The latest example of gender bias comes from the Hawkeye state. From Fathersandfamilies.org:
"According to Josh, he is limited to supervised visitation with ALL his children until April 1. The mother’s attorney must approve the choice of supervisor.
Josh is not without fault in this series of events. He told me that there was no earlier pattern of interference with his parenting time. He admits that on the two days in question, his daughter did not want to go with him, allegedly because he confiscated her cellphone as a disciplinary measure. But Josh has lots of parenting time, a 14-year-old can pretty much choose which house she wants, and one would expect this adolescent mini-storm to blow over soon. One can admire Josh’s determination and courage to be with his daughter, but standing in front of the car was foolish and unnecessary.
What about mom’s conduct? First, she should not have plotted to whisk the girl away from her dad. Then, the most telling detail, in my opinion, is that she never backs the car up. The street is totally clear — no passing traffic, no pedestrians, no parked cars or other obstacles — if she were truly afraid of Josh she could easily have backed up and escaped him.
In most states, if one is confronted with a threat and chooses to use deadly force even though a means of escape is available, one would be charged with a felony.
Summary: Mom interferes with dad’s parenting time and assaults him with a deadly weapon, but gets off scott free. Dad commits a foolish but harmless act, and is hit like a ton of bricks.
Our problems are created by multiple actors, not just one institution. Let’s look at the behavior of multiple participants in this incident:
i. School Staff: According to Josh, he notified the school he was coming to pick up his child early, and that it was his designated parenting time. The staff had no good reason to notify the girl’s mother of his plan.
ii. Responding Police Officer: A man is standing motionlessly in front of a car on an empty street. The car driver can escape by driving backwards. There is no need to approach the scene with a drawn taser while screaming at the motionless man.
iii. Police Chief: The police chief overruled the responding officer and insisted upon arrest in a situation that was already resolved, in which the arrested party was calm and cooperative, and there was plenty of fault on the other side.
iv. Judge: The judge ignored both the videotape and, according to Josh, mom’s testimony that there had never been any physical or emotional abuse.
v. Prosecutor: The prosecutor has refused to pursue a clear, documented case of assault and battery with a deadly weapon.
Clearly, the main problem here is ideological — gender bias. Try to imagine a scenario where a father hits a mother with his car and the mother is arrested and then cut off from her kids, while the father isn’t charged with anything. You can’t–it’s impossible.
The gender-biased ideology that is the primary cause of our difficulties has been translated into power politics. This movement will overcome these travesties by uniting together in ever-larger numbers to pursue political and ideological reform. In this way we will win, because our values are so widely accepted: we simply want to raise and nurture our kids, and we believe in gender equality."
It's incidents like these that destroy the incentive for men to get married. Anyone who wants to continue with the status quo doesn't believe in equality, they fear equality. As long as this is acceptable in society, look for marriage rates to continue to go down, while out of wedlock birthrates continue to go up.
Background Intel:
Fathersandfamilies.org: Mother Hits Father with Car on Video; Prosecutor Refuses to Bring Charges; Police Jail Dad
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