was watching TV, and the older girl was so scared of him she would wet the bed the night before having to visit him. She had witnessed him holding a knife to her mother's throat, among other things. The court imposed supervised weekend visitation rights (meaning a friend had to be with him when he had the girls), but even that condition was lifted after a year. Thankfully he hasn't harmed the girls since (they are now in their early teens), but the whole experience caused intense and prolonged stress to my cousin and her daughters, and the older one is still in counselling.

So yes, I think there is a perception that society no longer tolerates domestic violence and even that 'the pendulum has swung too far' in favour of mothers, but the truth is the system is still prioritising the 'rights' of even manifestly abusive men over the safety and psychological wellbeing of women and children.

Addendum: Sometimes I see men pop up in the comments section on news sites to complain about how unfairly they have been treated by the courts - 'I've not been able to see my kids for two years', etc. I always wonder what they actually did to lose all visitation rights, when throwing a toddler into a wall and holding a knife to your wife's throat in front of your children isn't enough for courts to deny access.

www.thewire.com/national/2012/08/31-states-grant-rapists-custody-and-visitation-rights/56118/

no, because that would be insane.

I firmly believe that the family court is gender neutral - certainly in this jurisdiction of England & Wales. I can't comment about how it works in the USA.

Imagine my surprise beatrix.

Lovely to see you back posting sakura.

I don't know if you've read Eve was Framed about the British judicial system. Helena Kennedy illustrates many ways in which the system has been set up by men, for men and how that disadvantages women. It's worth reading if only for the descriptions of the Greenham Common trials where women basically took over the courts. Very different vibe

Scallop - I hope you never stop.

And the discrimination doesn't just stop in the courts. It carries onto the prisons

Women in prison

Woman who miscarried in prison - just awful

Locking children up with their babies

It's a bit old now but there is a very readable book called "Eve was Framed" by Helena Kennedy which is about the bias of the court system (more criminal than family courts though).

I have just spent a very unpleasant half an hour wading through the twitter feeds of what seemed like hundreds of men who say they are denied contact with their children due to parental alienation from the mother and the biased family courts... so clearly there are many and varied views about whether or not it is gender neutral.

As a family lawyer, 90% of my cases are entirely composed of women; all lawyers and the judge. I don't know whether that has any impact on 'gender neutrality'.

But I would be wary of offering up the family court system as proof of anything as we appear to have two opposing camps who both believe very firmly that it is biased against them in favour of the other. Both can't be right.

Spero

I agree both can't be right. But both can be wrong. From dealing with your cases, are you left with any evidence of bias towards either men or women by the DJs or Magistrates.

I don't think it is so much 'bias' but more of 'old school thinking' in that sometimes I get the impression that contact with children is seen as in the mother's 'gift' and she controls it perhaps more than is fair. that attitude seems to be dying out, and we now have 'child arrangement orders' instead of 'contact' and 'residence' orders to really enforce the message that children are to have a relationship with both parents.

What I have not seen any evidence of whatsoever is that violent men are 'given' contact with their children. if a man is proven to be violent this always impacts on his ability to have contact, and so it should. for a long time now it has been recognised and accepted that to be violent to a child's parent is a massive failure of parenting and the perpetrator needs to have insight into this and try to change.

The problem is that it isn't possible to prove violence in every case so just making an allegation that a man is violent isn't enough. You need to prove it on the balance of probabilities. if the violence isn't proved, the court has to order contact. That isn't an example of bias towards violent men, it is an example of the rule of law.

HI Scallops,No I haven't read Eve was Framed, that is now on my reading list!

Spero, I'm talking statistics, not twitter feeds. Stats show that 70% men who contest custody against the mother get sole custody, and it doesn't matter whether or not they have a criminal record for violence.

The vast majority of men do not want to have their children full time or at all (which is where the myth comes from that the courts favour women) so we're talking about a group of men who fight the mother for custody. Stats also show that an abusive father is more likely to fight the mother.

There is also the issue of the fact that women do give birth (risking their lives), and therefore in a sane world that connection to the children would be honoured and seen as different to a man's connection to his children.
In other words, in my opinion, men shouldn't be allowed to claim property rights over children, a concept they invented when they first wrote up laws about child custody.

Where on earth are those statistics from??

My statistics from 15 years experience show that 90% of mothers get residence orders.

And in my experience, just as many women as men claim 'property' rights over children.

Its wrong, who ever does it.

it doesn't matter whether or not they have a criminal record for violence.

That is simply untrue, and again I wonder which legal jurisdiction you are talking about and where you get your information.

therefore in a sane world that connection to the children would be honoured and seen as different to a man's connection to his children.

But in this world Article 8 of the European Convention provides that the child has a right to a relationship with both parents and giving birth to a child does not provide you with any different or greater rights.

A sentiment with which I agree, provided both parents can keep the child physically and emotionally safe.

As I've begun reading these articles, I got the feeling that this was being hushed up to the extent that women don't have a clue what they're letting themselves in for when they decide to have children. If it was more public and more of a "known" thing, then it's possible that women would reconsider having children, given the risks.

The more I re-read your op, the more concerned I get.

Spero, you do understand that Parental Alienation has no basis in reality, it was invented by a man, for men. It's completely non-scientific. So it doesn't surprise me that men get all excited about it when it comes to attacking the mothers of their children.
My statistics don't come from twitter feeds, that's for sure. And you quoting your own personal experiences doesn't tally with the stats.

Please provide a link to where you have obtained these stats because I am afraid I find them simply unbelievable.

'Parental Alienation' has a shaky history as an acceptable mental health diagnosis but I have many examples of parents - men and women - who have behaved in shockingly appalling ways, using their children as weapons to hurt the other parent. I don't think this is confined to men as opposed to women.

'my personal experience' relates to many 100s of cases over 15 years. So I think I can offer rather more than anecdote or some dodgy article on the internetz.

Apologies of course if these aren't dodgy articles. You can soon clear it up by linking me to them.

So you're saying that in 100s of cases, the men wanted custody of their children, and were declined.

And no point laughing at me and the "internetz" when you've quoted parental alienation on twitter

Yup.

Link to stats please.