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One of Amanda's favorite whipping boys in the Fathers' Rights Movement.
She says the people in this movement are out for one thing: to reduce their child support. She says they are batterers. She says they abandoned their families. She says they are misogynists. She says they are liars. She says they are bitter used up men.
One of the best spokesman for fathers is Glenn Sacks (from who I lifted some of the paragraphs below). Amanda states the Sacks is a conservative, and hateful. I find Sacks to be progressive liberal, and very fair to his opponents.
Is Amanda right? Is Sacks a conservative? Are Fathers' Rights Groups misogynists?
The California National Organization for Women recently issued a 95-page report called Disorder in the Courts: Mothers and Their Allies Take on the Family Law System, in which they warn “the fathers’ rights movement has been gaining strength and legitimacy. Fatherhood groups are well-funded, well-organized and publicly supported through conservative mouthpieces in the media.” In the report, many prominent figures in the Feminist Family Law Movement (FFLM) call for a “mothers’ rights movement” to block the rising fatherhood movement.
The FFLM insists that false accusers and parental alienators are inventions of the fatherhood movement, and asserts that judges need more “training” so they can better recognize the veracity of women’s abuse claims when no conventional evidence is presented. FFLM luminary Lundy Bancroft, author of When Dad Hurts Mom: Helping Your Children Heal the Wounds of Witnessing Abuse, has written extensively on how courts should identify batterers in this manner. Bancroft, a leading voice in PBS’s Breaking the Silence, penned an article called “Making a Mothers’ Movement” for the California NOW report. He explains:
“Batterers are known for often being unusually appealing superficially, and sexual abusers are similarly often people who are identified as especially ‘good with children’…They may be professionally successful or socially popular, and may be involved in charitable or civic activities that make them appear outstandingly kind and responsible. Victims of both kinds of abuse face disbelief because ‘he’s just not the type.’”
In fact, Bancroft explains, dad often treats the child he sexually abuses very well, and as his favorite child.
Newsweek explains:
“Family-court judges often look favorably on the alleged abuser because he seems more willing to share custody than the accuser–who is hell-bent on keeping the father away from the child.”
Salon, maybe Amanda, NOW, and the Feminist Family Law Movement are right. And maybe they are wrong, and it is the Fathers' Rights Movement that is right. Maybe they are all full of it.
Isn't there a series of articles there? Isn't this the sort of issue relevant to your readers that a progressive liberal magazine needs to take up?
